Random Bumpers

[block134 8]

I would like to see an option to have CV play bumpers randomly by set.  For example if you had the nineties tech pack and the molten stone pack and each pack was in its own folder then CV could randomly pick a bumper folder and play the bumpers in it. 

[Ragnarok 198]

1 hour ago, block134 said:

I would like to see an option to have CV play bumpers randomly by set.  For example if you had the nineties tech pack and the molten stone pack and each pack was in its own folder then CV could randomly pick a bumper folder and play the bumpers in it. 

Hey there! So if I'm reading this right, you'd like CinemaVision to randomly select a style of bumper, and stick to that style for each of the bumper types that play through a single Sequence?

[block134 8]

That sounds about right!!

[Ragnarok 198]

It's been added to the list!

[block134 8]

Nice!!! Thank you.

[VonMagnum 13]

So would this include the ability to LINK sets of bumpers by type/year?  For instance, I would like it to randomly select a bumper, but then if that bumper is marked in the program as a linked bumper, it would then play the remaining bumpers in that set that are also linked for those categories. 

For example, if it picks a 1970s General Cinema courtesy bumper, I want it to pick a 1970s trailer intro and feature presentation bumper that matches it so it feels like I'm in a 1970s General Cinema theater.  The way it is now, it randomly picks everything each time so it might pick a 1980s General Cinema Courtesy trailer followed by an unrelated Movie Trailer bumper followed by a 2015 Regal Cinema Coaster Feature Presentation trailer.  They're all mixed up.  If there are no matching set in that category, then yes pick a random one for that script element since something is usually better than nothing at all. 

The only thing I imagine being difficult is that CinemaVision wouldn't know your script ordering necessarily, etc.  so perhaps you would have to put all 1970s GC in one "set" of matching directories and 1990s Regal in another, etc.  so it picks a random "set" instead of random individual files.  Perhaps a "chance" priority setting could be helpful as well (i.e. if you have 3 matching theater sets and 20 generic non-matched sets, you wouldn't perhaps want it to pick the matching sets just as likely as the non-matching.  As it is, if I want it to be more likely to pick say the Candy Band General Cinema Feature Presentation than the other 25 in the directory, I have to make copies of it so there's a greater likelihood it will pick that one more often (i.e. because I like it better than others).

Of course if there were a way to attach a "year range" to a set as well, you could have a CinemaVision option to play "era specific" bumpers based on the movie you're watching.  In other words, if I'm going to watch say Back To The Future, turning that option on would try to select bumpers that are marked as 1980s specific (or "allowed" in that range as generic stuff might be OK anywhere).  That way if I watch Silver Streak, it will play say General Cinema 1970s bumpers, but if i watch Terminator 2, it will play 1990s General Cinema bumpers and perhaps if I watch The Force Awakens, it won't even be able to pick General Cinema since they're out of business.  It will then have to pick say AMC or Regal or Cinemark instead (and their year affiliated bumpers).  I mean that would be kind of sweet.  I've got a lot of 1930s and 1940s movies, for example and I could have it play some old time stuff for that, etc.  Separating "intermission" by era would be neat too.  That's not to say you couldn't have a theater play Casablanca today and use today's trailers, so it would be an option to turn on/off, but with year marked groupings of bumpers, I would think it wouldn't be too hard to do at that point.

Edited May 1, 2017 by VonMagnum

[Ragnarok 198]

Hey @VonMagnum! True story, we're working on a feature that will enable you to do most of that. We're just about ready for general testing, I think. Basically, it's a custom Sequence engine that allows you to specify specific bumpers, and use library data from your Kodi library to choose what Sequence you want to play. For example: You could create a Sequence that would be called if the Genre of the feature presentation is Action, and the year is 1990. In that Sequence, you could build out your modules to include Trivia, Trailers, Bumpers and more that fit the Action theme for that time frame. Once that conditional Sequence is created, if you launched Die Hard 2, it would pick that Action Sequence that you built that fits the criteria.

As for the linked bumpers idea, I'll bounce that off of our developer and see what he thinks. This might be something that we can accomplish with an XML file that defines groups of bumpers or something.

[VonMagnum 13]

32 minutes ago, Ragnarok said:

@VonMagnum

As for the linked bumpers idea, I'll bounce that off of our developer and see what he thinks. This might be something that we can accomplish with an XML file that defines groups of bumpers or something.

I think it would be sufficient if CinemaVision could be pointed to a master directory that contains sub-directories of "groups" of bumpers.  It would then pick a random sub-group to play and from within that group it could still pick random files to play within it.  That way it would be easy to sort by Theatre_Era, Brand or Genre, etc.  It might need a little more space (i.e. some bumpers might be used in more than one place, although with OS X and Linux one could easily use soft file links instead of the hard file to use them in more than one place). 

Thus, you would point CinemaVision at your Storage Location as usual, but you would have it more like this:

 

Master Cinemavision Directory

..Cinemark_(1980-1989)

....3D Intro

....3D Outro

....Courtesy

....Etc.

..Cinemark (1990-2010)

....3D Intro

.....3DOutro

.....Etc.

..Cinemark (2011-Present)

....Same

..GeneralCinema (Past-1979)

.....Same

..GeneralCinema (1980-1992)

......Same

..GeneralCinema (1993-2002)

......Same

..CinemaVision Random Selection

......Same

..MyOwnTheatreCustom [Action]

..MyOwnTheatreCustom [Comedy]

.....Same

Etc.

Etc.

 

So you would just set up groups by however you might want them and it could pick randomly OR you could have CinemaVision recognize a specific naming format to detect year, genre, etc. (by reading what's in the parenthesis for year or brackets for genre, etc.)  That is more or less how Kodi detects Year and VHS, etc.

Edited May 1, 2017 by VonMagnum