I thought I’d take another shot at tagging the Doctor Who specials. By this, I mean the ones that are important to the storyline, like the ones between seasons 4 & 5 and the Christmas specials which are actually full-length episodes.
I saw that some mod on TVDB said they were optional viewing and it was up to Plex to implement a solution, which shows both douchiness and a lack of understanding. I also know that the new Plex agent was supposed to work around the overall douchiness of the TVDB.
I know that I’m not going to get them or TMDB to change their ordering, and I feel like Plex is a lot more responsive to their users. So I’d like to know if there’s a 2021 update to a 2009 problem.
We don’t need another thread about (for example) getting metadata for S00E02 The Christmas Invasion. Instead, is there a way to download all that good stuff, and then preserve it while renaming the file so that it appears as either S01E14 or S02E00?
Is there a way to get that stuff into an XML file or something, even if it has to be done manually? Can fields be locked and maintained if a file is renamed?
I’ve discovered that when I use Tag & Rename that the podcast description field gets pulled into the summary field, so that’s one way to do it if using local metadata. But surely there can be something easier? And yes, I did just call you Shirely.
Thanks in advance to the community for all the ideas and suggestions that I hope come out of this.
Those specials should show in sequence on the post-play screen and the continue watching hubs. There’s no mechanism in Plex to show them inline the regular seasons (though there’s a long-standing feature suggestion for that – it seems users are kind of interested but not enthusiastic).
The workaround you describe should work for mp4/m4v/mov files from which Plex will read embedded metadata… I haven’t tested this – I suppose you might have more trouble assigning an episode 0. There’s no way to “download the good stuff” and then move the file/item to another spot.
I use embedded mp4 metadata to do the S01E14 (Christmas Invasion example) and the S04E14/15/16/17/18 (Season 4 specials) method, but it’s been having its own issues the last few weeks as I’ve been adding S13 episode, it’s forgotten things like season posters (TVDB issue), air dates (set as metadata in mp4), episode posters (even though the title screen is set as the poster in the mp4) even though local assets and metadata are selected. Only series that does it.
Having to go through 12 1/2 season and manually change the artwork and hope it sticks each time it refreshes is a demoralising effort indeed
I agree totally, Gregor. Continue watching is sort of like kissing your sister. It’s just not as good as it should be. Besides that, the TVDB’s specials ordering is so screwed up.
I think I know what you mean about refreshing messing things up, and what’s worse is that I’ve got them in a collection with Doctor Who 1963 & Torchwood, so refresh isn’t even an option; I have to the Plex dance each time I make changes. So it goes.
One of the reason I started this thread up was to find a better way than relying on TVDB. Do you enter your mp4 metadata in the Plex interface? Do you find any fields that are imported directly? I’ve only gotten “Podcast Description” to fill the summary field. Have you found any other shortcuts to make the demoralizing effort less demoralizing?
Sometimes it’s just easier to wait in adding episodes and just add the entire season in one big dump, unless you want to do the tired old Plex dance every week.
To get the metadata into the file, I use MetaX, it fills everything, titles, descriptions, airdates, directors, actors, producers, writers, season number, episode number, tv network etc., this way the file is universal if I want to move away from Plex. And theoretically Plex should add nothing I don’t already have, but for some reason the new TV agent doesn’t respect the local assets and local metadata options even when checked, it’s pretty much my single point of frustration with the TV side.
@Sipleynet I believe I have your solution. Doctor Who was driving me crazy as well! I ended up (spoiler: this is not the solution) making playlists, which is what I used for a while. Then a few months ago I discovered that someone organized TVDB’s Doctor Who DVD ordering to be the ordering you are looking for. I don’t know when they did this, but it solves the DW plot-critical-specials problem. It places the end of Ten’s story at the end of season 4, and it moves all the Christmas specials inside of seasons. The only specials that aren’t included are the “Children In Need: Born Again” (S00E001) and “Children In Need: Time Crash” (S00E06) 8-minute videos that take place right after regeneration into 10 and right after Martha leaves and he meets the Fifth Doctor, respectively. I put these in a “Shorts” folders in their respective seasons. These extras show up in some clients but not all, but I don’t see it as the biggest deal. You’ll need to rename files to match the DVD order and then go into the Doctor Who show’s Advanced settings in Plex and change the “Episode ordering” dropdown to “DVD Ordering.” Then rescan media and refresh metadata, and you should be good!
TVDB mods are hit or miss. I find a lot of them don’t understand differences in series structures outside of the US. They sometimes make really strange or culturally obtuse changes with anime series, and us fans have to get really loud for the mods to revert changes.
As an alternate consider using TMDB ordering on that show. They have a STRICT aired ordering rule which actually works really well for some shows like Doctor Who.
You might need to rename some of your files initially as they differ to TVDB but is another option to consider.
