Is there a way to set up a playlist that actually keeps track of where you are in the list? Useful for things with chronologies that span multiple series’ and media, or things where plex is unable to scrape the correct order from tvdb.
Examples:
Watching Buffy + Angel together, in order.
Watching the stargate franchise in order.
Watching the MCU movies + Series, in order.
Watching the various X-Men movies, again in order.
Watching the 3d Clone Wars series + movie in the order, as spelled out by disney.
Watching all of dragonball in order.
etc.
I’m sure there’s many other examples.
I can build a playlist that has everything in the right order, but when I hit play, it keeps starting at the very beginning, rather than resuming with the next thing in the list.
Unfortunately Plex doesn’t track your progress through a playlist.
With audio, there is currently no workaround for this.
With TV shows and movies however, you can make it work.
This relies on the watched/unwatched status which Plex stores for every video, and on ‘smart playlists’ and on the ‘Airdate’ which Plex downloads automatically for correctly matched tv show episodes..
Here is an example for the Arrow/Flash/Supergirl/Legends of Tomorrow ‘universe’:
This is a ‘smart’ playlist, which grows and shrinks automatically as new episodes come in and episodes get watched.
the snag:
if you stop in the middle of an episode, the episode may or may not be included in this playlist anymore, depending on how far into the episode you got.
In this case, you must remember to
continue watching the half-watched episode from OnDeck
after this episode is finished, don’t continue watching, but press Stop
then call up your playlist and play this instead
Thankfully the above workaround is no longer needed in some Plex clients (Plex Media Player for instance).
How to build the playlist:
enter your TV Show library in Plex Web
set the library view mode to ‘Episodes’
then activate the ‘Custom Filters’
filter for ‘Show Title’ ‘contains’ ‘Arrow’ or ‘Flash’ (you must press Enter after typing in each show title)
click on the + icon to add a second filter condition ‘Episode plays’ ‘is’ ‘0’ (again, press Enter after typing the 0)
click on ‘Apply’
set the sorting order to ‘By Air Date’
set the sorting order again to ‘By Air Date’ (only this time, it will be ascending - check the little arrow icon) - this is crucial!
finally, click on the ‘Add to Playlist’ icon (circled in the second screenshot above) and give your playlist a name and save it
Some of those tv shows can be put into ‘DVD order’.
But this works only if the DVD order doesn’t have ‘fractured’ episode numbers.
e.g. it won’t work with Stargate Atlantis because this uses episode numbers 1.1 for its first double-episode.
But it will work with Firefly.
Yeah, I have some shows in DVD Order. that works well for something like Firefly or Jackie Chan adventures. Apparently that doesn’t work for something like Stargate Atlantis because Plex can’t handle that kind of episode numbering. That also doesn’t work for something like “The Clone Wars” as there’s no “Absolute Order” option, and the DVD order is still wrong (one of the reasons for the playlist).
So, you’re saying there’s no way to do an in-order watcheable playlist that spans more than one series, unless:
All the files are in the same library (IE no Movies + Series in the same smart playlist)
The correct order is the air-date
With the exception of my current method, which does not have the ability to resume the playlist, Correct?
Which means one could not (for instance) do Dragon Ball Z with all of the movies inserted in the correct location, or do many other Animes where they have “Season 0” episodes which slot in between other episodes in seasons or between seasons (but did not necessarily air in that order)?
@Darkholme said:
So, you’re saying there’s no way to do an in-order watcheable playlist that spans more than one series, unless:
All the files are in the same library (IE no Movies + Series in the same smart playlist)
Only ‘dumb’ playlists can span libraries.
The correct order is the air-date
With the exception of my current method, which does not have the ability to resume the playlist, Correct?
Correct.
Which means one could not (for instance) do Dragon Ball Z with all of the movies inserted in the correct location, or do many other Animes where they have “Season 0” episodes which slot in between other episodes in seasons or between seasons (but did not necessarily air in that order)?
When it comes to movies spun off off tv shows, those are usually appearing as ‘specials’ within the tv show itself.
For instance, I have ‘Serenity’ as special within ‘Firefly’, because IMHO it makes not much sense as a standalone movie.
But yeah, if there are movies/specials released later, you’d have to manipulate their Airdate to make them appear at the right location within the playlist.
Manipulate the Air Date
I hadn’t considered that. I may have to experiment with this to try to make some smart playlists for these shows. Currently I have TV show movies as just movies. I will see if I can bring them in as specials and work from there.
This is still pretty crappy for Clone wars, unless I go change all of the air dates for everything, which would be incredibly tedious, but for the Dragonball franchise it may work.
Manipulate the Air Date
I hadn’t considered that. I may have to experiment with this to try to make some smart playlists for these shows. Currently I have TV show movies as just movies. I will see if I can bring them in as specials and work from there.
Take a look at the ‘Specials’ season at TheTVDB. Often those movies are already listed: Firefly - TheTVDB.com
