A feature that I think would fit with Plex very well now that we have sharing would be pulling in ratings from commonsensemedia.org.
For the most part these seem to be more accurate then PG-13, R, etc ratings we have now. I could see this coming in quite handy for people who share with children or teens. This could be setup similar to how filtering works now or even input a month/year for the date of birth and all your libraries would automatically set appropriate sharing and keep things updated as the kids grow older.
Here's links to a few movies to give you an idea of ratings:
I must say I am extremely impressed by this site. I would love to get this data inside Plex instead of our nationals agency since they are much more on the mark. The way you describe the functionality would be great.
A small improvement would be adding the visual indicators for the various parts of the rating as well. I would like my kids to make their own decisions on the end, and knowing it is an extremely scary movie might help them in their choice. In the Netherlands, they not only provide an age rating, but also logo’s what has driven that rating (see http://www.kijkwijzer.nl/about-kijkwijzer).It is helpful because it allows you to assess the appropriateness for my own kids. The Commonsense data is much more detailed and insightful, so it would help in making decisions.
Could you imagine how "powerful" Plex could become if users (with Op override) were able to setup their own criteria for the specific elements that would always be applied.
Example: No violence over 2, No Language over 4, No ■■■ over 2. No Drinking, Drugs & Smoking over 3.
We of course would need an override for movies not listed but these could be either included or excluded in the setup.
This would make the Plex eco-system much more kid friendly from a setup (out of box) standpoint.
I really love the idea of this as it will enable us parents to make quicker choices on kids movie selections. Going forward and as children get older it will enable us to better filter libraries being shared to the personal devices of children and teens.
While the MPAA ratings commonly used are a guideline, personally I don't find them accurate enough. Being able to make informed choices on VIOLENSE rating, ■■■ rating, DRUGS rating, etc, would make PLEX an app I would trust my kids to use.
If rating displayed where treated as another scraper selection with the option to show as many of the different scrapers (MPAA, Commonsensemedia.org, rottentomatoes, so on...) Plex would then become a greater utilised tool.
Sounds like a good idea, I +1'ed the first post. Now if only they would implement Plex Home for Android Tablets, because that's what my 6-year-old daughter is using.
+1 for being able to have commonsensemedia.org rating in my Plex library. I find it especially handy for getting a preliminary judgement on movies and TV shows that I haven't seen yet, but my children want to watch.
Dolkins idea of setting up another Plex agent that scrapes commonsensemedia.org in addition to Freebase/TVDB/Movie Database that we could then use in the Users/Restrictions setup would make Plex much more child friendly.
Dolkins idea of setting up another Plex agent that scrapes commonsensemedia.org in addition to Freebase/TVDB/Movie Database that we could then use in the Users/Restrictions setup would make Plex much more child friendly.
The problem with this is, unless the clients can show this info, or the Web App, and Restrictions fields, it can't be used. Plex needs to be able to show and use the data.
It's possible to have a 3rd party scraper that pulls this info for each of your movies and then creates Tags such as CSM-15 or CSM-10 which would be "CommonSenseMedia" and good for up to 15 or 10 years old. Not as clean as having this functionality built in but could be done and used this way.
Not sure if this would help anybody work with this, but here is a link to the API info. If I could do something with it I would but the last thing I helped program was in BASIC when it was the latest and greatest.
Not sure if this would help anybody work with this, but here is a link to the API info. If I could do something with it I would but the last thing I helped program was in BASIC when it was the latest and greatest.
Sorry I've taken awhile to respond, been waiting for a response from commonsensemedia about API use. I have a response but am still waiting on details.
It was Commodore-BASIC v2 on a C-64 so around the same time as GW.
I could create a work-around for this that could help some people. I recently posted a method for using the SHARING TAGS to create real libraries https://forums.plex.tv/topic/131308-cayars-setup-walk-through-and-some-tips-and-tricks/?p=927727 based on the SHARING TAGS. I've since improved this technique but haven't published it yet but will in a few days after a bit more testing. The technique above could be used to add a tag via the web interface such as VL-Recommended. The system then creates/updates a library based on this "virtual library" meta tag. So I tags media as "recommended" and it updates a real library called Recommend with files that have this tag.
There is no reason I could not adapt that method to do 90% of this functionality until such time as it's built in.
For example with a scraper to pull info from Common Sense website/API we could add new tags (sharing tags) for each piece of media in our library they have info on. Then with the same technique as above we could create specific libraries to meet this criteria. So if you had Tom, Dick and Harry you share with you could setup specific filters for each of them and a process would run on a schedule that would keep your media tagged correctly from the website/API and would keep 3 different libraries updated with movies that match each criteria.
Tom's Movies, Dick Movies, Harry's Movies as examples.
The major downside to this is that you could end up with a lot of libraries to match each filter which wouldn't be a problem unless you are logged in as the ADMIN account since you would have to see them all the time. But we could all use a secondary account for normal use/viewing and reserve the admin account for system maintenance. (It would not be hard to move "watched" status and similar things from the admin account to the secondary account) to make this possible. Hence you would then only see libraries you have essentially shared with yourself. :)
Just thought I'd throw this out there as a way to move forward.
In regards to your comment about needing 3 libraries could you not just use the tags to modify Plex Home sharing? I know not all clients support it yet, but the big ones do so that would cover most use cases at this point I would think.
I have been talking to the Business Development Manager and after clarifying with him that I do not represent Plex and suggesting he make contact with the official developers to test the waters if that suits their business model better than dealing with 3rd partys his final response was:
"Unfortunately there’s no “rate-card” as we’re a non-profit and most of our business deals are fairly large in scale as a result. I think the better approach would be as you suggest – to contact Plex directly to see if there’s a partnership there – which I’ll do."
So its a no go for us but I have assisted the possibility for an official integration. I just hope Plex developers are interested.
