There are a few background features that have been implemented that are quite powerful.

• The system has an Javascript messaging bus that talks constantly to all connected clients and can relay status messages and events to the clients. This is used to display notifications like "The newest episode of ____ has just downloaded" or send status messages like if XBMC is playing and what file its playing.
• Each connected client's device registers with the backend and receives a cookie. That identification number can be used to send specific commands back to the client. I use this to control various wall screens around the house that run on wall mounted IPAD's. This allows me to load the traffic cameras on the front door panel as i leave for work in the morning.
• There is a scheduled task engine where services can register for events to be run at specific times or at set events like "sunrise" or "sunset". These events are stored in the database and survive server reboots.
• Intelligent downloading rules that run nightly allow all movies or TV shows with specific actors, dates, or other criteria to be automatically added to the download queue. So any 1950's movie that gets more then 4 stars that has a specific actor will be downloaded.
• The system can work with Asterisk to automatically ring all phones in the house when phone numbers are clicked on (yellow pages app). Once the home phone is picked up it makes the outbound call to the number that was clicked on.
• some elements of the system can be controlled from asterisk by calling into your home number and entering the passcode.
• any page layout based on plugins can be edited by adding the "?movable" tag to the url. Drag the elements to where you would like them and resize any that need to be resized and remove the flag from the url. Changes are saved in the database.
• The main plugin page is configured for each user account. One user can have a completely different layout from the next user.
• NIghtly the system will analyse the movies you have downloaded and compare that to an online database of recommended movies. Each movie is assigned a score which is incremented with each match. Once completed it will return the top 100 movies that you would like to download. Clicking on any of those entries will automatically add it to couch potato for download. Once a movie has completed downloading it is removed from the wanted list and added to the local movie database.

• I'm sure there are more, i will document them here as i go :