Recently, Plex has decided that adding multiple episodes of your favorite TV show is a good way to make Recently Added TV an ugly mess.
Apologies for the sarcastic tone, but almost every post I have read regarding this problem, has had a response of “This is the intended behavior, the information is loaded faster, adding multiple episodes is not a common practice, etc,. etc.”
Apparently, those of us that add television shows in this manner are not that common, and you may not even notice if you add episodes daily from several TV shows. But here are some ways to screw it up.
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Do you want Recently Added TV to only have one poster?
Easy. Add more than 50 episodes of one TV series. Now you will have one poster indicating the only recently added television is every episode of MacGyver.
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Do you want Recently Added TV to have several Season 3 posters of the same show?
A little more complicated, and it can take several days. Take your 4 disc set of MacGyver Season 3, and add the episodes from each disc over 4 days. You will now have 4 posters of Season 3 of MacGyver, each indicating the same number of un-watched episodes.
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Do You want to mix and match Series posters and Season posters of the same show?
Add Season 3, Episode 1 of MacGyver today. You will get the TV Series poster, not the Season 3 poster. Tomorrow, add several more episodes from Season 3. You will get a new Season 3 poster for MacGyver, and still keep the the single episode with the series poster from the single episode you added yesterday. As a bonus, the new Season 3 poster will magically include all of the un-watched episodes, including the single episode you added yesterday.
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Do you want to hide all of the TV shows you added last week?
Use a combination of the above methods. It might take a while, but you will eventually hide last week’s shows.
Please don’t dismiss me as a whiner. I love Plex, and I really like the Discovery approach they are taking in their apps. But this can’t seriously be considered as an improvement in discovering new media. It has to be a step backwards.
As an aside, if, I go to Recently Aired TV, I get EVERY episode all the way back to 1964. I believe that used to be limited to 200 episodes. In my case, that’s over 2000 episodes, not a large library I admit, but it IS 2000 posters. It does take longer to load, but I’m not convinced that the limited, quick loading approach for Recently Added is an improvement.
Here’s hoping Plex reconsiders their approach to Recently Added TV…
1 - What’s wrong with MacGyver? But seriously, this is being looked into.
2 - That doesn’t sound right. If you are adding episode across multiple days, each should show the show poster with the season and episode number listed below it. I see you point where it may not make sense if you are only added episodes from 1 show, but what if you were adding episodes from multiple shows. Say you add 1 episode from each of show 1, 2, and 3 yesterday. Today you add episodes for 1 and 2. If grouped, it would list Show 2 with 2 episodes, Show 1 with 2 episodes, and a episode from show 3. Some people might not want this as it looks like you just added 2 episodes of Shows 1 and 2, but they were added at different times. Some people might actually want to see the distinction.
3 - Just as with 2 above, some people might want the distinction.
4 - This has been asked before. Personally, I would ask why would you remove stuff from Recently Added? They really are recently added so they should be there, don’t you think.
As an aside, if, I go to Recently Aired TV, I get EVERY episode all the way back to 1964. I believe that used to be limited to 200 episodes. In my case, that’s over 2000 episodes, not a large library I admit, but it IS 2000 posters. It does take longer to load, but I’m not convinced that the limited, quick loading approach for Recently Added is an improvement.
Do you mean changing the view from inside the library? This was also improved to be faster so you can’t compare speeds this way. Yes, this use to a view setting that would pull a subset of data. Now, it’s just a preset sort setting using the info already retrieved from the server. You will notice that the filter/sort are grayed out and view type (show/season/episode) isn’t even shown.
Keep in mind there are many ways to do things and you can’t please everyone. For example, personally I agree with 1, somethings needs to change, but what. 2 and 3, I like the way things get grouped or not-grouped. If it was changed to all be grouped as 1 item, I would hate that. 4 is something I would never do. It’s like having a top 10 list of popular songs and removing 4-6 because you don’t like the artist. To me, Recently Added is just that and shouldn’t be fussed with.
Plex appreciates your comments, but it would be more helpful if you said what specific changes you would want to see and why it is better than what is currently done. i.e. If you think 50 items is too low, what should it be and why. What if Plex changed it to 1,000 but now the home page runs super slow. We need specific actionable suggestions.
@“MovieFan.Plex” – I really do appreciate your reply, and the reasons for change, but I am having difficulty with the thought process or logic Plex has used to get here.
I really can’t imagine anyone wanting four posters of MacGyver on the home page in Recently Added, when they are all episodes from the same season. I have done my best to to imagine a scenario where I would want that, but can’t. One poster that shows I have “X” number of un-watched episodes has to be enough info for everyone. As it is now, I will have four identical posters, all showing the same number of un-watched episodes. If I click on any one of the posters, I’m brought to the same Season page for the show. I’m sorry, I cannot see the advantage.
An ideal solution to this problem would be to return a method similar to that previously used by the web app for Recently Added, and still used in third party apps like PlexPy.
A little more specific…
- Keep Movies and TV and other media separated, as has been done. Makes perfect sense, and allows us and our users to “Discover” media easier.
- With the old method, if I added multiple methods of the same show, same season over several days, they would be grouped into one poster. Each time I added episodes, that one poster (for the season) would be moved to the front of the list. The fact it was near the front was an indication something was recently added for that show. The un-watched indicator lights up and tells me there are new episodes. Again, I can’t imagine needing four posters with the same info, or needing to know in what order the new un-watched episodes were added.
- If I add episodes to multiple seasons of a show, use multiple posters for the show - but distinguish them by using the Season poster. A quick glance tells me there are new episodes in Season 2 AND Season 3 of MacGyver.
- Use the Season poster whenever possible. Why does Plex have an aversion to Season posters? If I navigate to Recently Added or Recently Aired Television, the poster for the Show is used for all episodes. If I add a single episode, the Show poster is used. The only time I see the season poster is if I add a couple of episodes of the same season at the same time. I guess I’m kind of a visual guy, but seeing a different poster for each season seems to me to be the reason Plex so nicely downloads the season poster for me.
- 50 items is plenty. In fact, I could live with 20 or less on the home page. But 20 different shows, or seasons, not a 50 episode limit, that may have grouped it into one or two posters.
And finally, I guess you didn’t catch the intended sarcasm of my point 4. I don’t want things removed from Recently Added. My point was, Plex will do that for me all by itself. Once I have added my multiple episodes of MacGyver over the last four days, and neglected adding other series, that’s all I will have. The single episodes I added five days ago have vanished, un-discoverable, never to return to the Recently Added Television list on the home page.
