The larger libraries among Plex users are making it more and more difficult to decide what TV show to watch. According to the statistics on Tautulli, TrakTV and general sense, TV shows are watched more often than movies, possibly because of shortened attention spans, availability of time, etc.
Even though Plex can be configured for (movie) pre-rolls and for (movie) trailers, there’s no equivalent for TV show promotional shorts (or ads/commercials for shows). Additionally, the more that people use Plex to watch movies and TV, the less exposed they are to commercials/promos of any kind, making it difficult to know what’s on, what’s new, or to trigger a nostalgic impulse to watch something they may not have thought to.
And even though Plex currently provides links and reminders to shows that relate to one they’re watching, or to re-acquaint themselves with similar shows, these are static reminders (non-video, non-audio) that must be manually perused.
My suggestion/request is for Plex to allow users to configure in a number of TV “pre-rolls” or TV “trailers” that are viewed before each viewing session.
The viewing session would be defined by the first TV show that gets viewed, not at the start of every TV show that gets viewed, although that could be a user-configurable option as well. The end of a “session” would likely be determined by a pause or gap in viewing of some length, the closing of the app, etc.
Another option would be to allow the viewer to decide to watch or queue the promoted show with a simple 1-click/tap, providing users with the ability to spontaneously decide to watch something (immediately or added to a playlist for later viewing) they may not have thought to.
Obviously, there needs to be a reliable source of TV promos, such as YouTube. So the facility would ideally be able to find it either online or in the user’s TV show collection as a specially named file at the root of each show.
I often find myself wanting to watch some old TV show because I hear its theme music or see a promo for it on some website or TV channel. However, I’m almost always not watching Plex at the time, so I tend to forget about it before I have a chance to watch it on Plex.
I’m sure that this facility would give my users a great way to re-connect to shows they would have otherwise not known about or forgotten, and would encourage a more varied use of the entirety of a host’s library.
