[dag-]

Kodi is lacking in typical Video-on-Demand functionality, which is strange as VOD is quickly becoming the number 1 use-case for most users.

Typically Video-on-Demand providers:
- have their own infrastructure to "follow" tvshows (My list/My favorites), or "watch later" episodes (To watch list)
- track watched episodes or progress/position online (so people can continue watching online or in Kodi)
- have a "Continue watching" tracking and listing
- have live streams (that should not be tracked) and stored episodes
- apart from movies, and tvshows, have other "oneoff" content (like documentaries, sportevents, etc.)
- have video-content that belong to different brands/channels for a single content provider
- have content that may be geo-blocked (could be country/region/europe/world)
- have stored content available for a specific time only (so needs to show how long something is available)
- have multi-categories for video-on-demand content

So we need InfoLabels for additional information:
- time information:
  - broadcast date/time (when it was recently broadcasted)
  - availability (when content was added and will be removed)
- geo-blocked
- channel
- permalink
- custom ids (id, publicationid, videoid, whatsonid)
- epg information

Currently we have to reuse other InfoLabels, or abuse the plot or ListItem label to make this information available.
- we add availability, geo-blocked and permalink information to the "plot"
- we add broadcast information in the "premiered" infolabel
- we add channel information in the "studio" infolabel
- we add a ᵛ -marker to the "label" to indicate when a tvshow is being followed
- we add a ᶫ -marker to the "label" to indicate when an episode is selected to watch later
- we add short EPG information to the "plot" of Live TV channels

But we also need to integrate with existing context menus for "Mark as watched" and "Mark as unwatched", or "Reset resume position".
Which is currently not possible.

Ideally Video-on-Demand content (movies, tvshows) and live TV or live Radio streams are listed in Kodi's Movies, TV shows and TV/Radio listings.
And ideally we have different content views, and ListItems for live-tv and video-on-demand content.

I made a longer list of things we currently lack in Kodi in this regard:
https://github.com/pietje666/plugin.vide.../wiki/Kodi

[kuluba]

You would also need to consider converging stores.
Amazon and Google offer to purchase movies and music or audio books. Before you buy or rent titles you might be able to watch a trailer.
If you have Radio and TV stations live streaming, how would that play together with adapters for DVB-C/T/S?
Some might be offering a rewind feature so you can get back to the beginning of the show, some don't.

Inputstream.Adaptive would also need more work to offer better buffering of content and resolution/quality switching based on the available bandwith.

Indeed it would be nice to have common functions so plugins hook into existing infrastructure to provide their content.

[V8MEM]

I think the idea is you should use script+windowxml type addon if your addon needs more than the simple plugin folder interface.

[dag-]

This thread is not about visual requirements though.

[kuluba]

Is album-art, preview pictures and trailers something that need unification too so that skins can hook into it?

[the_other_guy]

have content that may be geo-blocked is this not video piracy
In the European Union, some forms of geo-blocking are illegal. ... However, streaming platforms, such as Netflix, claim that bypassing geo-blocking can be considered as a violation of copyright and licensing regulations, they also justify the use of methods to detected and block various anonymizer services, like VPNs.

[dag-]

@the_other_guy This is about tagging videos with information about geo-blocking. Not about bypassing geo-blocked content. Usually a content provider has this metadata, without checking or enforcing this metadata, so we want to provide this metadata to the user so he is aware that the actual streams may not work where they are. The actual enforcement is done by a streaming CDN.

For VRT.NU this means that the streams will work in Europe if you have registered with a Belgian phone number, otherwise it will only work from Belgium. Some content works worldwide. Providing this information is therefore very useful to the user, not just to know if it will work from their location, but also for support purposes.