A personal server-side playlist#

Watch Later is stored in a plain video playlist named REEL-WATCH-LATER under the signed-in Plex profile. The playlist and its Summary hold the queue and Reel's associated state for that profile and server.

It is separate from the shared REEL-CONFIG playlist. One stores a personal viewing queue; the other distributes owner-managed settings. Neither should be renamed or repurposed as an ordinary unrelated playlist while Reel is using it.

Queue membership#

Reel can save movies, episodes, seasons, and shows. A season or show selection is resolved into episodes; the underlying playlist contains movie and episode items. This means the saved selection is not a subscription that promises to add every future episode automatically.

The current implementation bounds a selection and the queue to 500 entries. If it cannot read the complete selection or validate the playlist, it reports a failure rather than silently treating an incomplete read as a complete queue.

Animation placeholderPoster action to Watch Later

Show saving a title from its long-press actions and finding it in the profile's Watch Later queue.

The action preserves browsing context while the playlist change is written to PMS.

Completion tracking#

The optional Remove watched titles preference acts on new completion events. Reel records a baseline and compares the current Plex view count for the matching playlist entry. A title that was already watched before being saved is not immediately removed merely for having an existing watched flag.

An unknown or malformed baseline is not permission to delete an entry. Completion interpretation also depends on Plex's watch-state behavior, including the server's Video Played Threshold.

Operational notes#

Do not manually create a same-named playlist as a shortcut to setup. Reel checks its stored profile/server identity and format. Duplicate playlists, an incompatible playlist type, or an unreadable Summary can prevent it from safely selecting a queue.

Because the queue lives on PMS, another Reel installation using the same profile and server can read that queue. This does not imply that unrelated personal display preferences are synchronized between TVs.