Beta: Allow and Block content showing in your library based on tags via Server Side Settings

Beta Community DVR Beta
#1

A new Server Side only setting has been added to allow you to create an allowlist and blocklist of labels that will show/hide content from the library. Simply choose from your list of labels, and content with those labels will be shown or not shown.

Since it's a server side setting, it means you can do it per client too. This means you can hide certain content from certain clients.

Content Types Supported

Movies, TV Shows, Library Collections.

Episodes/Recordings of TV Shows and Video Groups, while supporting labels, are not eligible to hide individually.

How it Works

There are 2 settings, an allowlist and a blocklist.

Allowlist

When you add a label to the allowlist, you specify the things you ONLY want to show in the library. For example, if you have the dad label applied to 2 shows and 5 movies, and add that label to the allowlist. You will only see those 2 shows and 5 movies in the app. Content has to have these labels in order to show.

Blocklist

When you add a label to the blocklist, you specify the things you NEVER want to show in the library. For example, if you have the mom label applied to 2 shows and 5 movies, and add that label to the blocklist. You will see every TV show and movie except those 2 shows and 5 movies in the app.

Working Together

The allowlist and blocklistare union'd together. So the only content that will show in the library, are things with labels that match the allowlist. Anything with labels that are in the blocklist will be hidden and removed, even if they have labels that are in the allowlist.

So if Top Gun is labeled with jets, and military, and your allowlist has the jets label, it will be in your library. If your blocklist has military, it will be hidden. The blocklist always wins out.

Shots

Add a label to your content

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Choose the labels that should be hidden

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tvOS and iOS only for now

For now this only works on the latest tvOS and iOS clients.

Summary

So, this is a really nerdy feature. Most will not ever need it or use it. And it's pretty void of opinions. It's just one of those open features that you can get creative with.

Using the server side setting, you can tell a specific client to only show certain content with a specific label. This can give you immense freedom to define what is shown and what isn't.

It's up to you to be creative with it.

Help

This is a pretty low level change in how content is handled in the Channels app. Please give this a try and report any weird bugs you might see. Here's some stuff we're afraid of:

  1. Content showing in places when it was set to be hidden.
  2. Hidden content causing crashes because the views are out of date and didn't update for some reason.
  3. Any sort of weird crashers.
1 Like
Feature Request: multi-user support
Folders for Library Collections?
Feature Request - Tag Ch and block tag by device
Feature Request: Library Collections Client Settings
#2
#3

OK, in the next pre-release server and TestFlight beta of tvOS/iOS, I've added an allowlist as well. With this, you can specify the things you ONLY want to show in the library.

The allowlist and blocklistare union'd together. So the only content that will show in the library, are things with labels that match the allowlist. Anything with labels that are in the blocklist will be hidden and removed, even if they have labels that are in the allowlist.

Summary

So, this is a really nerdy feature. Most will not ever need it or use it. And it's pretty void of opinions. It's just one of those open features that you can get creative with.

Using the server side setting, you can tell a specific client to only show certain content with a specific label. This can give you immense freedom to define what is shown and what isn't.

It's up to you to be creative with it.

Feature Request - Tag Ch and block tag by device
#4

DVR ver 2022.08.29.2159
ATV beta ver 8.29.2146

Set up a Server Side Only > Content Blocklist on the ATV client for a label (named hide) that was applied to a number of videos imported to a folder in the Imports->Videos-> directory. The videos are correctly hidden when I look under Library->Videos but individual videos still appear in TV Shows->Recently Watched Shows and TV Shows->Recently Updated Shows.

#5

Ahh, that's an old bug. Videos shouldn't appear there at all. I'll take care of that, thanks.

#6

Original post was updated to reflect the recent changes.

#7

I like this. Any chance it could be extended to work with a source (preferably) or a channel collection?

#8

Channel collections can already be set per client via server side settings.

1 Like
#9

Well I set it up anyway for eventual Android rollout next year!

But it was easy, nevertheless, for my use case of different devices for various users. I already have labels for "USER: NAME", so I just added those to previously created Library Collections that were already filtering for those labels. Then I went by device and used the "Hide" to exclude the users who don't use that device. Assuming the eventual wider rollout, and we'll finally have complete customized content per device/user!

#10
#11

Available in Android beta now, please test it out!

#12

Didn't seem to work.

Definitely have the Labels on the Library Collections:

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And set up the device to exclude labels:

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But all of the Collections were visible, even after restarting the app.

Everything (server/apps) are on the latest versions as of the second of this posting.

#14

Thanks. Try the new beta

#15

Testing on a couple of devices, it was working perfectly! :+1:t3:

1 Like
#16

Would it be possible to add tags via the pass? For instance, if recording College Football, it would be nice to have all recordings to have a tag that I specify and could action upon? This might make things a bit more automated for my use case.

#17

This doesn’t work for individual recordings anyways. Just label your college football TV group, and it’ll be filtered in or out.

#18

I noticed a problem with using labels to try to hide content from Apple TV clients. While the labels do prevent the content from showing up in the library, it still appears in the Up Next section of the Top Shelf in the home screen.

Is there any way to fix this, or are we forced to use library collections to truly hide content from clients?

#19

Good catch. It's prevented inside the app, but not in Top Shelf. I'll check it out. Thanks!

#20

This should be resolved in the latest TestFlight beta.

#21

I don't use TestFlight, so your fix took a little while to trickle down to me, but everything seems to be working perfectly now.

Thanks, Maddox, much appreciated! :beers:

2 Likes