[mythtv-users] Videos - how to use it properly with large collections

[faginbagin]

On 2/27/2021 04:39, Tim Draper wrote:
> I've been making more use of the Videos section over the last few months with moving boxsets from dvd to files. This has spured watching content chronologically rather than pot luck order via recording their broadcasted version.
> What we're finding is that it's very hard to keep track of where we're up to. typically we know which season, but the episode is much more difficult to know so ends up browsing where we think we are, starting playback to find if we have a bookmark and ultimately exiting and playing the next file till we stumble upon the correct one.
> 
> I think it's a case of the streaming services having both 'resume watching' which will immediately resume playback from your recent media (as does emby and plex iirc), and they also seem to have better visibility as you browse content on whether they've been watched or not.
> 
> are there any options i've overlooked that would make mythtv Videos more user/WAF friendly in this respect?
> liveTV/recordings side is much easier to see progress but feels like the Videos area is archaic and massive overhaul is required to bring it inline with other solutions.
> I can completely see how Videos would work better with films which are a single file you'd typically watch in it's entirety, but for TV boxsets it seems much more difficult to keep track of where you are.
> 

There's an option that you'll want to enable if it isn't already. On mythfrontend 29, it's here:
Setup -> Media Settings -> Videos Settings -> General Settings -> Video Tree remembers last selected position

If this option is checked, then "Watch Videos" will return you to the last video you were watching, as Hika describes. But if the option is not checked, it will always return to the first video. At least the option works when using the List view, not sure it it has any effect in Gallery or Browse views.

Another thing we do is to mark videos as watched. How useful that is depends on the theme you use and whether it shows the watched state. As David mentioned, the Blue Abstract theme does this in the Browse and Gallery views, but not in the List view, which is the view I like best. I have customized the MythCenter-wide theme to show the watched state in the List view. Following is a patch that does the trick on mythtv-29 and probably most other versions. And it could probably be applied to other themes without too much difficulty.

--- a/mythtv/themes/MythCenter-wide/base.xml
+++ b/mythtv/themes/MythCenter-wide/base.xml
@@ -196,6 +196,15 @@
                     <cutdown>yes</cutdown>
                     <align>left,vcenter</align>
                 </textarea>
+                <statetype name="watchedstate">
+                    <position>100%-20,7</position>
+                    <state name="yes">
+                    <imagetype name="watchedimage">
+                        <filename>small_watched.png</filename>
+                        <preserveaspect>true</preserveaspect>
+                    </imagetype>
+                    </state>
+                </statetype>
                 <statetype name="buttoncheck">
                     <position>91%,4</position>
                     <state type="off">