I have been baffled at how documentaries are (not) managed by plex. I just want a single library with all my documentaries in, but that seems impossible?
I get that some are seen as films, and others as TV shows, what I dont get is why plex cares if I mix and match?
I made a new library called documentaries, and chose TV programs as the type. If i put a “film” in the folder it wont show up.
Whilst i dont think I should have to, im fine doing some manual work, so the only way I appear to be able to get a “film” to show up in there is by adding S00E01 to the title, but then none of the meta data comes through…no worries I’ll match it…but I cant, becuase it will only allow me to match to tv shows?
Why does the agent drop down only show series, If I am manually matching something why does plex care where I get the data from?
I also tried putting {imdb-tt31189868} to the title, which I thought would force it, but that didnt bring the meta through either
I am missing something here?! Why is this even an issue? Documetaries are hardly a new or a niche thing, why would I want to have docs-films and docs-tv shows? Why cant Plex allow me to associate any file with any meta data if I am manually picking it? Whats the rational behind this??
I absolutely agree with you. Time and again I’ve come back to this issue to try and figure out a better solution.
Although time consuming, I have resorted to using a generalised video library and then manually edit metadata for documentary films, documentary tv series and random clips, using an external metadata editor. It unfortunately also requires creating custom artwork to fit the aspect of the thumbnail. However, it is painfully tedious having to do this, so inevitably I go so far before shelving it for another few months.
Like you, I simply do not understand why PLEX cannot have mixed libraries with the media-type specified on an item-by-item basis, may be with a global default.
Alternatively, implement ‘smart folders’ that can sit in the sidebar and pull items from specified libraries. For example, a ‘Documentaries’ folder could pull content from three separate libraries: documentary_films; documentary_tv; and documentary_clips.
I have the same problems with Music Content and Comedy Performances, where the collective content consists of television series, standalone shows (films) and undocumented clips.
Well, don’t try mixing movies with TV shows… your movie as S00E01 “hack” translates to the metadata sources as special for a series - which seldomly results in getting any metadata.
You need two libraries: one for movies, one for TV shows.
Well, this has often been asked, but it is their basic principle of handling videos. They will not throw that over-board for greater flexibility.
Thanks for the response. I’m glad im not the only one struggling with this.
I did look at doing a general library, but then it doesnt handle series well and as you have said would be alot of faffing about to get it right.
After posting I did digging and found other people asking this over the years, on the face of it, it seems like quite a trivial thing to implement, and but I guess not enough want it to warrent doing anything about it. I’ll go have a look if its something jellyfin can handle.
I think for now I’ll have to stick with two libraries, docs-movies and docs-series, which is not ideal, and is even more annoying since you cant change the icon.
It would be very interesting to hear why this limitation is even in place. Is there a good reason why they would not want us to be able to manually associate a file with its meta data, regardless of its type?!
