What are some tips for helping users find content?

[podonnell 47]

As my library grows, I'm trying to come up with some ways to better filter my content. Specifically for some less technical users who normally just look at the 'latest movies' section. Naturally all movies can be found in the 'movies' media view, but thinking ahead as I grow the library -- what else is out there to help sift through all that data?

I know that the 'suggestions' area exists in both movies and series, but series doesn't seem to actually recommend anything outside of what you're watching, or what has recent and upcoming episodes. What I like about movies suggestions are the sections that say 'because you watched'.

I think the way popular streaming platforms like Netflix have these views on the home page would be excellent -- but there's nothing like that we can do, right?

I'd love to hear any way I could change settings for some users or perhaps create a 'view' of content for them in a more automated fashion that has content they may be interested in.

Thanks for any ideas!

[visproduction 315]

Pod,

I believe that genre, collections, artists (actors & directors) and possibly ratings and tags are all used in suggestions.  Many of those happen automatically, but you can add your own collections and tags.  I've even added some extra genres: Dance, Super Hero, Time Travel.  I've also added tags for film locations, languages some new ones; lesbian, gay, bisexual.  I am up to 118 tags.  On collections, I've added many custom ones and Plot types.  Of course, this is all manually added to each media, which is a lot of work.  As a result, I have a nice suggestions AI list on any media page and in the suggestion tabs based on previous playback.

See: https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/34909-extended-search-that-includes-plot-overview-keywords-tags-etc

Hope that helps.

[rbjtech 5284]

If you search the forum, there are many methods to 'group' the items - collections, playlists, tags, smartplaylists, mdb lists, trakt lists etc but there is no great way to DISPLAY the lists as easily accessible rows - the same as 'Latest Movies or Latest TV Shows' - this is the BIG functionality that is missing vs Netflix/Prime etc.

Yes there are some workarounds, I myself have crafted a few, but I *think* emby v4.9 is supposed to address this - but of course, we do not know WHEN this will be relased nor do we know HOW emby plan to present the contents of the smartlists.     If they allow the presentation of a playlist or collection as a main 'row' then we are in for some great plugins - especially if they allow the USERS to create/choose the rows.

Edited November 9, 2024 by rbjtech