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thos · 2014-02-06, 14:33

A good article here from Wired, I think they hit the nail on the head where media centers and streaming services still suffer.
http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/regu...d-copy-it/

It reminded of this 'What to watch on Netflix' flow chart - http://www.silveroakcasino.com/blog/post...tflix.html

I've been trying to counter this myself, so have been working with 'Live TV' the past while (opens last watched channel by default), random playlists, play next show automatically, for those time when you just want

Are there any specific XBMC initiatives to improve usability like this, not just the user interface, but the actual user experience like this? Get back to some 'channel' surfing?

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2014-02-06, 17:12

That is an awesome article!

RockerC · (This post was last modified: 2014-03-25, 12:23 by RockerC.)

LazyTV, PseudoTV, PseudoTV Live, and similar addons for XBMC also tries to achieve that elusive TV channel surfing or "pseudo channel surfing" experience.

I highly recommend that you checkout all of these addons and their related discussions in these other threads:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170975
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=90738
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=169032
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=136244
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=141656
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=58787

I think that combining a kind-of pseudo-channel-surfing from your video library with PVR Live TV for free over-the-air in XBMC can be a great for cable cutters

What I believe is lacking is for all these XBMC addons to be much more user friendly to setup and configure the very first time for experienced XBMC users.

T800 · 2014-02-07, 10:16

The bigger my library gets the more of a chore it is to select things to watch.
It was similar when I had shelves and shelves of DVDs and Blu-rays, just looking at spine after spine, XBMC helped me get away from that but there's still that "too much choice" issue.

It's like the article says, "I never have time for Ghostbusters, but I always have time for the last 30 minutes of it."

I would never pick Ghostbusters or The Goonies but if it's on right there in front of me I will watch it.

I really need to get around to setting up Pseudo TV.

DJ_Izumi · 2014-02-07, 14:30

One thing I've always wanted was something that would randomly play the next sequentially unwatched episode of something. So not just any random episode, since then it'd get played out of order, but instead it first only finds the NEXT episode of all series that are unwatched, put those into a random pool, play one, then once that episode is marked watched, it's next episode is added to the 'hat' of episodes that could be picked and it goes on and on like that.

That way I could just go 'I dunno, XBMC. Just surprise me'. Without going 'Wait, this is 27 episodes past where I'm currently at in this show!'.

miappa · 2014-02-07, 16:29

@DJ_Izumi
LazyTV will do that for you: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170975
It´s in the main repository.

**natethomas** · 2014-02-07, 19:00

(2014-02-06, 17:35)RockerC Wrote: I think that combining pseudo channel surfing from your video library with PVR Live TV for free over-the-air in XBMC can be a great for cable cutters

if it only was all more user friendly to setup and configure the very first time for experienced XBMC users

It's like you read my mind.

poplap · 2014-02-07, 20:07

The article was great, I never know what to watch on amazon prime it, I'm always more in the mood for whatever then trying to find something that catches my fancy.

@ RockerC
I cant agree more, it would be great to have something like that (maybe it could even be build into a PVR backend for smooth integration) but it would also need to be smart about, I mean there are a good 50+ movie channels alone, covering a huge amount genres and types. Grouping things together, being able to recognize a series of Movies/TV Shows for marathons these are all things that would be on top of my list, not to mention being able to move quickly between them like real tv.

DJ_Izumi · 2014-02-07, 21:03

(2014-02-07, 16:29)miappa Wrote: @DJ_Izumi
LazyTV will do that for you: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170975
It´s in the main repository.

Oh neat, I've wanted something like this for YEARS. I guess I never noticed it when it came out only in August. Thanks! Big Grin

T800 · 2014-02-07, 22:51

(2014-02-07, 16:29)miappa Wrote: @DJ_Izumi
LazyTV will do that for you: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=170975
It´s in the main repository.

That's great, works a treat, saves me from the daunting task of setting up PseudoTV.

Thanks!

Karnagious · 2014-02-17, 07:50

Hi all, I have a new Beta version of LazyTV available and it would be good to get a few users trailing it before release.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1628802

The new version has a few extra functions, including:
- ability to roll in watched and unwatched movies (or just populate with movies if you want)
- 'while you watch' updating, meaning better responsiveness on slower systems
- a prompt at the end of each TV show asking if you would like to watch the next one available

PM me or post in the thread if you can help trail it.

Thanks!

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2014-02-17, 08:10

(2014-02-17, 07:50)Karnagious Wrote: a prompt at the end of each TV show asking if you would like to watch the next one available

nice!

Karnagious · 2014-02-19, 02:39

Thanks.

The prompt is not very pretty under Frodo, as it is a select window (so that it could auto-close), but under Gotham it is a proper YesNo dialog box.

Have you tried the beta by any chance?

~~Ned Scott~~ · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-20, 03:29 by Ned Scott.)

(2014-02-19, 02:39)Karnagious Wrote: Thanks.

The prompt is not very pretty under Frodo, as it is a select window (so that it could auto-close), but under Gotham it is a proper YesNo dialog box.

Have you tried the beta by any chance?

A little bit. haven't had a lot of time in the last few days, but I really like what I see so far. I hope to show it off this weekend at the SCALE Linux conference too :D

http://xbmc.org/xbmc-at-scale-2014-plus-...r-hangout/

I have a feeling that it will quickly become one of those must-have add-ons.

Karnagious · 2014-02-20, 05:06

That would be awesome.

Two things though:
1) The addon needs to be restarted to work immediately after install.
2) Last night I encountered an index error when using a playlist, but havent been able to debug it.

A couple better things though.
1) I want to add in an optional function that will tell you when you are watching an episode that has an unplayed episode just before it. This replicates Lucleonhart's addon "checkpreviousepisode", but the grunt work for it is already done in my addon so its a good fit. (The process would be: pull a list stored in window10000, check if the current episode is in that list, post notification. So it would be fairly punchy.)
2) I am looking to split the service and addon into different modules so that you can have multiple instances of the addon with minimal editing of files (an issue that just came up in the WIP thread). The idea is to allow two or more LazyTV buttons on the Home screen, one for new shows, the other for inProgress shows.