Smart(er) Playlist

I have collected a LOT of TV shows. So many that even with Mezzmo it's a bit awkward to scan through them looking for the comparatively small number I'm actively following at any given time.

I'd like for Mezzmo to present a subset of all the series I have in the database. It seems like an active playlist would be the ticket but I can't figure out how to set up a filter that will display just the shows I want in that list AND only the unwatched episodes of those shows. The smart filter is either ALL or ANY and I think what I need is a more complex boolean equation (PlayCount == 0 AND (Series == ShowA OR Series == ShowB OR <etc.>)). I already have an "unwatched" playlist but now I'd like one that further limits what's displayed to just a few handpicked series. Is this possible?

That is tricky in the current version of Mezzmo (v4.1.3.0) without being able to combine AND & OR in the one set of smart playlist/filter rules. We've slated this enhancement for a future version.

In the meantime, you just need a simple way to have the same metadata in all TV series' episodes that you are interested in. Here's a way to do it:

1. Create a text file and call it "series.xml". In the text file, insert the following text:
   
   Code:

   ---

   <series>
    <keywords>We are watching this now!</keywords>
</series>

   ---

2. Add this file into each TV series folder that you are actively watching.
3. In Mezzmo, right-click on each of these folders (or TV series playlists), and click 'Maintain Playlist'. On the Maintain Playlist dialog, select the "Only add new items and update items with empty attributes" radio button. Click "Maintain Now" to maintain the files in the folder/playlist. This will pick up and add the above keywords for all the video files for your selected TV series.
4. Now you have a consistent value for a metadata field that you can use in your active playlist's smart filter rules. That is, a rule like [Keyword] [contains] [We are watching this now!]. Next, you can add [Play Count] [is] [0] to only list unwatched episodes. This will let you create an active playlist of all the unwatched episodes of TV series that you are actively watching at the moment.
5. When you lose interest in a TV series and wish to remove it from the active playlist, then you can remove the "series.xml" file from the folder and maintain the folder again. This time, make sure to select the "Update all attributes" radio button on the Maintain Playlist dialog so it blanks out entries that do not exist.

Note: In order to do the above, you will need a patch from us for Mezzmo v4.1.3.0. Email us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com to get the patch. The above features will be included in the upcoming Mezzmo v5.0.

That sounds like a reasonable solution. The only things I came up with were to add something like "(*Fav*)" to the directory name for each target series, but that would lose all the current play counts and invalidate the whole "unwatched" thing; or to add my own genre and search for that, but that would require changing each episode and remembering to do so with all future additions. Neither was ultimately acceptable.