I need some help in terms of the playback in Plex on Apple Tv3.
I recently got the device and connected it with Plex, although whenever I play a video and it finishes, I'd expect the next one to play automatically, although it doesn't.
Is this small but noticeable feature lacking in the device (which is very disappointing).
Or is there a way where I can enable it? I really need the feature of continuous playback!!!
It is indeed extremely annoying to keep using my remote every 5 minutes when I am watching music videos.
Lastly, is there any way I can loop a single file? If that is possible, it would be really terrific.
I was coming here to ask the same thing, I know that one PHT you can hit the play button on a season of a show and it'll play all the videos, I was also wondering if this is something that Plex Connect could even do? I am will to put some effort into creating this function if someone could point me in the right direction.
Unfortunately there is currently not option to enable this feature... we had a discussion about it a couple of month ago and didn't prioritize it high enough. :-)
In fact at that time there was a big drawback... Think about watching an episode of a new show (everything unwatched) and falling asleep as it's getting late... The next morning you would have marked every single episode as watched, even though you won't rememeber any one detail :-)
That said, it relates to episode of 30min to an hour or so...
I see you point for music videos... those are typically much shorter. I guess it would be possible to implement, though you also have to think about some sort of playlist - which might be even more important for your music library folder, where you wouldn't normally look at the screen at all.
Someone also bought up kids sections where is would be useful for eg short cartoons. Having this as an automatic thing though definitely has a big downside as Baa pointed out. Baa maybe we should throw round a few ideas on thus one again eg maybe a per section on/off?
Thanks For Replying Baa and f00b4r, Sorry if I missed a more appropriate thread for this but this is the first one I was able to find that sounded like what I was looking for. So I should mention that I am a developer, so my intention was actually to be pointed to someplace in the code to start looking and trying some stuff out. My disclaimer here is while I am a developer I haven't looked through the PlexConnect code at all. The reason I was asking this is because based on my (limited) understand of PlexConnect I was wondering if this would even be possible, because in my mind PlexConnect is just handing off items to the Trailers App and then the Trailers App handles the interaction with the information, so it would seem unlikely that something could be added that wasn't originally part of the Trailers App, like this continuous play. I would love to hop in and start playing around to see what I can come up with but I do have a limited time so any direction someone could give would be greatly appreciated.
Well, PlexConnect really is just a very specialized translator: aTV requests to PMS format, then returning PMS XML to aTV XML.
With the help of some aTV based JS code, possibilities are pretty much endless. :-)
Okay, there are some limits. But I don't see anything preventing your idea. I don't know where I would start... but...
- PlayVideo.xml is the last XML template that is given to aTV for replay.
- application.js customizes some function like "video loading", "video starting", "timestamp", "video ending", ...
- currently a finished video will drop you where you came from... eg. the PrePlayScreen or the video list, both of which are re-requested from PlexConnect/PMS.
The "easiest" change would probably be, altering the JS code to "loadAndSwapXML" the new video into their place.
I second this request! It would be extremely useful for our kids. We have many series of short 5 or 10 minute episodes, as it is PlexConnect is practically unusable for viewing these kind of series. I understand the trouble with people falling asleep, but rather than a complex implementation for different sections, wouldn't it be more feasible to simply enable continuous playback in the settings menu? That way only people who really need this feature (and who are aware of the fact that this happens) will have it enabled, and it won't trouble the rest of the userbase.
Anyway, you guys have done great work so far, absolutely loving PlexConnect and using it everyday (except for the kids ;-)
@jonathanderry: If you have a solution, please post and share with the rest of the world, would be much appreciated!
@androidpanda: sigh, whenever continuous playback comes up (it’s also an issue on the iOS client), people always bring up playlists. Although playlists are a big issue, and on many a roadmap, they will take a lot of time to implement. Continuous playback on the other hand should be relatively simple. It already exists on PHT for example, as does shuffle. Moreover, I really don’t feel the need to create a playlist for every kids series that I have (I have many) just being able to play out the episodes in a season would be much preferred, and shuffle would be nice as well, if feasible. Invoking playlists for that simple feature is like wanting to use nail and hammer to stick a post it note on the wall. Would be great if there’s a simpler and quicker solution.
Thanks again to the devs here taking the time to respond!
This is the first time I've seen this thread. This is something that we use all the time with MediaBrowser in our household to play back the kids shows. Nothing is more annoying than when a 30, or even 10 minute, show is over and having to play the next one over and over again all day long.. Well, there are more annoying things but you know what I mean,.
It's handled on MB by pressing play on the screen where you want to Shuffle. It's actually a shuffle and not a continuos play from what I can remember. Regardless if you want to do it as the Show level you press play there and a pop up comes up, same thing for the season level.
I should think that a continuous play option could at least be available for those who want or even need it. If you don't want it, then don't enable it in settings. But to exclude everyone from the option of continuous play is very annoying. Otherwise, Plex is great! But please develop a continuous play option! Thanks.
One thing that comes to mind is people who are handicapped and cannot operate a remote themselves. My late husband had ALS and could not have enjoyed using Plex because it would have been a very painful, cumbersome if not impossible process to have to go through all the steps in playback options each time he wanted to watch a series of videos. PLEASE work on developing the continuous play option!
One idea (if possible, guessing this might be related to dialogue-boxes) could be a thing that one of the streaming services here in swdeden uses when you are playing a "playlist".
Basically, what it does is that - after, say 3hrs, it pauses the stream and asks the user if he or she has fallen asleep - where the user actually has to interact with (in that case) the popup saying "nope, keep on playing".
So - with the apple TV, after 3hrs (or whatever) - you could just press play on your remote to keep on playing. Kinda solves the initial issue of falling asleep "watching" a whole season, but is still way less clicks on the remote to continuously watch a TV-series.
I would also like to echo this request please. My 3-year-old is currently obsessed with the Angry Birds Toons and Peppa Pig shows. Angry Birds episodes are only 3 minutes long! Peppa Pig aren't much better at 5 minutes. So I have to press play a whole lot :D Continuous play would be a godsend.
+1 to continuous play. My daughter has lots of short shows/music clips. Would love to be able to keep playing them. When I used to use Media Player on my jailbroken ATV, I could hold down the button on a folder, whether it be show, season etc, and click play all. Or click directly on a file, hold down the button and select continuous play, so it played that file and all the following ones.
