It's been a while, since I figured out, that some Movies / Episodes are mismatching/unmatchable due local Media Tags. Wherever I acquired a file (DVD-rip, file-sharing), sometimes due a service the media tags are edited with temp-information (for example a .mkv -> .mp4 converter) and deleting the info out of Plex's info-sheet will lock the info. Unlocking it again will end up at given situation.
So, here is my question
Should Plex be able to edit source-file names and media tags?
The information is stored anyways at Plex working dictionary, but local it could be still a mess... in addition, it happens (at least to me) quite some time, that i need to reinstall the whole Plex-app (not always Plex'es fault) and all manually matched movies/series/episodes are unmatched/mismatched again. So it would even match a title or two due changed File-Names or Media Tags... I won't do this by myself to 100++ Series with multiple Seasons with multiple Episodes...
I think of iTunes, where you can check the option, to keep Media-Files organised. So it renames, sort and stuff by itself.
In my case, I do the sorting myself - mostly including my own file-name syntax. No need for that, but I barely knew, that my converters were adding media data and that Plex make use of it. To undo this for thousands of possible files uncomfort me quite a lot. Not only that it would provide a better organised Library, even Plex might use the comment section for additional content to store information on.
Thinking of portable HDD's, information can attached to the file and re-interpreted by another Plex-server locally without an internet-access required.
So, especially those, who travels a lot or switch places without leaving their movies behind will profit.
Should Plex be able to edit source-file names and media tags?
My answer is no. Plex should never touch the original media files.
Having said that Plex should be able to override any data that is internal to a file and it should be able to totally ignore all “local media tags” but it, as far as I know, can already do that,
I also think Plex has a way to override local media metadata with some kind of configuration file but I don’t use that either,
So basically I do not think Plex needs to do anything more with local media metadata and personally I just make sure that local media is the last agent that is used and, the more I think about it, it might be better for me to just turn it of as I find it totally useless.
Plex is for streaming the media. Setting up metadata and folder structures, that’s your job. Use any of skads of tools out there for it. But to present, stream and track watched status, use Plex.
@MikeG6.5 said:
Resounding and quite emphatically NO!
Plex is for streaming the media. Setting up metadata and folder structures, that’s your job. Use any of skads of tools out there for it. But to present, stream and track watched status, use Plex.
In my case, it sounds awful to organise 1 library on external device, which is connected to multiple Win-PCs and a Mac. Since those aren’t synced via NET - and as I know, it does not anyway - to set all Watched status on each server separately without losing track of episodes… so a media-tag would have sound quite nice…
And why use multiple programs, when you could have everything out of one hand - as an option.
