Like @Kamee I have multiple versions with a lower quality version for those I share with limited bandwidth.
While I don’t have libraries defined by resolution, I do have a few sub-libraries by Genre, theme, etc. By default, this results in duplicate entries in Recently Added and On Deck and Continue Watching for the same reasons that libraries defined by quality All of the people I share with use clients that choose the proper version automatically (primarily Rokus) so I want the watched and progression status to be the same for both versions.
To get rid of the duplicates, I disable the “Show in On Deck” option in the advanced section for the sub-library. You can disable it when you create the library, or at any time by editing the library through the Plexweb interface. This works perfectly in my case, since the sub-libraries are part of the main library.
I didn’t know how it would work for “by quality” libraries, so I gave it a test run. Using a folder structure similar to the original post:
TV Shows <— Folder containing low quality versions
HD TV SHOWS <— Folder containing high quality versions
I then created 3 new TV libraries – “All Versions” and “SD Versions” and “HD Versions”
For the “All Versions” library, I added both of the folders from above, and left “Show in On Deck” enabled. For the “SD Versions” and “HD Versions” library I added only the folder that contained the version specific to that library, but disabled the “Show in On Deck” option. From the main page, Plex now correctly shows only one poster in on Deck and Recently Added, even though there are multiple versions. You will probably notice the little blue “2” in the left hand corner, indicating multiple versions.
Here’s the catch, if you don’t have a client that will automatically choose the correct version to play. From the Home Page, you will still have to choose the quality you want. But, if you navigate to one of the libraries specifically, or use the “Discover” drop down from the main page and select one of the libraries, the only available version to choose is version for that library.
As I said, this works perfectly for me because the clients automatically choose the correct version. It obviously won’t work properly every time for those clients that don’t have that feature. You might have to train your users to take that extra step to navigate to the proper library if they have access to all of the versions. For the users that only have access to only one of the versions, they probably are not going to see anything in On Deck or Recently Added, they will always have to navigate to the libraries to get that information.
I realize this isn’t exactly what you want, but it is a work around that might work until a better idea comes along.
