[Request] Random Unwatched In Progress TV Shows
#1
I made a thread in the Addon Help Section, got few views but no replies. Maybe this will be a better subforum to ask in

Quote:will someone with some scripting/addon experience please look into something like this.

I have no experience in writing scripts/addons, but i beleive this cant be to hard, and wont take to long.

i must also add, that I have extensively searched this forums, the internet and tried many different ways, but cant get any available way of getting this to work, hence the request.

What the script should do:
Take a look at all thetv shows currently being watched (in progress).
Then take the first unwatched episode from each of the above shows.
Add those episodes to a playlist, and random them.

Hope this makes sense, if not, i will try and explain in more detail
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#2
Take a look at the wiki under smart playlists. Should do just what you're looking for
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#3
I have tried with smartplaylists, cant be done. Smartplaylists has a problem where when linking two smart playlists, it disregards rules from the first playlists. Been through multiple threads, made a bunch of smartplaylists, always with the same (unfavorable) results
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#4
Can you clarify what you mean by "first" episode? Do you mean the lowest numbered episode?
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#5
There's a small script that I've made for myself. It queries the list of TV shows from video library, picks a random show with unwatched episodes (watched shows are ignored) then starts to play the first unwatched episode from that show.
As I said, I've made this script for myself so I'm not interested in creating playlists. If you want to watch the next random episode, just hit the script again.
The script appears under "Video Addons" as "Random TV Episode".
Download link.
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#6
(2013-06-11, 16:11)Bstrdsmkr Wrote: Can you clarify what you mean by "first" episode? Do you mean the lowest numbered episode?

First unwatched episode, in the sense of dexter i have watched s01, s02, season 03 i have watched the first 5 episodes, so the first unwatched for dexter will be s05e06, breaking bad, i have watched the first 6 episodes, so the first the first unwatched episodes will be s01e06, and so forth, hopes it makes sense.

@Roman_V_M, thanks, will download and check it out
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#7
(2013-06-11, 20:56)Roman_V_M Wrote: There's a small script that I've made for myself. It queries the list of TV shows from video library, picks a random show with unwatched episodes (watched shows are ignored) then starts to play the first unwatched episode from that show.
As I said, I've made this script for myself so I'm not interested in creating playlists. If you want to watch the next random episode, just hit the script again.
The script appears under "Video Addons" as "Random TV Episode".
Download link.

Just got home and tested it, it works. Excellent! Just a quick question, is there a way to launch the addon without having to enter the addon, and then select launch? like adding the launch function to a favorite?
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#8
(2013-06-12, 20:00)endlesslyonline Wrote: Just got home and tested it, it works. Excellent! Just a quick question, is there a way to launch the addon without having to enter the addon, and then select launch? like adding the launch function to a favorite?

AFAIK, you can add add-ons to "Favorites" via the context menu. Also some advanced skins like Aeon-Nox allow you to create your own menu/submenu items as shortcuts for add-ons.
Or you can bind any add-on to a keyboard/remote button, e.g.:
PHP Code:
<r>RunScript(script.random.episode)</r
will enable you to launch the add-on by pressing "R" key.
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#9
(2013-06-11, 14:42)endlesslyonline Wrote: I have tried with smartplaylists, cant be done. Smartplaylists has a problem where when linking two smart playlists, it disregards rules from the first playlists. Been through multiple threads, made a bunch of smartplaylists, always with the same (unfavorable) results

Does the script above fulfil your needs? You asked for a way to select a random show from a subset of your library, those shows you are already watching. As I understand it, the script provided just selects all tv shows that haven't been fully watched.

There may be a way of doing exactly what you want, using some of the advanced features of the PseudoTV addon.

In PseudoTV you can set up "channels", which are built from smart playlists, and can combine several playlists without the XBMC playlist limit and order bug.

You do have to create a playlist for each show you are watching, with limit = 1, unwatched only. (This is something a script would be great for automating.)
You then create a channel for each of those playlists, and set them to hidden.

You then create a new channel, which is built from all those hidden channels.

Set that as your only visible channel in the pseudoTV epg.

Now, when you start pseudoTV it will pick a random show, and play the first unwatched episode.
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#10
My first addon, LazyTV, looks to do what you are looking for. It is currently a Work In Progress, but as soon as I can get some other people to test it and confirm it works on other systems with other libraries I will switch it over to Release.
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#11
(2013-08-03, 18:44)MeMeMe Wrote: You do have to create a playlist for each show you are watching, with limit = 1, unwatched only. (This is something a script would be great for

I gave some thought to using smart playlists but rejected it. It may be a good approach for movies, but there's no way you can pick the 1st unwatched episode from a TV show via a smart playlist. A smart playlist with "limit = 1, unwatched only" condition will give you any unwatched episode, not just the 1st. And surely, having just started watching some show, you won't like if it picks e.g. the season finale, full of spoilers.
So my small script is the solution, at least for me.
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#12
I know your problem with smart playlists, because I searched for a solution for months too. Trust me, this does work. The method I suggested was not using smart playlist functionality; it was using PseudoTV functionality. PseudoTV is based on smartplaylists, but has its own scripts to exclude watched episodes from the display, order them correctly, limited to just 1 episode from a series, and so on. So it can be set up to display only the first unwatched episode of a random show.

Since I made that post, I found a much better way to set it up,, again using PseudoTV. You need a single TVshow smartplaylist, which has the names of all the series you want to pick from.
This playlist needs the order direction set to random.

Then follow this procedure, and you'll have a channel in PseudoTV that shows only the first unwatched episode from a random selection of tv shows, limited to the list of shows in your playlist.

In the channel configurator, create a channel for your playlist, and in Advanced Settings, add these rules:
* Only Play Unwatched Items
* Play TV Shows in Order
* Pause When Not Watching (probably not be needed - might actually be a bad idea)

If you create three channels with these rules, each with different subsets of your shows (like, "My Shows, Her Shows, Kid Shows"), each channel will show different shows, but always a random set, and always just the first unwatched episode of each.
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#13
I was also looking for something simular.

See: first unwatched episode list
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=171338

PseudoTV is a very good solution when all TV shows and Movies are downloaded on a NAS. My movies are.
But I am making use of a combination of a NAS and streaming (add to Library).
The streamed TV shows are visible in the TV show library. PseudoTV doesn't do anything with those streamed TV shows.
Do you have a solution for my problem?
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[Request] Random Unwatched In Progress TV Shows0