Proposed New Features
Last updated March 2, 2024
This Wiki page is to present new feature proposals for users to comment and provide feedback. Features that are adopted will be removed. Please use either the Mezzmo forum or the Kodi forum to provide feedback on the proposed features or to recommend others. Your feedback will guide the development.
Thanks,
Jeff
Added January 13, 2024
Updated March 2, 2024 - Basic feature integration added to v2.2.0.1.
Kodi is introducing a new capability called Movie Versions beginning with Kodi 21, Omega. This feature will become native to Kodi and very useful for stand-alone Kodi instances but does require management of the versions on a Kodi client-by-client basis across multiple Kodi instandes. The Mezzmo Kodi addon already has this capability called Mezzmo Movie Collections which is far more flexible in that it doesn't require any special media naming standards, is centrally managed and supports a broader set of media types.
What this proposal would do is sync and integrate the Mezzmo Movie Collections into the Kodi Movie Versions which would allow you to leverage the additional Kodi screens / organizational structures and centrally manage the Kodi Movie Versions across Kodi clients via the Mezzmo GUI and the add Movie Collections feature. It would not allow managing Mezzmo Movie Collections and Kodi's Movie Versions from a Kodi client. If implemented this sync feature would be an an option setting to enable / disable.
Added January 13, 2024
Updated March 2, 2024 New feature added to v2.2.0.1 as Mezzmo Maximum Playcount. Not added to Kodi 18 addon version
In versions 1.1.9.9 / 2.1.9.9 of the Mezzmo Kodi Addon a safety feature was added which would fix instances where the play count in Mezzmo was negative for some reason and then reset it to 0. This check is done during the background sync process. This proposal would add an option setting where you could set the maximum value of the Mezzmo play count value and when it is reached the Mezzmo Kodi addon would reset it to 0. This would be a global setting and not for individual library media items or media types. The main value for this could be a sanity check against a runaway play counter.
Added January 13, 2024
Updated February 16, 2024 - New feature Added to v2.2.0.0. Not added to Kodi 18 addon version
The Mezzmo Kodi addon has a rich set of movie trailer features not found natively in Kodi including support for multiple trailers, high quality local trailers, Mezzmo Movie Previews and more. If you leverage the Mezzmo Trailer Checker tool to download high quality trailers you have the ability upon download to adjust the volume of the trailers via the configuration file. This is a nice feature but is a one time thing and if you don't get the configuration option right you still need to adjust the volume manually during trailer playback.
This feature is being proposed to provide and on-the-fly ability to adjust the volume on local trailer playback. I am finding that You Tube trailers often have a higher volume that normal media, especially when using Kodi's stereo upmix to playback the 2 channel trailer audio into a multichannel output. This can be a bit annoying when using the Mezzmo Movie Previews feature to get a theater-like experience and you have to change the volume when trailers are playing vs. the main movie. The current proposal would allow a +/- 10db adjustment of the playback volume. This could easily be wider, if needed. It would be a global setting for all local trailers.
Here's a screenshot of the proposed setting.
Added October 28, 2023
Status - Being researched
The Mezzmo Movie Previews feature is a great way to have a theater-like experience from your movie library. With the trailer addon settings you can select up to 6 movie trailers to watch prior to starting the main movie. This feature tracks whether you have already seen a specific trailer for the current day and will not present the same trailer twice in a single day. However, the trailer playcount is reset each night during the daily maintenance process.
What this proposal would do is add an additional setting to the trailer addon settings which would allow retaining the playcounts for multiple days, based upon the setting. An option might be for 1 day, 1 week or 1 month afterwards the playcounts get reset to 0. Note that this would be on a Kodi client-by-client basis and trailer playcounts (or last time played) values are not shared amongst clients.
Added September 9, 2023
Updated September 17, 2023 - New feature Added to v1.1.9.4 and v2.1.9.4
The Mezzmo Kodi Addon currently attempts to find all UPnP servers on your network but you can limit displaying only Mezzmo servers in the View Settings. This proposal would add an additional option in the Timers & Servers Settings to only discover Mezzmo servers and ignore other UPnP servers on your network. This would allow the addon to start faster and not be bothered by other UPnP servers going up / down.
Added September 9, 2023
Updated September 25, 2023 - New feature Added to v1.1.9.5 and v2.1.9.5
The Mezzmo Kodi Addon has a built-in picture / image slide show viewer with settings to control playback. The slide show viewer can handle up to 1,000 images. The current controls though are limited to Stop, Pause and Resume. This proposal would add controls to go forward and backwards in the slideshow. See Library Picture Views for complete details on the implemented feature updates.
Added September 9, 2023
Status: Being researched
Current context menu controls exist to set / clear the play count indicator and to clear bookmarks. It works on the item you are positioned on or have selected. This proposal would add the ability, when positioned on a TV series episode, to perform the selected action for the individual item or the entire season it is a part of. This could be expanded to the entire TV series too. Another option is to add this at the folder level context menu and perform the action on the selected folder. This could be risky and have unwanted side effects depending upon your library folder structure.
Added April 8, 2022
Updated April 30, 2023 - New feature Mezzmo Movie Previews added to v1.1.8.7 and v2.1.8.7
Mezzmo movie previews is a feature which would give you a movie theater like experience where you can play up to a selected number of movie previews / trailers before playing the main movie. It would leverage the Mezzmo Kodi Addon Local Movie Trailers feature, be launched by the context menu and have a few option settings.
Potential settings options:
- Number of previews to play (1-6)
- Previews from the year the movie was released to recreate the original movie experience
- Previews from the current year with a playcount of 0 in your library for a modern previews experience of unwatched movies
Added December 31, 2022
Updated May 24, 2023 - New feature Mezzmo Fast Sync added to v1.1.8.9 and v2.1.8.9
The Mezzmo Kodi addon was originally designed for GUI mode operation with syncing to Kodi added later to take advantage of Kodi's ability to display actor information and perform quick searches. Improvements for native mode support for Kodi, was added in 2022 beginning with versions 1.1.5.5 and 2.1.5.5 . However, due to the current sync design the sync process runs hourly which means that native mode users can see a delay syncing new Mezzmo content and bookmark / resume pointer changes of up to an hour in Kodi. GUI mode users see it all real time because GUI mode reads from the Mezzmo server directly whereas native mode reads from the Kodi database.
The fast sync proposal would reduce the new content and bookmark / resume pointer sync time for native mode to 60 seconds or less. The fast sync option will check the Mezzmo server once a minute for new library content or bookmark / resume pointer changes and sync them to the Kodi database. The hourly and daily sync processes would continue to operate as normal but this fast sync feature would get Kodi sync for native mode to near real time. Mezzmo has added support for this with a patch to version 6.0.7.14 and higher. Addon development for this feature has begun, including the ability to detect the version of the Mezzmo server the addon is syncing with.
Added August 4, 2022
Updated February 5 2023 - Functionality added as a subset of new feature, Mezzmo Keywords. Added to v1.1.7.6 and v2.1.7.6
The concept of Quick Play is similar to other addons like Super Favorites and similar where you can play your most favorite videos (movies, TV episodes, home videos etc..) by opening the context menu from anywhere without the need for managing yet another addon. It would be built into the Mezzmo Kodi addon as another feature. I am initially thinking it would be driven by Mezzmo keywords (aka tags for Kodi) but with a special naming and via the Mezzmo Kodi Sync process it would sync to all Kodi clients. The feature could be enabled or disabled via the addon settings. No manual syncing / copying of data for each Kodi client like with other solutions. A stretch option would be, in addition to the centrally driven Mezzmo keyword lists, to allow clients to also manage their own local Quick Play lists but they would be local to a client. I am less inclined for this since it breaks the overall simplicity of the feature.
Here's an example of how the Quick Play feature might look like with a few movies where I added the keywords "QPLAY My Favs 1 and QPLAY My Favs 2" in the Mezzmo library:
When you open the context menu the Mezzmo menu item is there as it is already.
Next in the context menu you will see a new menu item called Mezzmo Quick Play. It could be anywhere in the menu. In this case I just put it at the bottom for this quick mock up.
Clicking on the Mezzmo quick Play menu item will provide a listing of different Quick Play groups, in this case My Favs 1 and My Favs 2. The Mezzmo Kodi addon would strip QPLAY from name. QPLAY or similar is needed to differentiate Quick Play tags from normal movie tags which get added to Kodi's tags. Otherwise all tags would show up as a Quick Play group. With Quick Play we are only wanting your favorites.
Lastly, when you click on a group you will see all the movies you have tagged as Quick Play (i.e. your favorites). There are two possible options at this point, a simple list or a standard Kodi video listing with all the metadata. The simple list is much easier to code vs. the full Kodi listing and I am wondering since these are your most favorite movies, is all of the metadata really necessary. I am open to suggestions here but I am thinking most people know their favorites pretty well already.
Simple list option
Full Kodi List option
Added August 28, 2022
Updated January 26, 2023 - New feature Added to v1.1.7.3 and v2.1.7.3
Mezzmo and the Mezzmo Kodi addon fully support movie sets automatically and if enabled in the addons settings they are synchronized to the Kodi database. However accessing movie sets is different between GUI and native modes and can require multiple menu moves to get to displaying movie sets.
This movie set proposal adds a content menu item for movie sets (if the current movie you select the context menu is part of a movie set) and then if you click on Mezzmo Movie Set all of the movies in the set will be quickly displayed.
Current native mode context menu
Proposed native mode context menu
Movie set displayed (in this case in order of release date in ascending order)
Added August 28, 2022
Updated January 29, 2023 - New feature Mezzmo Movie Collection added to v1.1.7.4 and v2.1.7.4
Movie versions are where you want to have multiple versions of the same movie but the versions are unique but grouped. Examples could be different formats (i.e. 1090P, 4K, etc), different cuts (i.e. theatrical, director's etc..) or different years / versions of the same movie. Other UPnP solutions often require complicated naming or file layout structures. The Mezzmo proposed solution would simply need a Mezzmo keyword like ##version or similar added to the movies. Using keywords would avoid having to rename files, create special file structure layouts or similar. The Mezzmo keyword would not be synchronized to Kodi tags and would be used only by the Mezzmo Kodi addon to find multiple versions of the same movie. Like with the movie set proposal there would be an additional context menu item if multiple versions of the selected movie exists.
Example versions with different format
Updated August 30, 2022 - New feature Added to v1.1.6.5 and v2.1.6.5
Currently the Mezzmo Kodi addon allows clearing of the Mezzmo data in the Kodi database via the addon settings option Kodi DB clear Mezzmo data on startup. The rebuilding of the Mezzmo data in the Kodi database is controlled by the Mezzmo Background Sync settings. As long as it isn't disabled it will detect the out of sync condition and begin the rebuild process. This can take up to 6 hours since the sync process does 1/6th of the Mezzmo database each hour, to avoid bogging down Kodi.
This Immediate Full Sync proposal would modify the Kodi DB clear Mezzmo data on startup option to have three conditions: Off, Clear and Full Resync. Off and clear would operate like off and on do today. Full resync would do a clear but then also do a full sync and provide a progress dialog box so you can see the progress of the sync process. Immediate Full Resync would allow you to speed up the process and not have to wait 6 hours or till the daily sync process runs between midnight and 6AM.
The downside of this option is that while the progress bar is up you wouldn't be able to use Kodi to play media. However, if you hit cancel the sync process would stop wherever it is at and the normal hourly sync process would finish synchronization between Mezzo and Kodi in the background.
Updated September 21, 2022 - New feature Added to v1.1.6.6 and v2.1.6.6
The Mezzmo Kodi addon, like a number of other synchronization solutions which sync Kodi data to an external source, is an all or nothing solution except for parental controls. Even with parental controls it becomes an all or nothing per device so if you wanted to run multiple profiles in Kodi, each with a different view of your Mezzmo library in Kodi, that currently isn't supported by the addon or many other external sync solutions.
What this proposal may provide is up to 4 different user selectable, fully customizable, sync profiles for your Kodi instances. These can be shared across Kodi instances and tied to your Kodi profiles.
Click here for more Kodi Selective Sync feature details