Leveling up your Binge-Watching Game during this self-isolation time
Stay Home, Binge Watch
In the last couple of weeks, most of us have been thrown into a brave new world of social distancing, self-isolation, and now total-lockdown amidst the coronavirus outbreak.
Staying at home too long is not a good feeling for any of us. But this has made us explore many things that we can take up to pass the day.
Be it new hobbies, spending more time with family/friends and also finally getting ample free time to complete all your tv shows and movies that you have been waiting to watch for so long.
In the age of streaming media, your favorite tv shows and movies are just a click away and as soon as they are released, everybody wants to binge and finish it. With the presence of so many platforms: Netflix, Amazon Prime, HotStar, HBO, Apple TV and many more, users are never limited to the number of shows that they can get their hands on to.
But with the presence of so many platforms and so many tv shows launching their episodes within months, it doesn’t seem feasible to open every streaming website every day to check if the next upcoming episode is out. This creates a high chance that you miss out on the release of the latest shows (and you get bummed down by hearing spoilers all-around social media).
There is always an urge for a loyal tv show fan to always watch the episodes of the show as soon as they are released so that they are ahead of the spoiler mafia.
Also, you have completed an awesome tv show but you might sometime miss out on a very crucial episode, did you watch all the episodes, did you miss that special cross-over episode, was there a movie too?
I know you may have faced this at some point or the other and then you rush back searching for that missing episode and complete your piece of the puzzle before somebody simply spoils you and you regret how on earth did I miss that episode.
I would now present a way on how you can prevent this, have an edge from others and be a smart tv series binge-watcher.
Also, there is some bonus stuff that you can get out of it too.
Presenting Trakt
Trakt.tv is one nifty website that will solve all the above problems.
As the name suggests, this website lets you track all your favorite tv shows and movies and you can do this by just a few clicks.
Tv Shows
This website features an expansive of collection of tv shows, with shows having the full catalog of all episodes released including special episodes like ‘behind the scene’ episodes, ‘how they were made’ episodes, special crossover episode or a special long movie episode(in animes which we often tend to miss).
Apart from the already released episodes, it also has the schedule of the upcoming episodes with their dates and titles and also the platform on where it will be aired i.e. the tv channel or the streaming website(provided the show producers have released their launch schedule). So you can go forward and put the upcoming shows in your calendar so that you never miss the release of an episode.
Movies
As useful for tv show fans, it is equally useful for movie watchers too.
This website has a giant collection of movies and also for the ones that are going to release.
How to Track?
The process of tracking is very simple and can be done as follows:
Search for your favorite tv show and movie.
Click on it and view the list of episodes in case of a tv show.
Then simply keep on marking the episodes you have watched.
Once you have done that, the website will make this process even simpler by listing the show right in the homepage dashboard with the next episode you are going to watch so that you can mark that as watched once you have completed that episode.
With nifty shortcuts over the thumbnails on the homepage, you can easily mark the show as watched right from the homepage.
You can also do the tracking process using apps and other devices which automatically sync the tracking activity with the website.
I will discuss the apps later.
How does tracking help you?
The tv shows you track, the website now knows that you are interested in it.
It will start showing the next episode/movie/special episode in the dashboard which you must watch and this way it ensures that never miss out on the next content.
The website will also start showing the future episodes in the calendar so that you never the release date.
It also does the same for movies that are going to be released.
Just start adding the movies in the watchlist and the website will let you know when the movies’ release date is near.
Making your watchlist and collection list
One of the things I use most often is the watchlist.
Suppose you find a show/movie you haven’t watched but you are interested to watch in the future. Then you can simply add the show in the watchlist. You can do this easily by clicking on the ‘Add to watchlist’ button.
You can also create a list having the best movies you have ever watched, the most memorable tv shows and this you can do that by using the ‘Add to collection’ option.
The website also lets you create custom lists with your own names and filling the list as you wish.
Nerdy Stuff — Your Watch Stats
So you have used the website for a while and you have tracked quite a few tv shows and movies.
Well, then you are up for some awesome stats regarding your watch habits.
Depending upon how well you track and log your watch content, you will have richer stats and visualizations.
You can view the statistics by going to the ‘profile’ section.
The stats are expansive right from how much total time you have spent watching (the ‘All-Time’ stat), how much time you have watched over the week, during the day, how many episodes you have watched weekly, monthly, yearly and many more.
You can also get details of what was your last tv show/movie you watched, your most-watched content and also stats on how much percentage of varying content you watch like action, drama, etc.
The stats are made richer with the help of graphs and visualizations.
The ‘All-time’ stats might be scary for few as it gives you a realization of the amount of time of your life you have spent in just watching shows and movies.
The website has features to list more stats but they are all part of the premium version for which you have to subscribe.
Track on your mobile device
One disappointing thing is that the website does not have any official app on any of the mobile platforms
But they support third-party apps on a variety of devices and streaming applications.
There are very good apps in both Android and iOS which use the APIs of trakt.tv and these apps help you log your content right from your smartphone.
I am going to mention the apps which I have used myself and found the best but trakt.tv website lists many more apps for which I’ll put the links in the end.
SeriesGuide — Android
This app got me into the tracking habit in the first place. This free app lets you do all the stuff that you can do in the trakt.tv website and it’s simple UI lets you do all the tracking stuff in a jiffy.
All you have to do is to link your trakt.tv account, then add your favorite shows, and then continue tracking which episodes you have watched.
If it is an ongoing tv series, you will know when are the next episodes going to be released or when the next season is going to start.
You can even add movies to your watchlists and collections as well.
All your tracking activity gets synced into the trakt.tv account so your tracking activity is safe and you can sync it up in any other device too.
The app works offline too if you have loaded the content for that episode and this lets you do the tracking even in the absence of the internet.
You can check this app in the Google Playstore using this link
Watcht — iOs
There aren’t many free apps in iOs like Android’s SeriesGuide. Watcht was one app that closely resembled the Android counterpart.
Simple to use, you have just log in with your trakt.tv account so as to get trakt.tv content into the app and then you are ready to track all your tv shows.
The dashboard shows your recently tracked shows and also the upcoming tv shows, movies for which you may be interested in.
For more apps on your favorite device, go to this link.
Well, this sums upon how you can level up your game in watching tv series and also get useful stats on your binging habits.
Although, the process is pretty much manual now as you have to go yourself and mark the episode/movie as watched. I pretty much hope that this gains popularity and soon you may end up seeing Netflix sharing their ‘Year in Review’ as well.
Till then stay safe, stay home, keep binging and also keep tracking :)
