Group movies series (eg Star Wars) together like TV shows-How?

Depends which Apple TV you have.

You can give movies a show name (i.e. James Bond, for all James Bond movies) and the Apple TV 1 will group these together like a nested folder amongst the list of your other movies, this is extremely useful especially when you have a lot of movies. Unfortunately the Apple TV 2 doesn't see the show name, or at least it doesn't group them like the Apple TV 1.

This seems to be a limitation of the iOS rather than the Apple TV since the iPad, iPhone etc all do the same. If you have any suggestions that you think might enhance the Apple TV you can send Apple your feedback here.

Yes I realised you had the Apple TV, but the Apple TV 2 runs iOS just like the iPhone etc, which why it doesn't group movies with a 'show name' as the Apple TV 1 does, which runs OSX.

I wouldn't know what thought processes have occurred behind this decision. It may be that Apple have decided that phones, iPads, Apple TV's etc have become used more on a casual basis, ie more you tube and less extensive movie libraries, or it may be that iOS has a particular difficulty reproducing this particular feature of the Apple TV.

All I know is it's immensely frustrating when you have well over a thousand movies in your library, and one of the reasons I prefer the Apple TV 1.

You may not be aware, but the Apple TV 1 would also group all similar TV shows together with series inside that grouping, the Apple TV 2 only groups them by series, which again is annoying when you have TV shows with 19, 17 and 13 series.

Have you and others sent feedback also to Apple?

Yes

How do you currently organise your 1000's of movies on your Apple TV 2 then please? Must be a nightmare!

Yes, it's a nightmare. Not quite so bad for movies like 'Carry On' (if you know what they are) since all 'Carry On' movie titles start 'Carry on...........', and at least they are all together in my very long list, but movies like 'James Bond' movies start their titles differently in each case.

When I have a large subset of movies (James Bond has 18, Carry On has 23) it can be worth using the Genre, but that doesn't take them out of your main list, another option is to change the title to something like; 007 - Goldfinger, 007 - Thge Living Daylights etc.

I still use the "show" tag to group moves together, at least. It doesn't put them into a sub-listing like it did on the ATV 1, but it does list them all together. Then I also use the "sort name" to put the movies in the proper order. For example for James Bond movies my "show" is "The James Bond Collection" and in "sort name" I put "Bond 1" etc. It's not as neat as the ATV1 but it gets the job done.

Michael I hadn't thought of using the 'Sort Name' to ensure movies appear together in the Apple TV 2 movie list. Before I try this though, in your example does that not result in the movie "Goldfinger" being listed with other movies begriming with 'B", perhaps if the movie title began with say 3 blank spaces, it may indent the list of Bond movies and make it a little easier to scroll through.

You have to use the "sort name" tag in concert with the "show" tag to get themt to be placed in the list appropriately. At least this has been my experience. Yes, this method does put the James Bond moves out of alphabetical order, becaue of the "show" tag they are all listed under "J" but as long as I remember that it works for me.

I also do this for my Stanley Kubrick moves. The "show" tag is "The Stanley Kubrick Collection" which puts all the movies under "S," then I use the "sort name" tag to put them in chronological order: "Kubrick 1956" etc.

Michael Allbritton wrote:

You have to use the "sort name" tag in concert with the "show" tag to get themt to be placed in the list appropriately.

Yes I realised as much but many thanks, sharing how individual libraries are organised is I believe very useful. 🙂

Sorry, I didn't mean to be pedantic. It just comes out that way sometimes.

I agree. Sharing organization tips has helped me a lot in finding the best way to organize my library. Plus I just play around with it, as I'm sure you do as well.

Michael Allbritton wrote:

Sorry, I didn't mean to be pedantic. It just comes out that way sometimes.

No problem, I hadn't considered it that way anyway and even if I had I'd be aware there are others who might draw benefit from it. 🙂

It's never easy to avoid such things anyway with written words only.