Crossover TV series?

[computerprep 148]

You know how some TV series will crossover quite frequently? Some quick examples are: Flash/Arrow or Chicago Fire/P.D./Med ... You get the picture.

 

If the movie collections could be morphed to handle these scenarios, we'd be able to add another tab in television libraries that tracks episodes across multiple "frequent crossover" shows by air date instead of flipping back and forth to figure out which one to watch next.

 

Depending on development capabilities, each TV show should remain displayed in the regular library list individually, but maybe just include episodes from the other likely-to-crossover shows inline with their episodes. Of course, these would then need to be sorted by airdate instead of strictly season/episode designation.

 

This would be a better solution to display these likely-to-crossover episodes than to segregate then into collections because it is not commonplace for movie/TV databases to collect metadata and images for TV show collections like this.

 

I don't know if any other media software providing this feature... It could definitely help attract more converts from other platforms.

[Luke 42228]

Hi, welcome. You can already add tv series to collections so for example, you could create a marvel collection that has all the movies and tv series together.

[computerprep 148]

I know that, but I'm pointing out that it doesn't show me episodes across the entire collection in airdate order.

[Pais 126]

It would be pretty slick to be able to present a Marvel movie / TV collection based upon original release date especially when there are often special TV episodes before / after the release of movies.

[mediacowboy 438]

I know this is a old thread but with the recent 4 show crossover between Supergirl, Arrow, the flash, and the legends of tomorrow. I am wondering how people are keep track of these so you don't miss a episode or watch it out of order?

[Luke 42228]

This is neat, but rare, so it's probably just your own manual methods.

[mediacowboy 438]

This is neat, but rare, so it's probably just your own manual methods.

I don't know that I would call it rare as more and more shows seem to be do crossovers.

 

Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, and Chicago Med. They have even crossovered with Law and Order SVU. I also know Hawaii 50 and NCIS Los Angeles has done crossovers.

 

What would be the best way to handle this? Any idea's?

[Happy2Play 9808]

Good thing now is metadata/description is reflecting these crossovers, and the part number in the naming scheme.  Only issue is not all clients can display full description.
 

recent crossover all episodes contain crossover info.

Part 1 - Supergirl - S02E08
Part 2 - The Flash - S03E08
Part 3 - Arrow - S05E08
Part 4 - DC's Legends of Tomorrow - S02E07

[mediacowboy 438]

I guess what I am looking for is a away to watch one right after the other without having to switch to the different shows. Just a pipe dream I guess.

[ebr 16329]

A playlist would work, but you'd have to create it and then go start it from somewhere other than your normal TV.

[mediacowboy 438]

Yeah I was thinking something more automatic. Like the server or meta providers work together.

 

Sees that you played part one and asks if you want to switch to the next part without ever having to flip between shows.

[Happy2Play 9808]

Unfortunately there is now way for any client to know to about crossover episodes, automatically.  There would have to be a flag somewhere (that doesn't exist) saying hey I crossover to x, y, and z.

 

Providers would have to establish something.

Edited December 4, 2016 by Happy2Play

[tymanthius 18]

My apologies for resurrecting this, but it's getting to the point where even Netflix fans are hollering for it.

 

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/greys-anatomy-fans-are-begging-for-this-helpful-new-feature-on-both-netflix-and-hulu.html/

 

If y'all could be Netflix to the punch, that would be awesome.

[computerprep 148]

@@tymanthius, yes that would be impressive.

 

@@Happy2Play, sorry I didn't see your response back in 2016.

 

I wouldn't try to implement this with specific crossover episodes. I would do something like the "group versions" or "playlists" where all episodes of grouped/linked series can be displayed in order of release date.

 

You could also compare it to the Collections view got movies, which displays affected movies in chronological order regardless of title.

 

This feature would show all episodes from the multiple chosen series in chronological order.

 

I don't think that would require any new provider information.

Edited February 29, 2020 by computerprep

[crusher11 1139]

Couldn't you include the crossover episodes as specials, and tag them to show in the correct spot?

[computerprep 148]

I think the problem with that (as @@ebr pointed out) is that it would require the admin to manually tag each crossover episode, since this data isn't away provided by THETVDBAPI and others. And if I'm reading your post correctly, you suggest putting series A episodes into the series B specials folder. That would create a whole slew of other problems.

 

Plus my library is so large, that's not something I want to be responsible for maintaining.

 

My goal isn't just to show crossover episodes in both series. It's too provide a way to binge watch 2-3 series together, every episode showing up missed together in chronological order.

[crusher11 1139]

And if I'm reading your post correctly, you suggest putting series A episodes into the series B specials folder. That would create a whole slew of other problems.

Like what?

 

Yes, you're not going to be able to handle massive crossovers without massive amounts of work. But something like NCIS and JAG or NCIS LA would work just fine.

[AllesMeins 27]

Maybe another approach: The problem seems to be that there is no metadata provider from which to get the crossover data, but we do have a huge community. So maybe the easier way would be to make it possible for us to share the work - for example with an easy way to share/export/import playlists across devices and I'm sure some fans would invest the work to make an playlist for there favourite universe and would be willing to share it (I would!).

 

I don't know how playlists are handled internally at the moment but it should be possible to save playlists with an unique identifier so that the import would work on other systems with different filenames. For example export a playlist as a series of thetvdb-IDs (or similar identifiers) - those should be identical on all systems and would make it possible to import the playlist from somebody else and match it to the files on your system.

Edited March 17, 2020 by AllesMeins

[Dibbes 515]

Or you can use the SmartPlaylist plugin... 

 

Create a smartplaylist out of the series you have crossovers and sort by release date... have had no issues for the DC crossovers, nor with the Hawaii Five O - Magnum PI  crossover come to think of it...

Edited March 17, 2020 by Dibbes

[computerprep 148]

Or you can use the SmartPlaylist plugin...

 

Create a smartplaylist out of the series you have crossovers and sort by release date... have had no issues for the DC crossovers, nor with the Hawaii Five O - Magnum PI crossover come to think of it...

I discovered this community plugin recently and it has a lot of potential. I'm texting it with the Chicago Fire/Med/P.D. collection of series, and it looks promising.

 

Some bugs here and there, but works well for the average user.

[Dibbes 515]

I discovered this community plugin recently and it has a lot of potential. I'm texting it with the Chicago Fire/Med/P.D. collection of series, and it looks promising.

 

Some bugs here and there, but works well for the average user.

 

Let us know if you have any playback/access issues when a library scan is running while this plugin is install with some lists...

[Mattleafs1990 0]

On 17/03/2020 at 17:42, computerprep said:

I discovered this community plugin recently and it has a lot of potential. I'm texting it with the Chicago Fire/Med/P.D. collection of series, and it looks promising.

 

Some bugs here and there, but works well for the average user.

 

On 17/03/2020 at 17:25, Dibbes said:

Or you can use the SmartPlaylist plugin... 

 

Create a smartplaylist out of the series you have crossovers and sort by release date... have had no issues for the DC crossovers, nor with the Hawaii Five O - Magnum PI  crossover come to think of it...

How well did this pluggin work for the crossover shows 

 

[computerprep 148]

8 minutes ago, Mattleafs1990 said:

 

How well did this pluggin work for the crossover shows 

 

Was too buggy, too much of a hassle for my time. Good concept and was manageable until one or another server update basically broke it enough that I gave up and removed it. But that was about a year ago, so it might be worth trying again.

[rbjtech 5340]

I ended up writing a script which creates .strm files (with associated .jpg's), and adds them as fake 'specials' in Season 0.

The reason this works now is because the latest Beta actually honours the special positioning (and plays it in sequence + adds to 'Next Up' etc) - on the current Release it would ignore the specials... making the entire venture pointless.

The part I haven't got around to automating yet is the API (or modifying the NFO) required to update the special item metadata to display in the right playback sequence - but this is easily done manually by just adding the 'Special' metadata to identify what episode to play before. (see below for an example of how it looks).

The #1 issue with automating any of this is of course there is no REFERENCE or ONLINE metadata to grab.  I solved this by creating my own lookup locally, so I can recreate easily on a library re-build etc.  Unless you automate it - manually creating the links are possible - but are potentially wiped out with a db refresh etc - so be wary of this.

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by rbjtech

[taz420nj 0]

Resurrecting this necrothread again for a fresh perspective..  So I understand that there is (still) no metadata provider offering a crossover database to parse the interweaved storylines automatically.  And I also understand that as it stands it is still a huge kludgy pain in the ass to implement manually..   And I will be the first to admit I am a total weenie when it comes to coding and databases, and I haven't the slightest clue about Emby's database, so bear with me with the syntax and what is realistically possible and whatnot. I just had this brainwave and I want to see what the developers who actually know what they're doing think. 

But what if...

Each episode's database entry simply contains two special fields exposed to the admin in the metadata manager... Such as isCrossover=(true/false)  and playNext=(db id of the next episode)?  The way it works now must know this information for "Next Up", so why can't it work in an if/then/else flow, where if the crossover flag is true and the crossover series is present, then it jumps to the specified episode in the connected series, then jumps back, else it just continues on? I guess it might get a little confusing when three or more series are involved (such as the CSI Trilogy), maybe if it could keep track of the "referring series", so that if you were for example watching CSI NY and S06E06 ended, it would jump to Miami S08E07, then jump back to NY S06E07, jump to CSI S10E07.... But it would have to remember that you were originally watching CSI NY and bring you back to NY S06E08 when CSI S10E07 finishes, and this flow would have to persist in a "Continue Watching" scenario where playback was stopped during a crossover jump. If the flags are not set then the episode flow continues as normal (or if they are set and the flow is invalid - series/episode doesn't exist - it just fails back to the next episode as normal).  The reason fail back is important has to do with the future.

I mean, it would still involve a lot of manual work for those who want to curate their collections properly (at first), but I think if you could implement and become the "industry standard" for something like this, Jellyfin and Plex will pick it up too. And the end hope is that it will lead to the development of a standard crossover metadata database that can be scraped and we can finally be free from this manual nonsense. I haven't seen anything like this suggested before, only using workarounds involving playlists and specials, and developers just saying there isn't a crossover database to scrape from so we can't do anything... I think having the framework in place to actually do it manually at the server level - building for automation down the road - would jumpstart the demand and contributions to said automation. And of course since this is something E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y has been shouting from the rooftops for for the better part of a decade, being the first to have what the customer craves will drive business to you.  "If you build it, they will come"?

What do you think?

 

Edited 1 hour ago by taz420nj