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I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

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Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#2
I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel.

I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool.

So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlist feels the same throughout. If a show has a ton of episodes it will show up more. Less shows up less. All my testing resulted in the top of the list looking almost identical to the bottom of the list. Mission accomplished.

It works by deploying symlinks to a playlist folder, all named 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. Slap all those symlinks in the VLC playlist and you got yourself a TV channel.

I made it for me, so it's designed for a specific file layout. It could be easily adapted to fit other organization methods.

I have plans to expand on it. I want to add functionality to detect multi-part episodes and keep them together, as well as some kind of "too many of one show in a row" feature.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#4
post #2

I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel. I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool. So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlis…

I want this but as an Emby/Jellyfin plugin.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#5
post #2

I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel. I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool. So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlis…

I, too, have a bunch of legally ripped shows, yes.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#6
post #2

I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel. I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool. So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlis…

A few years ago I got a Chromecast, so I made a program that would cast one episode after the other of all the shows I had. It was fun to switch to the Chromecast and be in the middle of some show (I'd already watched them all), but it did have the issue you mention (it would play S02E03 and then S10E22), but it was fun to have my own TV channel, basically.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#7
The ideal setup for this would be faux channels on Plex but I haven't found anything that is quite right.

My ideal setup would be channels generated by shows in a random order like this. But I don't actually want my hard drives constantly spinning and Plex playing to nobody, which is what the channels seem to do. It would just track time and when you tune in, then it actually streams to you.

Mix in some commercials from 20+ years ago between shows optionally.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#8
post #4
post #2

I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel. I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool. So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlis…

I want this but as an Emby/Jellyfin plugin.

I thought the same! I’m not sure if it would have to be a client or server side implementation though.

Might have to be both, like a new simulate TV mode.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#9
post #4
post #2

I have a bunch of (legally) ripped shows. I use VLC to watch them. I like to make big playlists full of many shows like a TV channel. I hate the fact that when I shuffle, the shows end up in any old order. I could have S8E2 right before S1E1. Not cool. So I made one that shuffles shows but maintains episode order between them, and takes number of episodes in each show into account to get an even spread so the playlis…

I want this but as an Emby/Jellyfin plugin.

There is ErsatzTV which works with Jellyfin (see the clients page) https://ersatztv.org/docs/intro

It was pretty janky the last time I tried it last year though. When it worked, it was awesome, but when things didn't work quite correctly (or at all), it was frustrating and difficult to figure out how to fix.

Re: I made a show shuffler that shuffles shows in order

#10
post #7

The ideal setup for this would be faux channels on Plex but I haven't found anything that is quite right. My ideal setup would be channels generated by shows in a random order like this. But I don't actually want my hard drives constantly spinning and Plex playing to nobody, which is what the channels seem to do. It would just track time and when you tune in, then it actually streams to you. Mix in some commercials f…

I've been looking into this too. I think a couple options are ErsatzTV and PseudoTV in Kodi. Both seem to only stream when you're watching, but they "keep playing" when you're not.
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