Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could have a channel that used the Plex library and played certain shows at certain times of the day, just like a super awesome TV station?
I’ve whittled down to the absolute basics of how this could work with Plex, and the one thing that needs to be verified is whether the player will support being “pushed” items.
For example: a playlist is created by the plugin, and when the user chooses “Sci-FI, Comedy”, it sees that Spaceballs started 30min ago, and so starts playing it 30min in. THEN after the movie is over, it starts playing a Futurama episode without intervention.
The only potential barrier I can see is whether or not a plugin can “push” content (or the player can automatically pull content).
Anyone have actual experience with this?
None of the clients that I know of would support a push in the manner you speak of here, at least at this point. It sounds like you’re trying to recreate watching a tv channel 
That’s the essence, yes; sometimes I think we all want to just let go of having to choose or commit, and just zone out on something great.
House full of plexer’s, picking something to watch can sometimes take more time than watching it.
Who has insights about who I would ask or which documentation to look at in order to get a definitive answer about clients supporting push, or clients being able to pull?
Also, instead of push, could it work to transcode the ‘channel’ in to a single stream? (client calls one ‘file’)
The best place to start is http://dev.plexapp.com
The path of least resistance for what you’re trying to do would probably be to setup your own video stream (outside of plex) that does this, and then write a Plex channel that picks up that video feed and distributes it. I honestly can’t see any other way to do that sort of thing within the Plex framework. For the video “feed” it could be as simple as making a playlist in VLC and then streaming it from there …
Good luck, sounds like it will be interesting to hack on.
Gerk has the right of it. VLC would probably be the best candidate sine it is widely distributed and very cross platform.
I dont understand why you would want this streaming all the time tho. why not just make a plugin to pick a random episode from a selected genre? you wouldnt need any 3rd party applications for that to work.
Hmmm, I was hoping it wouldn’t be something like that…
A constant VLC stream sounds like it would work technically, but it quickly runs in to issues with processor usage… (I definitely don’t want this streaming all the time, especially since best case scenario is 10+ channels)
Picking a random episode from a playlist is a promising idea, and sounds like it would be worth exploring, especially since it could be played starting at an arbitrary time… This only misses the one UX point of kicking back and not having to touch the remote (choose) when the episode ends.
After rocking htpc and no cable for 8 years, there’s become too much emotional weight to choosing what to watch when we just want to relax. Wouldn’t it be great if plex just took that weight off?
I think you are the only one that feels that way. sure playing something random has a certain appeal, but i dont see the appeal of starting it half way though.
Certain movies are great because they inspire, elate, or otherwise communicate and stir emotion, and some are great because they are more subtle and comfortable...
Sometimes it's nice to jump in, and be reminded of why we collected something without having to commit to an entire beginning middle and end, especially when it's been seen a dozen (or more) times, and a single scene brings back the essence of it.
It's like channel surfing, but instead of the usual, it's one good channel next to another all the way through.
The best example of something like this is PseudoTV on XBMC. You setup channels based on what you prefer to see. The implementation is very slick but requires two items to get off the ground:
- Smart Playlists to determine what to put on the channel
- Manual Playlists for the channel/plugin to populate based on its own logic
This is the only feature I miss from XBMC.
playlists are fine and entirely possible if you have an algorithm to generate your “smart playlist”.
you can do this with plex like this:
- generate a playlist when your plugin starts. can be any length you like.
- set a timer to update the playlist with a duration equal to the length of the first item
3a. if you play the item while the timer is going start playback at the point of the timer
3b. if the timer expires pop the item off the playlist
- add one or more items to the playlist if the list becomes empty
- repeat from step 2
why wont this work for you?
That would come very very close; what would the user experience be like for this?
Would it play the next item in sequence? Or would you choose the next item on the list manually?
whatever you want to do. I’m not going to program this 
Lol; entirely granted.
I'm willing to learn how to do it (or at least work at motivating people that already know), I only need to know if it's possible before running head first in to it...
Sounds like you know how it could work; want to weigh in on what's possible?
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