Glad to see so many people in this community enjoying it. We're up at around 150 unique users per week now! I thought the slot machine was fun as well....but I don't love the performance the first time you go to push the button if you have a large library. It was because I was loading every movie poster from your library into memory before you could push the button so that the slot machine animation was silky smooth. But, I just pushed a new version 1.3.9.1 that is now optimized and there is no longer a delay before you can press the button even if you have a large library.
Currently, the recommendations are from TMDB and every movie in the Kaleidescape catalog has a list of TMDB recommendations (only including recommendations that are available on Kaleidescape).
Your idea is solid and I do like it, however, that would mean that I would need to implement some user storage in some manner. Right now everything can easily be refetched so the only storage is in your browser to speed things up on subsequent uses. For a feature like this, I'd need to implement some permanent storage in some manner. Most would go down the path of user accounts and cloud storage if they want the best user experience, but I guess I could just do file storage and recommend you save it in your iCloud/Google Drive storage so it's accessible on other computers or if you replace your computer. It's all doable.
Another option I could implement would be to record anonymous user library data for each user and then use that data to do my own recommendations based on what other Popcorn Ready users have. But 150 users is pretty low and I question if that would be valuable.
And yet another option would be integration with something like Trakt.tv app or maybe just using TMDB for user accounts/libraries/etc and that could play into recommendations. That would also give app access but I know Trakt would be a monthly fee to be able to store everything from your Kaleidescape library in a collection. I've not ever tried the TMDB app personally so not sure if that's any good. But their API is great!
But on a different note, I think a bigger WIN would be the ability to play a movie directly from Popcorn Ready on your Kaleidescape Player. If anyone has access to the API that the old Second Screen app uses, I'd love to see that. I've looked at the Kaleidescape System Control Protocol reference manual and that doesn't include the ability to directly play a specific movie by Title or ID. Best I could do would be automate the on screen display and search for the title and then do some button presses to play the movie. I think that doesn't sound like a great user experience though. So if anyone can get me the API to be able to play a specific movie directly from a browser via IP control, I can make it work the right way.
