So I will be able to select what scanner I want to use?
Sort of. If you pick the new agent or scanner, it will select the new one for the other. You can only use the old/current one for other agents.
OK. What kills me is, if that is the case, why the !!@3$!&87! do they recommend putting the episode name as part of your file, in EVERY example, everywhere? I could have saved hours of work just naming each episode with the series title and season / episode number, and used that time to either experiment with adding metadata to the file itself, or updating themoviedb. Arrghggh
Hi actually apparently we can create NFO files to do this:
From https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
Most television shows have episodes organized into seasons. To name season-based shows create files with the season and episode notation SXXEXX
- /TV Shows/ShowName/Season 02/ShowName – s02e17 – Optional_Info.ext
Some important notes:
- Many of our naming instructions mention having
Optional_Info
at the end of the file name. As the label suggests, it’s optional, but many people like to use it for things such as an episode title; such optional info is ignored by Plex when matching content.
Yes, you can create/uso NFO files, but PMS will ignore them, except for trying to find the IMDB ID to help with matching. Nothing else is that nfo will be used. You need to use the 3rd party NFO Importer agent to use the full NFO file.
Do you have more details on how this actually works?
I had actually tried that, and it did not seem to work. When I would then go in inside plex and edit individual meta-data for each file, it seemed to pick up the title info as a suggestion but it was in the wrong field and it did not show these titles automatically, I had to go in and pick it.
Since then I switched to .mkv from .mp4, so i hope it will work in .mkv also.
PMS will not read tags in mkv files. These use different tags then MP4 files so they are not equivalent.
For the NFO file, PMS will read the file and pick out the IMDB ID i.e. “TTxxxxxx”. It will then use that ID to match the file to the movie. Please note that matches with IMDB only work for major theatrically released movies. Straight to DVD, made for TV, documentaries, shorts, and most independent foreign movies cannot be matched even using the NFO file.
The NFO agent will extract all the info from the NFO file and use that to identify the movie. There is no actual matching, the info is just forced from whats in the file.
Agreed this can work - except I am setting up my Plex Media Server in Windows 10 with an external USB drive, then transferring the drive to my Nvidia shield and setting up Plex Media Server there. I figure at some point I may need to do a "fresh install " of Plex again, on some new technology, and I don’t want to do this over and over. Plus I have a LOT of videos to get me through Covid with the gyms being closed!
I actually had put the title of the video into the .mp4 file when using ffmpeg and under the -metadata -title tag - and Plex never picked it up. Now I’ve converted to .mkv because it handles subtitles better, not sure this will work embedding the title into an .mkv?
For the embedded title from an MP4 file to get picked up, you need to make sure the Local Media Agent is enabled.
Hehe - what is a “forum dumpster fire” ? Is this issue that I came across a long bone of contention?
It would not be a big issue for me if all the Plex documentation didn’t SPECIFICALLY MENTION TO PUT THE NAME OF THE EPISODE as part of the file name, and then have the PLEX SOFTWARE PROCEED TO IGNORE the information they just TOLD you to include.
Ah, thanks! I think when I tried it to recognize the meta data, I wasn’t aware of those media agents.
BTW as an interim solution, before Plex, I was just using my Nvidia Shield with VLC Player. I’d fire up VLC Player, and then navigate to my external USB which houses my video files, and press play. I go annoyed by the fact that as the video starts in VLC it would display “P90X - se01e01 - Chest & Back.mkv” and so in ffmpeg i used -metadata title=“P90X - Chest & Back” so that it would display the series and episode nicely in VLC! Except - now I’m going to have to go back and update that same metadata to show just the episode name “Chest & Back” - but WHATEVER!
Search ‘Killing PMP’…
Filebot will match:
Show Name - Episode Name
then extrapolate the correct info from the database.
The Episode Name may be used at some point to help identify the file during matching - I don’t know, but it sounds good, right?
What I use it for is during the edit, I usually forget what the title is, so I can see it if it’s there…lol
Haha… Interesting enough. Yes!!. The one feature I wish FileBot had. Name scraping. No matter how you look at it. The numbering order can and does change. The title is for life!!
That’s my dilemma right now. I’m going through and remaking my entire plex library only to find that the episodes are now in a different order… Fun, fun…
It does it very well.
Take:
Looney Tunes.
Looney Tunes - The CooCoo Nut Grove <—not a problem, FileBot finds it instantly in that sea of Looney Tunes over there and names it right.
My bad… It has a very difficult time when the numbering nomenclature is present.
Huh… I can’t say I see that.
I usually ‘pre-name’ things like:
perry mason s1e2
and it’s no problem
If anything, the optional selections for really difficult items is a bit much at times, but if you skip it and it can’t be found, you can pretty much bet it’s in that list you didn’t look at…lol
We may need to move to the filebot forums, lol
I’m probably explaining it wrong… But what I’m saying is today thetvdb lists season1, episode 1 as
Perry Mason (1957) - s01e01 - The Case of the Restless Redhead.mp4
and tomorrow the new order is
Perry Mason (1957) - s01e06 - The Case of the Restless Redhead.mp4
With that said, FileBot will match and use the new title for ep01, whatever that may be.
Yep - it has a singular mission and mindlessly does it.
It’s one of the few things I can count on…
when it has to fix crap like the above - it’s painless.
Speaking of Perry Mason and lame names…
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.
“Chapter 1” just doesn’t do it for me when I’m used to seeing great names like:
“The Case of the Girl with the Big - Problem”
Where has creativity gone?