I’m having difficulties with a particular scenario using the new “DVD order” feature. I’ll take one example, a double episode in Season 3 of Seinfeld.
The double-episode “The Boyfriend” is listed as Episodes 17 and 18 of Season 3 in “aired order”, and when the file is named using S03E17-E18, it shows up correctly. However, in DVD order (as Seinfeld should be sorted), it’s listed as episodes 15.1 and 15.2 of season 3. I’ve tried S03E15, S03E15-E16, and S03E15.1-E15.2, none of these produce a match of any sort. Is there a correct format that I haven’t stumbled on? Am I doing something wrong? Or is this a bug that needs addressing in the new DVD order feature?
Thanks for the reply, but it doesn’t address my issue. I’ll try to explain more clearly.
The “double episode” is actually already one single file. But, when I name it “Seinfeld - S03E15 - The Boyfriend.mp4” in DVD Order mode, it doesn’t find a match. All other (non-double) episodes are matched with no problems. I was assuming that the reason is that technically there’s no “Episode 15” in the DVD Order, only a 15.1 and a 15.2.
I expect that you can duplicate the problem by taking any video you have and renaming it as “Seinfeld\Season 03\Seinfeld - S03E15 - The Boyfriend.mp4”, and attempting to add it to Plex in “DVD Order” mode. If it works for you then I’m missing something.
Would love to find out if there’s been any update to this scenario? I’m having the exact same issues with the seinfeld box set and don’t want to have them listed in air date order, as this was wildly out of joke setup order, hence the correct dvd order (much like firefly). The way tvdb is listing double episodes is a bummer.
@trumpy81 said:
I will alert the devs to that issue though.
Did you get any feedback on this? I’m hitting similar problems with some kids TV shows. Doc McStuffins (and Paw Patrol etc) have usually (but not always) have 2 ‘stories’ per episode. DVD order on TVDB shows this more sensibly named as .1 and .2, but I can’t get Plex to read it no matter what I name the file (example is e10 below). 1 story per episode shows up fine though (example is e11 below).
Filenames:
Doc McStuffins - s02e10 - Professor Pancake - You Crack Me Up .mp4
Doc McStuffins - s02e11 - A Very McStuffins Christmas.mp4
DVD Order:
2 x 10.1 Professor Pancake
2 x 10.2 You Crack Me Up
2 x 11.0 A Very McStuffins Christmas
Aired Order for comparison:
2 x 19 Professor Pancake
2 x 20 You Crack Me Up
2 x 21 A Very McStuffins Christmas
Plex shows:
Episode 10, Episode 10
A Very McStuffins Christmas, Episode 11
The thumbnail for 10 is not the one from tvdb, but the one for 11 is.
I don’t want to rename to e.g. s02e19e20 because this shows the same file twice and means it repeats when playing a season.
Like svensayshi, I’ve tried with and without the . e.g. 10.1 and 101 and I’ve also tried (1) and (1)(2) etc.
Regardless… if you want this to work with TVDB you MUST name it like TVDB names it no matter if you use Air Date or DVD order. That’s all there is to it.
Most of us abandon Plex entirely with stacked episodes due to Plex’s World Famous mishandling of same - simply skipping the stack and moving on to the next episode in the sequence - editing the description if your OCD requires it:
… S02E19… <— edit description if OCD rears it’s ugly head - Plex can’t mishandle what it can’t see.
…S02E21…
Looks like TVDB has locked the x.x numbering system for TV series sitewide so editing the TVDB series numbers isn’t an option. In their naming strategy FAQ it lists using the x.x scheme as a requirement and for existing shows (ie: Seinfeld) it’s completely locked.
So has still not been fixed on Plex’s end? Is there something I can do to prioritize this particular bugfix, like upvoting it somewhere? I’d sure like my Seinfeld to be in the correct (DVD) order…
Philp K. Dick’s Electric Dreams released on TV… TVDB listed them as they aired. Cool, cool.
Amazon Prime starts showing them - ALL OUT OF WHACK!
Some users are going to be here bitching and moaning because the order is all messed up.
The moral of this story is that the aired order TVDB uses IS THE ORDER. Period. Even if it’s wrong.
Once you get your head wrapped around that you life takes an upward turn.
Firefly was, apparently, important enough to users - so that it was made right.
Seinfeld, apparently, ain’t that high on the list of things that need fixing - even though it is a fine show. I don’t think it matters that much to the comedy in what order they play.
FWIW, the order does matter for Seinfeld because some episodes refer back to events in previous episodes, and on occasion if they are out of order - as they were when aired - it spoils the joke.
Just for everyone’s amusement, I registered with TheTVDB forum and shared the issue (since the Seinfeld page itself is locked and can’t be edited directly), even attaching a picture of my DVD case as evidence that the episodes in question have distinct numbers (as per their forum policy when requesting changes to locked pages). Their response:
“This is a problem you will have to take up with PLEX using decimals to combine episodes in the DVD order has long been a published part of our API”
I would also like to ask if this is being addressed by the devs, and if not, how do we propose or upvote this feature?
Many DVD series are enumerated with decimal places on the TVDB. If the scraper does not recognize the decimal notation in file names, we have no choice but to use Airdate order, which often times breaks the show’s continuity. This can also be a pain when labeling episodes we’ve ripped off of a dvd, since dvd rips are not in airdate order
The only way I’ve found to get these series in proper DVD order is to manually edit nfo files and use the Plex nfo plugin. The two media managers I tried also had issues handling the decimals (Ember, Tiny). I find it bizarre that no scrapers are aligning to the TVDB standard
This is not just an issue with Seinfeld. I will list the series with which I’ve noticed the issue below, so others Googling will at least see that there’s not much that can be done:
Adventure Time
Captain N & the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
Garfield & Friends
Invader Zim
Metalocalypse
My Little Pony 'n Friends
The Office
Powerpuff Girls
The Ren and Stimpy Show
Rocko’s Modern Life
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
Seinfeld
Shin Chan
This is just from my small collection, and only the series in which I noticed the issue. Surely there are many more. For non-kids series, like The Office and Seinfeld, the issue is usually hidden in double episodes, and all other episodes are enumerated as expected, so it’s hard to notice until you get to a particular episode
