Virtual Channels - How is everyone using this feature?

Edit: upon re-reading. I think I am combining channels collections and smart rules in my head. And these are different features. Disregard.

I made a post about them not working on my shieldv18 days ago. I was told (not by a mod) that channel rules where still only on apple. Has it been introduced since then and i missed memo?

If its supposed to be working on android ill retest when i get home and submit logs.

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Those are rules for dynamic Channel Collections. This thread is about Virtual Channels. They are two different things.

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Your right. I only relized that after i posted. I was mixing up/combing multiple features in my head. Ty for clarification @racameron

Hmm, is that the only way to limit which episodes are available to the Virtual Channel? If so, I guess I’ll do the same, limit all of my news show recordings to just 1 episode, and when we do want to watch an older news episode we would just restore it from the Trash. They stick around in there for 10 days…

Another idea, is a Virtual Channel that just plays the previous evening's late night talk shows (Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Cordon, Meyers, Noah, etc.)

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We just added a limit to virtual channels. You can also now reverse the sort.

So this should allow you to make channels that are just the last 5 recent news programs. Or just the last 10 movies added to your library.

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I’ve created 4 channels for my movies using smart rules and included logos to the channels, I’m loving this feature, the only improvement I would recommend is the transition between movies/show episodes, it should be smooth, instead we see the bottom bar of the next program loading.

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In answer to how I am using it...

I made a true crime channel that pulls in specific shows like Snapped, Cold Case Files, City Confidential, Etc... plus an added smart rule for genre [Documentary,Crime] to catch any I missed.

I also made a channel for when my brother visits from out of town for just specific shows like Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, Mysteries of the Abandoned, Etc... Now when he visits there can always be something on to distract him. Lol.

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I'm not understanding the limit feature. If I want a virtual channel to just show the latest recording of these late night shows is this how I should set it up?

What I get with this is the same James Corden episode but none of the other shows.

It takes the list that would normally be created by the properties, and then truncates it to your limit.

In your case you limited it to 1, so there is only 1 episode looping over and over. Try using 4 to limit it to 4 episodes, so then it will get the last episode of each.

Use Reverse for the Order, to make it order by newest. Release Date orders by oldest by default.

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Perfect! Thanks so much.

We’ll get this in the docs once it goes out of beta.

This is great, thanks for the addition of "limits." Initially I was just using the "Late Night Talk" Collection I'd already created, as a source for the Virtual Channel of the same name. But with this new feature, does it makes more sense to add each of the same shows individually? Or will the limits be applied the same way regardless? I understand the limits aren't per-show, it's per virtual channel, so choosing the sort order determines the cut-off. But just to confirm, does that apply to Collections too?

CleanShot 2022-02-19 at 07.46.12

Ok. So let me get this correct. So i have a Virtual news station. I keep it set to only keep 1 episode of each series. I can use the limit feature. Set limit to equal the total number of different series. My virtual channel will only play the most recent episode.

If so all i gota say is Hot Diggity Dog. Thats brilliant.

Yes but if you’re only keeping 1 episode of each series, you don’t necessarily need to use the limit feature. The virtual channel will already be limited, by the number of recordings that are being kept. The limit feature is great for me though because for news shows and talk shows we typically keep 3. But don’t necessarily want all of those recordings in the Virtual Channel.

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:point_up:This.

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@Fofer
I want to keep more then 1. I had them set to only keep one because it was only way i could figure it out. This is awesome.

@maddox
Virtual channels are truly kick ass. Whoever idea it was deserves to wear a crown and be king for a day

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Just curious, do you have all these shows recorded and you created virtual channels for these? Or are you pulling them from live TV?

I’m still trying to grasp how some of this works. For example, if I wanted to create a “filter” that shows all channels currently showing King of Queens, would that be done under Virtual Channels or via Automatic Channel Collection?

I thought I could create it under Automatic Channel Collection, but I don’t see a way to filter by the name of the show.

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Virtual channels: Content you already have. For example you DVR/Local Cobtent all the King Of Queens episodes. You then set a virtual channel to play those stations. Itbwill be 1 channel in your guide that only plays your king of queens.

Smart Channels collections: A group of live tv stations whose content matches your rules criteria. Example. You set a rule to play Catagory=Comedy, source (varies person to person) type=tv shows. Would search all tv stations. If anybstations are playing anything that meets criteria. It will pull it into a channels collection. But it lacks specific search like title = king of queens

This would be a channels collection. But u can't make a rule that specific in channels collections. You can make more specific rules for virtual channels. Virtual channels are for content you have.

My most heavily watched virtual channel is king of queens

Cool, makes sense. Thanks!