TV Show Sorting

Yes! This is annoying me as well. I much preferred the previous sort method.

I've filled out the feedback and suggested they add a 4th option to allow those that prefer this way to continue to use it if they want.

Also, I'm finding that using it to watch shows from my Mac Pro (my primary usage model) via Home Sharing.. it's not properly marking shows as watched. In fact, the first episode I watched started as the 1/2 circle due to being partially watched, and after I finished it went to a full "unwatched" dot on the aTV, but stayed the 1/2 dot in itunes.

I'm not sure I like the new primary model of only showing rental stuff on the main menu and requiring going down the computer menu to get to the stuff I already have in itunes. The option to activate a "classic" mode in a future sw release would be much appreciated by at least myself.

The same crap happens in Front Row too, season are treated as shows. I tried and tried to fix this in iTunes so I could get the proper display in front row, with no luck.

Got my ATV 2 yesterday, hooked it up and was disappointed to see the same behavior

I'm quite frustrated with the new TV show sorting (although it's my only complaint, I have no technical problems). The individual "seasons" are not even in numerical order. I have The Simpsons seasons 21, 20, 4, 9, 11, 8, 5, 6, 7, 10, 3, 2, 14, 19, 12, 13. I can't see the logic of that. I tried to determine if the order was based on the number of episodes in each "season", but that didn't work either. Plus, the alphabetizing of shows is odd now. It used to be The Closer was under C, The Daily Show under D, The Simpsons under S and so on. Now, they are all under T.

I have found that you have to really check all your data in your itunes by "getting info" and making sure you are anal about it, then your shows and seasons will sort properly..at least on the shows you have extracted from your own DVDs and placed in itunes for viewing. Make sure you enter all the correct sorting and season info and especially the Episode Number (or else the shows will sort in revers order).

As far as purchased content from the iTunes store I have yet to figure out why it sorts the seasons from newest to oldest. I have tried removing the date but that did not work. Still trying for some other options...will advise if I hit upon something.

At least all of my extracted shows are all good though.

An undocumented feature of the old atv was that you could set show and episode data on MOVIES, so all your James Bond movies would show up under a "James Bond" folder in the master list.

This no longer works 😟

Partial Work Around Found!

After reading the posting from "strictlyjim" I starting playing around with the sorting tab in the Get Info area on the files. I was already quite anal about TV seasons, episodes #'s, id's etc but I was still having the sorting issue. If you go into the get info tab and enter the name of the show and the season in the sort album field it will at least put your seasons in the right order. This will correct the order issue ONLY!

I still have not found a solution that groups everything under show then season like my old AppleTV does. Since you can mass edit it shouldn't take too long. How this helps with the frustration.

Can someone tell me how to get this feature to work on my old appleTV? I have the take 2 and it won't batch my seasons together. It goes from Show Titles > Every Episode of all seasons on one screen. They are ordered correctly at least, but I still have to scroll up and down a ton if I want to watch something from different seasons.

Message was edited by: vastoholic

@mmarionsd1: You can mark a show as watched by holding down the middle button at the menu. At least it's more convenient than marking it in iTunes. It's annoying that the ATV no longer marks it automatically.

I have also submitted feedback to Apple on this to http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html
Here is the text I used. Reuse as you wish:

Just purchased an Apple TV and am noticing a couple of sorting problems:

1) TV Shows - TV Shows are not sorted correctly in any list. I have several shows that start with "The" that list under "T", but should be listed starting with the second word. It sorts correctly in iTunes, but not on the Apple TV. Also, TV shows are not grouped by show in any view, but are grouped by show and season, which means that the same show over multiple seasons gets multiple items in the list. This seems wrong.

2) Music Sorting Error - When I go to music by Genres, pick a genre, and then pick "All Albums", the Apple TV will display all of my albums regardless of the picked genre. This is a bug.

Thanks.

I have found a ridiculous way to set up TV show sorting on the new ATV. It will not put the shows in the order they were shown during the season, but it does help with the problem of not having all your shows clopped together.

On the ATV, go to Settings, Audio & Video, Show Playlists, and select all. Then go into the iTunes program up to TV Programs. Select one of the shows/seasons (where the show icon is surrounded by blue). Then go to File, New Playlist From Selection. You'll see under your playlists the show. Repeat for each TV Show.

When you go back to the ATV into your library under TV Shows, you'll see a Playlists icon. Click and the bottom icons will be each TV Show. It is still messy because when you first enter TV Shows you'll see a list of all the shows plus the icon for Playlists. The playlists on my ATV still have the shows for the season out of order. But at least each tv show is not in one big list and hard to find.

I have still sent a message to apple about the issue and believe they need to clean this up with an upgrade. I would encourage you do the same.

Its a long process to try and fix an easy issue which was not an issue with the ATV 1. Hope it works and helps.

When you import TV shows into iTunes they come in as movies. To fix it:
1. select in Itunes and Get Info
2. go to Options tab and change media kind to TV Show
3. Go to Video tab and set the series name (eg Dexter) in the show field
4. At the Video tab input Season and Episode numbers
5. The Name at the Info tab will be the display name for that episode

All done! Now they will display as a TV show in the right groups and correct order.

=>Len