Custom section / Educational section

General Discussions
1

Hi,

I have some educational materials that I want to have available in Plex. The problem is that the materials do not fit the Plex way of sorting the media.

For example, lets say I bought a photo educational pack. it’s produced and sorted like below,

  • Learn Photo
    • Photo 101
      • Lession 01
        • Chapter 01.mp4
        • Chapter 02.mp4
        • Chapter 03.mp4
      • Lession 02
        • Chapter 01.mp4
        • Chapter 02.mp4
        • Chapter 03.mp4
      • Lession 03
        • Chapter 01.mp4
        • Chapter 02.mp4
        • Chapter 03.mp4
    • Photo 201
      • etc…

Now, you could splitt the 101 and 201 to different “shows” if you are using the tv section, but I do not think that’s the best solution. I tried using the “photo” section for this and used the folder view, this is the vest solution so far, but it does not pick up poster or thumbnails, it presents them as their own item instead.

I would like to have a custom section that finds all posters, thumbnails and fan art, and can have as many sub folders as I want and mix both video and audio content, as well have different aspect ratio on thumbnails. I know, that’s a feature request and does not belong here. But to get a feature request approved and implemented takes time. So my question is, does anyone else have the same or similar issues as me, and how did you solve it?

2

I think this would be a TV-show library type. The main challenge is, that you have 4 levels. Each chapter should be a chapter in the movie/video, where all chapters are merged into one single file.

This would make the following work with video (not 100% what you wish - but pretty close). You can’t combine both audio (mp3) and video (mp4) … that would require you to convert the mp3 to a video (with the mp3 audio track).

New library “Learning” (of type: TV-show) pointing to \Learning

Learning\Learn Photo\

Learning\Learn Photo\Season 101
Learning\Learn Photo\Season 101\Learn Photo S101E01 - Lesson 01.mp4 (containing chapter 1, 2 and 3 etc)
Learning\Learn Photo\Season 101\Learn Photo S101E02 - Lesson 02.mp4

Learning\Learn Photo\Season 201
Learning\Learn Photo\Season 201\Learn Photo S201E01 - Lesson 01.mp4
Learning\Learn Photo\Season 201\Learn Photo S201E02 - Lesson 02.mp4

EDIT: It might be possible to use “Multi-Episode Files” (for chapters). Haven’t used it before, so I’m unsure.