This topic is just some brainstorming how PlexConnect could evolve (from my perspective)
Currently, local & remote content have always been 2 separate things from a Plex perspective.
What would it take to actually merge the content of the 2, so that you only would end up with the choice:
- movies
- tv shows
both would have a list of content which contains the local + myplex content combined one list (sorted)
Duplicates should be removed and local content preferred over shared content.
PlexConnect currently serves the XML, but this is done on-demand. What if these 2 lists were pre-cached and combined by PlexConnect (and retrieved from PMS every so many minutes).
I can imagine that PlexConnect then should be aware of the content that is available on myplex/local which has to be taken care of in PlexConnect.
Another advantage would be that the AppleTV interface speeds up as PlexConnect can directly serve the XML without waiting for PMS to perform a query.
I am just thinking out loud, but personally I like simplification, as for me it is not relevant where the content comes from as long as I can watch it.
The main issue is that bandwidth is expensive in some countries as is upload and CPU capacity for some users. Not distinguishing between LAN and WAN traffic could hammer users servers.
Also hear in mind that people often have a lot more sections than the default 2, eg you could end up with 20 on your home screen because of others choices that you cannot control.
Also hear in mind that people often have a lot more sections than the default 2, eg you could end up with 20 on your home screen because of others choices that you cannot control.
Yes that is true. Perhaps maybe something for (far-)future then :)
We did think about an amalgamated view with a marker, eg blue dot for other servers but not everyone would know what they were eg other family members and there were too many scenarios eg:
your owned local servers
shared local servers (house shares/campuses)
your remote servers
shared remote servers (with different bandwidth/CPU power available)
Ideas are good and I am not trying to shout you down - we are always open to ideas
Indeed, I like to think simplistic ;) in the end it always get quite complicated.
But a pre-cached xml (for local content) - should be possible, no ? It would speed up the interface a bit (albeit that it would require quite some changes in plexconnect i'm sure)
+1 on the plex-cache idea.
Permanently rewriting the PMS xml output leads to a laggy aTV menue. This happens especially on very large databases (2000+ items), and especially when you are using your Plexconnect over the internet.
About merging local and remote databases - i think this would only result in a huge mess.
Beside that, this is a issue that could be solved more easily in PMS not in plexconnect.
-42 for PlexConnect caching... (looks like my number needs to be that big to assure the result stays negative)
It is as it is - by design. The result might be unfortunate at times, but "caching" wouldn't really help.
=> once you watched a movie/a show/a clip you want the library updated to the correct watch state, right?
=> even if you "only" use the scrobble option, you want the library to reflect the change.
Why should PlexConnect cache the PMS XMLs, just to generate the exact same set of aTV XMLs again? The cache needs to be there, as far as I am concerned. The good news are: It is there, aTV is able to handle that just fine. The bad news: We have it deactivated to help with the bullet points mentioned earlier. See - for example - MovieSectionTopLevel.xml. Look for "volatile"...
