Making kids videos easy to access

[jbrandon]

Like many of us we have an extensive collection of DVD rips on our SageTV server. While our children are older they are now brining grandchildren into our home for visits, holidays and such.

We have collected 40 plus kids DVD’s over the years and wish to make them available to any TV connected to the SageTV server – which is all of them so we do not have to swap disk every time a child changes their minds – which is often as most of you with childern know.

Is there a way to segregate the kid stuff from the adult (nothing worse than R rated) making it easier to find instead of having to search through the whole list? I’ve thought about Parent Control but requires a password (I think) and is a pain for the older kids and us older adults.

Thanks in advance…

Jim

[wrems]

An easy way to do this now is to view your videos in the folders view. Assuming of course that you've physically segregated your collection into folders on your hard drive. One of which would be Kid's or something. That's the easiest right now that I know of.

Another way you can accomplish this is using the category view. You'll need to edit the genre's for each of the video's you'll want to segregate. Making a genre like Kid's... BMT can handle this. Category is the same as genre to Sage.

[jbrandon]

Thanks – I had seen those methods but still is not simple enough… I guess it is a learning experience for the kids.

[stuckless]

This is a plug for Phoenix

Phoenix will allow you to to create views/menus that directly navigate to a specific folder, so, once we enter public beta (we are in private beta right now), it's something that you can play around with.

I use this functionality now to separate out workout videos, kids videos, etc, which are in separate physical locations.

Unfortunately, when Phoenix does go public beta, this will require a manual configuration tweak (ie, editing an xml file) but I'm sure myself or others could easily walk you through the process.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stuckless

This is a plug for Phoenix

Phoenix will allow you to to create views/menus that directly navigate to a specific folder, so, once we enter public beta (we are in private beta right now), it's something that you can play around with.

I use this functionality now to separate out workout videos, kids videos, etc, which are in separate physical locations.

Unfortunately, when Phoenix does go public beta, this will require a manual configuration tweak (ie, editing an xml file) but I'm sure myself or others could easily walk you through the process.

PLUG

or you could use diamond which does the folder filtering all within the UI and requires no manual xml files and is out now

[pjpjpjpj]

C'mon, stuckless, you're killing us! You can't say "sure, you can do this - in a plugin that's not available yet"!


What you describe is exactly the kind of thing that used to be very easy in Sagev6 with nielm's Dynamic Customizable Menus... the kind of thing we've been waiting for since, oh, I don't know, Sagev7 was released....

I posted at that point (what, a year and a half ago?) that, whoever comes up with the first fully-customizable v7 UI will be the plug-in "winner". Still hasn't happened yet, though it appears Phoenix and Ortus are in the race and (we hope) approaching the wire ....

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

C'mon, stuckless, you're killing us! You can't say "sure, you can do this - in a plugin that's not available yet"!


What you describe is exactly the kind of thing that used to be very easy in Sagev6 with nielm's Dynamic Customizable Menus... the kind of thing we've been waiting for since, oh, I don't know, Sagev7 was released....

I posted at that point (what, a year and a half ago?) that, whoever comes up with the first fully-customizable v7 UI will be the plug-in "winner". Still hasn't happened yet, though it appears Phoenix and Ortus are in the race and (we hope) approaching the wire ....

Well, Phoenix does have dynamic customizable menus... and that's exactly how this would work. For those of you that are familiar with nielm's menus, then you'll be fairly comfortable with phoenix as well. They are similar, but the phoenix menus have a few extra features

I can't promise that we'll be first out of the gate... we're not rushing

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Well, Phoenix does have dynamic customizable menus... and that's exactly how this would work. For those of you that are familiar with nielm's menus, then you'll be fairly comfortable with phoenix as well. They are similar, but the phoenix menus have a few extra features

I thought you said Phoenix's customizable menus were by XML mod? Or was the key phrase "when Phoenix does go public beta", meaning that you intend on it being built into the UI function by the time it's OUT of beta? .......

Originally Posted by stuckless

Unfortunately, when Phoenix does go public beta, this will require a manual configuration tweak (ie, editing an xml file) but I'm sure myself or others could easily walk you through the process.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I thought you said Phoenix's customizable menus were by XML mod? Or was the key phrase "when Phoenix does go public beta", meaning that you intend on it being built into the UI function by the time it's OUT of beta? .......

The menus are Xml based (ie, like nielm's) and there will be some management of the menus from within the UI, but for some operations, you'll have to get your hands dirty and create small menu fragments in Xml if you want some tasks.

Eventually, it all might be managed from the STV UI, but for now, it's more more a manual editing of the menu file to add new items (like linking to a subfolder of a specific view).

[wayner]

I am still using SageMC even though I am running Sage7. I am dabbling with both Diamond and Phoenix. With Diamond it is actually quite easy to set up a separate movie view called "Kids Shows". You then only include the specific folders for the kids and they should be good to go. Then can back out and get to other movies but this is a pretty good solution for now with now programming required.

You can also create a separate TV menu item that only includes the Category of Childrens shows as well if you also wanted to record TV shows for the grandkids.

[jbrandon]

Originally Posted by wayner

You can also create a separate TV menu item that only includes the Category of Childrens shows as well if you also wanted to record TV shows for the grandkids.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions… I did install the MBDiamond theme and it will do what I need. I made sure all the kids stuff was only in one category and that way it is an easy filter. Most often there will be an adult present when they are watching videos but it just makes it easier for the adults to find the kids stuff also.

I had tried the theme before but was not impressed – this time I am impressed!! Like many I do miss the custom menus of before and if I could get rid of some of the submenu items it would be great.

Thanks again to all who responded… We’ll find out for sure this weekend as they will all be here.
Jim

[jorton]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

I did install the MBDiamond theme

Just in case this isn't a typo, Wayner means the Diamond UI Mod and Theme that you find in the plugin repository under the "UI Mod" section, not older MBDiamond Theme in the "Theme" section.

Jeremy

[jbrandon]

Originally Posted by jorton

Just in case this isn't a typo, Wayner means the Diamond UI Mod and Theme that you find in the plugin repository under the "UI Mod" section, not older MBDiamond Theme in the "Theme" section.

Jeremy

I'm looking at it just this minute - it says "MBDidmond by jorton" V 1.63 but what ever it works well for what I need.

[jorton]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

I'm looking at it just this minute - it says "MBDidmond by jorton" V 1.63 but what ever it works well for what I need.

Yah that's the old version before PluckyHD, Evilpenguin and Jusjoken added a whole bunch of new features. Here is a link to some screen shots,

http://code.google.com/p/sagediamond/

And the wiki that explains features added,

http://code.google.com/p/sagediamond...ondInformation

If you like MBDiamond, no worries

Cheers,

Jeremy

[jbrandon]

Okay - I do see the light now!!

Originally Posted by jorton

Yah that's the old version before PluckyHD, Evilpenguin and Jusjoken added a whole bunch of new features. Here is a link to some screen shots,

http://code.google.com/p/sagediamond/

And the wiki that explains features added,

http://code.google.com/p/sagediamond...ondInformation

If you like MBDiamond, no worries

Cheers,

Jeremy