Creating a Kids section?

[damonbrodie]

Is it possible to create a Kids movie flow in Gemstone? If so, roughly what would the steps to be?

Also I have a combination of DVD rips and sage recorded content - not sure what I would need to do for ensuring everything is grouped together.

Thoughts?

[Fuzzy]

It depends on how you want to separate out as 'kids' content. I have a 'Kids Movies' flow, but it basically filters to a specific import folder, where i move all my kids movies. For my 'Kids TV' shows, I filter it based on favorite user categories.

[damonbrodie]

Interesting - I can probably rejig my movies to folders to make it work. Thx for the tip

[Fuzzy]

Other than that, it's not that simple. You can always filter by category/genre, but that isn't necessarily a catch all for children's movies. Animation doesn't always mean kid friendly, afterall. (though try explaining that to my 6 year old when she want's to watch Brickleberry or Archer with me).

[wayner]

I have done this in the past with Diamond. Under both Movies and TVs I have a second level menu item called Kids. In these views I then filter by Genre (sometimes also called category) to include Children and Animated. As Fuzzy said you have to be careful with this. You also have to make sure that you have to make sure that the files are tagged with the correct Category/Genre - which I do in BMT, but can also be done in the UI itself with JREKiwi's CMT plugin.

I am just tesitng Gemstone and I may gow ith a top level menu item of Kids with next level entries of TV and Movies. I would like to combine TV and Movies into one selection but that likely doesn't make sense as for TV shows you want to first select by name (i.e. Dora or Handy Manny) and then see a list of all episodes. This structure doesn't really exist for films unless you are talking about series of films or sequels like Toy Story as the "show name" and then 1,2 and 3 as episodes.

But then that creates tons of manual metadata editing as this structure doesn't exist in TMDB or TVDB.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

I have done this in the past with Diamond. Under both Movies and TVs I have a second level menu item called Kids. In these views I then filter by Genre (sometimes also called category) to include Children and Animated. As Fuzzy said you have to be careful with this. You also have to make sure that you have to make sure that the files are tagged with the correct Category/Genre - which I do in BMT, but can also be done in the UI itself with JREKiwi's CMT plugin.

I am just tesitng Gemstone and I may gow ith a top level menu item of Kids with next level entries of TV and Movies. I would like to combine TV and Movies into one selection but that likely doesn't make sense as for TV shows you want to first select by name (i.e. Dora or Handy Manny) and then see a list of all episodes. This structure doesn't really exist for films unless you are talking about series of films or sequels like Toy Story as the "show name" and then 1,2 and 3 as episodes.

But then that creates tons of manual metadata editing as this structure doesn't exist in TMDB or TVDB.

Those are all why I've landed where I'm at. Full control, with minimal effort. Takes nothing to move the movies around (for rips, i just rip them to that folder to begin with). Favorites are already being set up for all their show, so It's nothing to add a usercategory to that favorite, which gets represented on all recordings and/or imports that get matched to that favorite.

[wayner]

That method also facilitates moving files onto a portable hard drive to take with you while travelling since you just have to move one directory structure. Get a 1TB portable hard drive, plug it into your laptop, install Air Video and you have full access to all of the movies on the laptop plus any and all iPads, other PCs, etc.

I also have a process that takes all Sage Recorded Kids' shows, converts to MP4 with Handbrake and archives to a folder with the show name. So all of my Dora shows are in \\sageserver\videos\Kids' Shows\Dora the Explorer\episode name.mp4. They generally get metadata from the EPG.

Movies go in \\sageserver\videos\Kids' Shows\Movies, etc.

[jusjoken]

I also use the Folder Filter method on a Flow to separate Kids movies... good tip.

Regarding mixing TV and Movies... this is VERY possible within a Flow if that is what you want.... try this...

Select View - Base - All Videos
Go into View Options...

Create a Group Level 1 - by Show, Sort Title.

In the Options under Group by - select Promote single item groups - to Yes

In the Options under Sort - select Disregard 'a' etc to Yes if desired. Set Folders First to No, Set sort order to Ascending

Create a Level 2 Group by to Season, Sort by Title

Set the Level 3 sort (no group) to Season and Episode

That should then give you a mix of Movie items and Series in a single Flow.

k

[matt91]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

For my 'Kids TV' shows, I filter it based on favorite user categories.

But user categories aren't currently working in Gemstone, are they?

[jorton]

User categories are not working in the Flows currently (on the list) but they are in the default TV views with our Banner/Simplified options.

[matt91]

Ah, got it. thanks.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by matt91

But user categories aren't currently working in Gemstone, are they?

Originally Posted by jorton

User categories are not working in the Flows currently (on the list) but they are in the default TV views with our Banner/Simplified options.

That's not entirely accurate. The UI does not support building vfs views based on UserCategories, but it can be done via direct manipulation of the vfs XML file itself.

<source name="expression">
  <option name="expression">
    FilterByMethod(GetMediaFiles("T"), "UserCategories", "Kids", true)
  </option>
  <filter by="mediatype" value="tv" />
</source>

[jorton]

Our goal is to not have to edit VFS files in notepad... So to me it's not working

[wayner]

Originally Posted by jorton

Our goal is to not have to edit VFS files in notepad...

As they say in the Monty Python skit "LUXURY! We had to code in machine language using computer cards."

[jusjoken]

BTW: you can also use the Titles Filter in each Flow to very specifically select Titles for the Kids to watch (and for other purposes). I use this for when we like to watch a few specific Series at dinner time so the Flow only lists those few titles to select from.

k