2009-09-29, 21:05
I have a lot of Television shows and Movies on my hard drive. But often times I'll find myself watching "real TV" because I don't want to commit to a specific show or series.
It would be nice to have a virtual cable network built into XBMC.
I envision a script that will go through your Television and Movie library and randomly select an episode to be playing at a specific time slot and channel. You would use a virtual program guide to see what's playing on each channel and select each show to watch it.
It could organize the shows by network, and provide an east cost/west coast option, to provide some variety.
Movie networks (like HBO, etc) could be used for showing random movies. If you have a music video collection, a virtual MTV could be available.
It's a bit hard to describe what I envision. But just imagine turning on your cable box and having the channels filled with shows that are on your hard drive.
I'd appreciate any comments or feedback on trying to solve the "Thousands of Episodes, but nothing to watch" problem.
It would be nice to have a virtual cable network built into XBMC.
I envision a script that will go through your Television and Movie library and randomly select an episode to be playing at a specific time slot and channel. You would use a virtual program guide to see what's playing on each channel and select each show to watch it.
It could organize the shows by network, and provide an east cost/west coast option, to provide some variety.
Movie networks (like HBO, etc) could be used for showing random movies. If you have a music video collection, a virtual MTV could be available.
It's a bit hard to describe what I envision. But just imagine turning on your cable box and having the channels filled with shows that are on your hard drive.
XBMC Channel Surfer Concept
- Description
- An Electronic Program Guide for XBMC that uses your existing TV Shows and Movies to create virtual channels.
- An Electronic Program Guide for XBMC that uses your existing TV Shows and Movies to create virtual channels.
- Use Cases
- You are unsure of what TV show or movie you want to watch. You don't want to go through the effort to pick a specific episode of a specific show, and would rather just watch "what's on". Instead of leaving XBMC to watch TV on your Cable or Satellite, you can launch XBMC Channel Surfer.
- You are unsure of what TV show or movie you want to watch. You don't want to go through the effort to pick a specific episode of a specific show, and would rather just watch "what's on". Instead of leaving XBMC to watch TV on your Cable or Satellite, you can launch XBMC Channel Surfer.
- How does it work
- The Script runs and queries your TV and Movie Database
- A virtual channel is created for network available in your TV database (ABC, NBC, USA, Discovery, Etc.)
- A random sampling of TV Shows are selected for each network.
- Any Network with more than 4(?) shows associated with it will generate a second channel. (So if you have 9 TV series that air on SciFi, 3 SciFi channels will be created)
- Each TV Show is given a time slot to start at the end of the previous random show.
- Networks that only have 1 or 2 shows associated can go into a "Generic" channel.
- A random sampling of TV Shows are selected for each network.
- X Number of "Movie" channels are created.
- These could be a random sampling based genres, date released, studio, MPAA Rating, etc.
- Program Guide is displayed giving a list of all channels and episodes with air times.
- Selecting an episode with create a playlist with the selected episode and all following episodes included.
- Going back to the guide and selecting an episode from a different channel with clear the playlist and refill it with selected and following episodes.
- The Script runs and queries your TV and Movie Database
- Progress
- Currently Doing Research
- UI Design Ideas
- Reuse Existing EPG Code/Designs
- Generic EPG
- EPG with Network Art, Episode Info and "Currently Playing" window (Is this possible in XBMC?).
- UI Design Ideas
- Currently Doing Research
I'd appreciate any comments or feedback on trying to solve the "Thousands of Episodes, but nothing to watch" problem.