It’s extremely annoying and cumbersome to have to search through every metadata provider to find one that matches the episode numbering scheme you’d prefer, if one supported by Plex even has said numbering scheme. Plus, there’s the pesky instances where the version of the local media that you own combines or separates episodes and you must either manually combine/separate them or deal with the server making it seem as though episodes are missing. Allowing users to manually number episodes/arrange TV episodes would be a much appreciated quality of life addition to Plex.
Let me be clear in what I’m suggesting. The file naming scheme should remain the same with files named in accordance to what the primary metadata agent dictates the episode order being. That way Plex can still pull images and episode names/description data. However, after a user has added episodes and Plex has pulled the metadata for said episodes users should be able to go to each individual episode and change the episode number manually.
Essentially, just allow users to go into a TV series, click on a specific episode, click the “edit” field for said episode, and then enter the desired episode number in a newly added “Episode Number” field.
I’ve had problems with multiple shows, typically with the Blu-Ray/DVD combining/separating episodes. I’ve fixed most of those. One, RWBY Season 1, wasn’t worth it seeing as going with the original episode format would result in 6 minute episodes (which would make watching the series more cumbersome than it needed to be).
At the present moment, my biggest headache is Danny Phantom season 3, seeing as the TVDB has the season listed out of canonical order. The DVD order wouldn’t help either, as that is unfortunately listed in the production order instead of the airing order.
Though, this post is more about adding a user-friendly feature to avoid such headaches than my specific issues.
DVD’s often use a different numbering system compared to the airing order that most use. Have you tried edditing that specific show and changing the Episode ordering?
I’m fairly certain that if I used the DVD episode ordering that it would use the incorrect order of the actual DVD. I own the DVD and the order is a mess. As stated before, the DVD is in production order instead of canonical order and the TVDB has the 3rd season screwed up for some reason.
Plus, I did so before with Batman The Animated Series and the end result was the correct order but mismatched episodes to files.
If you want to use an ordering system that is not either the order in TheTVDB or from the DVD, there isn’t a way to manually set the numbers and keep the episode data. In these cases, you can match the series using the “Personal Media Agent” which will then just follow the numbering system you have on the files. You will then need to provide your own show and episode descriptions and posters.
While I appreciate the help, I am suggesting this feature to circumvent having to go through all these workarounds.
Doesn’t using the Personal Media Agent mean that the troublesome shows will have to be in a different library simply because the metadata agents have the order incorrect?
Also, is DVD ordering bugged? Every time I try to use DVD ordering (and yes, I change the file names to match the order of the DVD/Blu-Ray sets I own after removing the files from the server, refreshing the metadata, and emptying the trash) it will work until a certain episode and then go crazy.
For instance, I tried applying DVD ordering to Danny Phantom. This did fix the Season 3 issue and Season 1 was fine, but Season 2 got screwed up pretty bad. For some reason S02E05 got duplicated over both Episodes 5 & 6 and S02E09 also got duplicated over both Episodes 9 & 10 (duplicated as in all metadata save for the alternative picture, which was correct for what the episode should have been). Because of this all episodes after Episode 5 in Season 2 were out of order and I had to manually rename, re-date, copy and paste the correct episode description, and make/upload corrected thumbnails for the vast majority of Season 2.
I also retried DVD ordering for Batman The Animated Series, again, with all files named in accordance to my Blu-Ray copy’s order, and that resulted in Season 1 Episodes 1-28 being correct but everything beyond that being an absolute mess. I couldn’t even find any rhyme or reason to how Batman got screwed up so bad. Some episodes were randomly placed and some were duplicated at random intervals (and not next to each other as in Danny Phantom’s case); it was an absolute mess.
Is there some very specific source that Plex pulls from for the DVD ordering? Is the file naming scheme different from just going by airing order? I know there is a known bug that causes incorrect thumbnails from time to time, but I’m getting results with files being attributed almost all incorrect metadata.
The DVD order is done through the TheTVDB agent. So it depends on how they have the episodes ordered. Unfortunately, they changed their site some time ago so it’s not possible now to check what the order they have is. PMS can still do it on the backend but there isn’t an easy way to check with TheTVDB directly.
Don’t forget to check if the files have embedded titles. This can override your filenames if you have the local media agent enabled and prioritized higher than the regular agent.
And now I feel stupid, as this was primarily supposed to be a feature suggestion and I put it under the wrong category.
Still, the support has been very nice to see, even if it can’t resolve my issue. I did find a workaround to seeing TheTVDB’s DVD ordering, but it requires going to each episode’s page one by one and then modifying the URL with /edit on the end.
