DVD ordering of episodes

General Discussions
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I would like to re-address the DVD order decimal issue brought up by @ svensayshi earlier in this thread. As far as I can tell, this feature still does not work, and now that DVD order is supported natively by Plex, the plugin suggested by @ChuckPa that may have handled this in the past is no longer supported

Apologies as I brought this up in other threads before finding this one, it seems this is the right thread to get the dev’s attention, so I will stick to this thread in the future

Many DVD series are enumerated with decimal places on the TVDB. If the scraper does not recognize the decimal notation in file names, we have no choice but to use Airdate order, which often times breaks the show’s continuity. This can also be a pain when labeling episodes we’ve ripped off of a dvd, since dvd rips are not in airdate order

The only way I’ve found to get these series in proper DVD order is to manually edit nfo files and use the Plex nfo plugin. The two media managers I tried also had issues handling the decimals (Ember, Tiny). I find it bizarre that no scrapers are aligning to the TVDB standard

This is not just an issue with Seinfeld. I will list the series with which I’ve noticed the issue below, so others Googling will at least see that there’s not much that can be done:

Adventure Time
Captain N & the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
Garfield & Friends
Invader Zim
Metalocalypse
My Little Pony 'n Friends
The Office
Powerpuff Girls
The Ren and Stimpy Show
Rocko’s Modern Life
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
Seinfeld
Shin Chan
SpongeBob Squarepants

Add to the above the following that @ svensayshi mentioned:
Animaniacs
PAW Patrol

This is just from my small collection, and only the series in which I noticed the issue. Surely there are many more. For non-kids series, like The Office and Seinfeld, the issue is usually hidden in double episodes, and all other episodes are enumerated as expected, so it’s hard to notice until you get to a particular episode

I realize this may be a difficult fix, but there are ways to specify decimal notated episodes, as svensayshi pointed out, and this is one fix that would remedy a gulf of episode mismatch issues

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I have moved your post here to a fresh thread so discussion is clear and not confused with the issues of the other thread.

Filename examples, as they exist, will be needed because at the episode level, if periods are used for other purposes, matching will be confused and have incorrect result.

Also, I will need look where DVD ordering is defined. PMS does support this but I’ve not used in a while. I will unfortunately be busy these next few days. Perhaps someone can assist in the interim .

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Thanks for the help!

I have created a simple test library to illustrate the issue. The library is a TV Shows library using TheTVDB as the default agent. I have only included two files in the library, in the “Adventure Time” directory, with the following names:
“Adventure Time - S02E01.1.mkv”
“Adventure Time - S02E01.2.mkv”
After the library initially populates, I change the “Episode Ordrering” in the Edit → Advanced menu to “DVD order”
I’ve posted a screenshot of the result, including the the names of the files used:

Plex_No_Subepisode
Plex_No_Subepisode929×538 148 KB

Note that both files are stacked on to a single instance of Episode 1: “It Came from the Nightosphere”. There is no reference to Episode 1.2 “The Eyes” after the scan. As far as I can tell, the subepisode enumeration after the decimal is completely ignored, and therefore the episodes are stacked as two version of Episode 1

Please let me know if there’s any other information I can provide that will help debug the issue

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Even though the old agent isn’t supported it still works

For many kids shows that have the decimals I use it and it works fine…you should just use it until there is a better solution

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@mcrommert, is this the old agent you are referring to? https://github.com/tgvarik/TheTVDB.bundle/tree/feature/dvd-order

I tried to use it but it didn’t seem to work. It may be that I don’t understand how to use it.

I can tell I installed it properly because I see the new text field in the agent settings: “Use DVD order for these series (comma-separated TVDB series IDs)”, but when I try to make it work with the example I posted above, by providing the series ID 152831 for Adventure Time, I get the same results as before (both subepisodes stack on top of a single episode).

Is it working for you when providing series ID? If so, how do you label the subepisodes?

also, has it worked for you recently (i.e. you have sorted new content)? It’s possible it no longer works after changes to Plex or TVDB

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That’s the one. You should remove the content from your library (pull to a folder outside your Plex structure) and then change the default agent for your library to the dvdorder one. Then add back the media and let the library scan it in correctly. Basically it needs to use the right agent from the start as it changes how it looks at the numbering

So I’m realizing I may have mistook your issue to a small degree. With a show like paw patrol the DVD order is similar; there is a 1a and a 1b. But this happens because each broadcast episode has two episodes contained…so in DVD order when I denote episode 1 it has two titles like it should instead of the single title for a 12 minute episode it would have in normal. If you have separated the episodes in half…you are better off doing the non DVD order and labeling them with their non a and b denotations (regular order would have a number per episode)

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Yeah the issue I’m having is when split episodes are not the same in dvd order as they are in aired order. The list I posted above may contain some where the orders match, in which case the solution is simply to match to aired order, but it’s reasonable to assume that a dvd order sort feature should be able to match any dvd order on TVDB, as this prevents us from having to diff the orders of every series for inconsistencies

so from what I’m reading, you are sorting joined rather than separated subepisodes? This does work for me if I join them and just label them with whole numbers, but I was looking for a way to sort them while they remained separated, since I can do so in aired order. Are you able to get any matches with the plugin when using decimals or “a” “b” annotations in the media’s name?

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Yeah my issue is non dvd order has them separated and i want them together so i use dvd order

I don’t know how i would solve for your issue unfortunately

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