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FrancoRumors

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 23, 2010
338
52
I wish apple would implement a double click feature that let you scroll by letters of the alphabet instead of individual movies... or some other solution. Right? it is apple tv offersannoying enough that Siri and search most of what the ATV offers..
 
Use playlists. (Set the Apple TV to display all the playlists, not just the music ones.)

Use iTunes to create a Smart Playlist and tell it to include movies beginning with "A". Then, create another one for movies beginning with "B".

FWIW, that's a pet peeve of mine as well, but have found that by using playlists, I can force the Apple TV to display my library in practically any fashion that works for me. The above mentioned "A", "B" tip is just one way you can use playlists.

For TV shows, I have playlists that separate them all by seasons, inside a playlist folder for the show. The added bonus of using playlists for TV shows is that it will automatically play the next episode in a season for you.
 
Use playlists. (Set the Apple TV to display all the playlists, not just the music ones.)

Use iTunes to create a Smart Playlist and tell it to include movies beginning with "A". Then, create another one for movies beginning with "B".

FWIW, that's a pet peeve of mine as well, but have found that by using playlists, I can force the Apple TV to display my library in practically any fashion that works for me. The above mentioned "A", "B" tip is just one way you can use playlists.

For TV shows, I have playlists that separate them all by seasons, inside a playlist folder for the show. The added bonus of using playlists for TV shows is that it will automatically play the next episode in a season for you.

Thanks. That's one way I hadn't considered for movies. It involves a little leg work but no biggie.
 
Thanks. That's one way I hadn't considered for movies. It involves a little leg work but no biggie.

Yeah, it was a huge pain in the butt to get all the playlists created in my library. Thankfully, only had to do it once. I got my iTunes library (just the database portion that contains all the playlist info) backed up to 2 places now too, mainly because I'd hate to have to create them all over again.
 
still hoping for poster view like iTunes.

That would be nice. For now, if I want that view, I can use the Plex app, but that only applies to movies and TV shows without iTunes DRM. Thankfully, the ripped video in my library vastly outnumbers the iTunes media, so it could be worse, but it would be ideal if poster view was available via stock Apple TV software.
 
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I disagree. I love the Siri remote. I've said it before: if my 6yo could master using the remote after I showed her once.... What's your excuse?
You are right, I forgot that you can now dictate your searches.
I haven't really used any of the new features since the update came out.
 
It would be nice to be able to change the file data to create new sort categories. Drives me nuts that my Bond collection is all over the place and that multi sequel films are out of sequence.
 
It would be nice to be able to change the file data to create new sort categories. Drives me nuts that my Bond collection is all over the place and that multi sequel films are out of sequence.

I have the whole Bond collection as well, and that was another pet peeve. I ended up removing them all from my library and using a third-party app fill in the "Sort as" field with "James Bond 01", "James Bond 02", etc. Then I re-added to the iTunes library.

I tried setting the "Sort as" field within iTunes, but for some reason the value was never saved or it would get cleared shortly after (a suspected bug within iTunes.) So, I went with the third-party app, which worked.

For Apple TV, I created a James Bond playlist. (Just a regular playlist, not a smart one.) I put them all in there in the "proper" play order, and just use the playlist on the Apple TV. I've been using playlists with the Apple TV since the first one I got (a gen 2 ATV). I'm so used to just using playlists for most media now that I'll probably miss anything they add going forward that fixes the root cause for me using them to begin with. Pretty set in my ways now, I guess.
 
I have the whole Bond collection as well, and that was another pet peeve. I ended up removing them all from my library and using a third-party app fill in the "Sort as" field with "James Bond 01", "James Bond 02", etc. Then I re-added to the iTunes library.

I tried setting the "Sort as" field within iTunes, but for some reason the value was never saved or it would get cleared shortly after (a suspected bug within iTunes.) So, I went with the third-party app, which worked.

For Apple TV, I created a James Bond playlist. (Just a regular playlist, not a smart one.) I put them all in there in the "proper" play order, and just use the playlist on the Apple TV. I've been using playlists with the Apple TV since the first one I got (a gen 2 ATV). I'm so used to just using playlists for most media now that I'll probably miss anything they add going forward that fixes the root cause for me using them to begin with. Pretty set in my ways now, I guess.

+1 Playlists are your friends. :)
 
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