Local Content should respect directory folder structure

could you possibly provide a checkbox on the Settings page under the Local Content section where you add directories which allows for "respect folder structure"?

i literally have thousands of MP4 movie files. no disrespect to the ChannelsDVR app, i think it's great, but it's content filtering only goes so far, so it's frustrating when i click on Movies and i'm presented with all 3000 movies, that i then have to attempt to scroll down through to find the specific movie i'm looking for.

i think a great solution would be to respect the folder structure of the content source directory. i currently have all my movies separated into 27 different folders, one for each letter of the alphabet, and one for numerals. i have then sorted all my movies into their respective folders based on their movie title.

similarly if someone wanted to sort their movies by year, or genre, or production company or even have a folder dedicated to their favorite actor, they could do it at the directory level and no changes/mods would have to be designed into Channels app to support such a thing.

also, could you please not merge source content with DVR content, in the Movies/TV sections? at the very least have another checkbox giving the user the option to prevent/force such a merge.

Which device/platform/interface are you referring to here?

specifically for iOS and tvOS apps.

the settings i'm talking about are when you access the DVR settings through a web page.

Have you tried enabling Settings > Library > Enhanced Library on the client devices

yes.

doing that has had no affect on whether it respects the folder structure of the source.

is that what you were trying to ask?

Directory structure is currently ignored. Even if the dvr pulled in the structure, the apps don't understand directories or have a way to show them.

There aren't any plans to change how this works. But with the Enhanced Library setting, the Movies view changes and lets you browse by decade and genre instead of presenting one giant list.

that's disappointing, as i would like to be able to use just one app for all my DVR, and movie library, and at least in the past i never could come to like Plex, or others, and since i use ChannelsDVR daily for live tv, as well as DVRing, it would've been nice to bring the movie library in with it.

i see a distinct difference between "filtering" and "sorting". it would appear the bulk of what ChannelsDVR does with the library is "sorting", which does little to help with quickly getting to what you want. the only "filtering" it does is by "genre" and "year" as you pointed out, and respectfully that is far from intuitive.

if i'm trying to pull up the movie "Morgan", without filtering, i'll have to scroll FOREVER which is already hard enough with any remote. and having to already know beforehand what year it came out or what genre so i could somewhat "filter" seems more a stumbling block than of any help. it would be nice if i could select a "folder" titled "M" and be presented with only those titles begging with "M".

technically, that sort of filtering is something you could build in directly to ChannelsDVR without the respecting of folder structures, but i honestly wouldn't know what would be easier to implement, adding yet another "filter" to the menu(s), or simply leaving all that as it is, and then getting the app to respect folder structure of a directory.

a perfect example of what i'm asking for is Video Station as found on a Synology NAS. if you've not seen that implementation i highly recommend you take a look at it. not only can you filter & sort by metadata, but you can also customize your experience even further by manually organizing your content in folders (within the source directory) which the app then respects.

CarPlay for iOS implements it similarly in your car. if you click the column of letters on the right of the screen, you're presented with all the letters of the alphabet in a matrix. you then select the letter you want to jump to, and then you scroll a tad further to find your song.

sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here. i love the app. i love that you respond so quickly to users questions, and requests. i wish all developers did the same.

i guess for now i'll keep using Synology's Video Station (also called DS Video).

last thing and then i'll let you get back to more important things. i can get having the "genre" filter. someone may sit down one night and say "i'm in the mood to watch a horror move...", and they can quickly go to that genre and find something of interest. but i seriously doubt anyone ever sits down and thinks "i'm in the mood for a 1960s movie". and as i've already pointed out, needing to already know what year "Morgan" came out so i can "quickly" filter down to it seems counter productive.

maybe you could get rid of the "decade" filter and just simply add a "titles by alphabet" filter as previously described. now someone sitting down wanting to watch a movie, all they have to know is the title of the movie, ie "Morgan", then go to that title filter, select "M" and more quickly get to it.

thanks again for your time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you know the particular movie you're looking for, why not just go into Search and say or type it there?

1- as for "saying"...Siri sucks half the time :slight_smile:
2- having to "type" it into Search would require far more "navigation" swipes/clicks/etc, than the idea i'm suggesting

again, not trying to beat a dead horse. i'm fine with dropping the idea. just thought i'd make the request and see if you/others thought it worthy.

Appreciate the feedback. Hearing use cases like this is very helpful for us.

The per-alphabet carplay interface you mentioned is something that's built into iOS/tvOS. I'll take a look at why that's not kicking in on our alphabetical list views.

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that tvOS feature rarely pops up at best. seems like i have to have my finger on just the right spot of the remote and scroll "fast" or "consistent". unfortunately even that "feature" is only "accelerated scrolling" to my knowledge, and i've never seen it working in a similar way to CarPlay. i couldn't speak to whether it is suppose to.

I would also like this added. I am using the AndroidTV client. I put everything in the same type of folder structure as the original poster. It would be ideal to view the folder instead of the all the movies. This is similar to what you currently do with imported TV shows. It groups it by the folders (which is the show name) and once you select that, then all the shows are shown.

I actually have an issue, really two, with how the imported TV shows are handled. They are included in the Library section but they are put into the Recently Recorded section. I think that section should only have actual recordings and not imported TV shows. I think there should be a section under Library that is called TV shows & Movies and those should only have the imported TV shows and Movies, not what is recorded via the DVR. That would fall into the Recordings section, which already exists.

The second issue I have with the imported TV shows is how it handles seasons. It shows the last season first in a singular row and if I want to start watching it from Season 1, Episode 1, I have to scroll all the way over to the right to do so. That, to me, is cumbersome and takes time on shows that have been on forever. To me, the better way of doing it would be for imported TV Shows would be see all shows by their title (main folder), then under that, you would then select the season you want to watch (subfolder) and then be able to sort it by episode number.

I like the original poster wants to use this exclusively since between TVe and Locast, I can record ever channel I want. However, the way the app handles imported media (Movies and TV Shows) is not ideal and I have to go to another app to view them.

If these things would be fixed or created as an option, this app/program would be awesome.
To that end, I really like what you are doing and other than what I mentioned above, I think it is almost perfect.

Please take this into consideration,
Chuck

I just went to the path you mentioned in my AndroidTV app and I don't see anything about Enhanced Library there. All I see when I go to Settings > Library is Allow Deletion and Airing Order.

Is this not enabled on the AndroidTV app?

Thanks,
Chuck

Yes I was referring to Apple TV. Those features have not yet come to Android TV.

We made some improvements to imports on the DVR server side today, so the file change time is respected from your imported content and it showed up sorted correctly in the recent section.

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I’ve pushed up a beta to testflight with the ability to browse by folder for movies. It is off by default and you can enable it in Settings. Settings > Library > Enhanced Library

You’ll have to have enhanced library on for this option of browsing.

Browsing by folder is limited to a single tier of hierarchy. It reads the first nested folder for your movies and gives you a picker for those folders just like it does for genre. Multi nested folder hierarchy is not supported and most likely won’t be.

absolutely awesome. you guys never cease to amaze me. thank you for listening to my request/use case, and more importantly trying to meet my "needs". i look forward to trying this out. thanks again.

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oh well, looks like i got removed from the Beta test program at some point. guess i'll have to wait for general release. look forward to playing around with it once it's out

You can join it at https://getchannels.com/beta/

great, thanks!
before i start submitting "beta issues", is there anything i need to do on the server side beside selecting my Movie directory? i got the Beta up and running on my iPad but it's "not working".