I was wondering if it was possible to add all the agents to all the library category’s. I feel like adding the Plex Movie agent to “Shows” and adding theTVDB to "Movie’s would be beneficial. I’ll give an example…
I have several Saturday Night Live DVD’s. It’s “Saturday Night Live Best of Dana Carvey” I have a lot of these, all with a different actor. All named the same, just with someone else… like Mike Myers… Will Ferrell, etc. To me, SNL is a tv show. I would like them in my tv shows library. However, they will not show up there. The shows agent doesn’t recognize it. Plex movie does though. Because of this, I have to put them in the movie library. Not a big deal but for organizational purposes, I would love them moved. If the shows library had a Plex Movie agent option, them maybe I could.
That isn’t the only example unfortunately. I have Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes and other media I consider TV shows that I have to put in Movies because the shows agent doesn’t pick them up. And yes, I am naming the files correctly and have tried may different ways of naming them.
Another feature would allow me to manually add files to the library. Sometimes I come across dvd’s that are collections… like a best of whatever show. A compilation of highlights, etc. I feel like I should be able to just add the file to plex. Let me pick the library. I can add whatever image I want and name it what I want.
No, you cannot combine movies and tv shows in the same library.
Plex doesn’t do Box-sets or Best-Of releases of regular tv shows. There are simply no (reliable) metadata sources available for these. Your best bet is to determine the original season and episode number of each episode on these releases and add them as regular tv show episodes.
I agree, was just about to post the same request! Many “movies” are actually TV shows, but can’t get a match when Pex searchs for metadata and TVDB is not a selectable option for a manual search.
Example: I have a Library Folder Labeled “Holiday”, where all my Christmas Movies and Shows are located. Plex sees this as a “movies” folder (set up that way) and will not let me use TVDB as an agent choice for the shows that are in this library. Many “shows” are not episodic and are one offs, but still TV shows. Most of them are in the IMDB agent, but some are not. It would seem a pretty simple task to add TVDB as an optional agent when seeking a “match” to any library (and some libraries do actually). Moving a file from one library to another then back again seems to be a unnecessary thing for us OCD people like me.
Yes, I know plex doesn’t combine. That was my request. When I’m choosing agents for my library’s, I think I should be allowed to choose from the complete list, not just a couple of options.
As for Best of releases and boxed set, I also know metadata is unreliable. Hence why I requested a manual entry option. It would be easier for me to name 100 files than it would be to track down season and episode numbers for those 100 files AND still have to name them accordingly just for the chance for PMS to add the metadata. I’m not always interested in the metadata. Sometimes I just want to the show to be visible and organized where I want it. I’m not a software engineer. Maybe it’s not possible. It seems like a reasonable request though.
There are technical reasons for this: A movie is a stand-alone item.
A tv show however has seasons and episodes. And there are release dates for each episode. Plex will keep track which episodes you already watched and which episode is “next up”. The underlying database structures are totally different.
Hence why mixing movies and tv shows is not simple.
Then they are not tv shows for plex.
The fact that they premiered on the medium TV doesn’t matter. All that matters is whether they are listed at TheTVDB, ThemovieDB or IMDb as a “tv show” or a “(tv) movie”.
That’s where the ‘Personal Media’ agents come into play. There is one for episodic content and one for "one-off"s. They still must go in separate library types, due to the underlying different database structures.
I appreciate the responses. Please know that I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass. Everything you’ve said so far I already knew before I even made the first post. What I’m trying to convey is as a paying customer, these are features I’d like to see. Simple to do or not, this is what I and I bet a lot of your subscribers would like. Plex brags about organizing media. It’s probably one of your biggest selling points. Yet, my media is not organized as well as I would like and I’m suggesting a possible fix.
I understand that it’s nearly impossible to provide metadata for every single piece of media ever created. However, we do come across things, some obscure, some not that Plex doesn’t see. That’s cool. Allow me to manually fix it. Allow me to click on my media in Shows, allow me to check a box that enable it to be “episodic”. From there, Plex has it covered. I can already fill in the blanks and point an image file to be the poster.
Having certain tv shows in movies doesn’t work. The Looney Tunes collection I have is approximately 200 individual files. WB named each of their cartoons (i.e. Hare Tonic, Baseball Bugs). All of those file will be single entries in Movies and scattered about. Causing endless scrolling. Sure, I can make a playlist. I could also put them in Personal Media. Both defeat the purpose of Plex. Plex is for organizing media, among other things. I’m asking for more control.
You are not the first to request such a thing. And you are free to do so. I just think I have to tell you about the technical background and, based on that, how probable the implementation of it will be.
Just try it. You will end up with them very organized. And integrating more episodes is easy too. Make them a tv show. It has been done by many users before, me included. There is even a skript floating around these forums to do it semi-automatically for the episodes contained in the “Golden Collection”. Looney Tunes - Aired Order - All Seasons - TheTVDB.com
Thanks, that link is helpful. It still does not solve my problem though. It only helps in this particular instance. If I was interested in having a complete Looney Tunes collection, that link would be perfect. It’s still A LOT of work but it would do the trick. However, since this is not a complete collection, I would like to keep it consistent with the actual discs that I have. I can’t do that with Plex currently. For random, obscure and this and that kind of stuff, what you suggest is just fine. I’ve done that before. For big compilations such as this, it’s way more work than it should be.
Let me give you a hypothetical. Say I come across a Best of William Shatner set. He’s been in a lot of tv shows, spanning decades. As of right now, my only option is the one you suggest. Do a whole lot of research and name each file according to the original episode information. Extremely time consuming. Or…I could go to Plex, click on “Add New Show”. Name it (Best of William Shatner). Click on “Add New Media File”. Name it (E1 Star Trek blah blah blah). Repeat the process until I’m done. Go into settings, check the box “Make Show Episodic” so that they play in order. Now my set is organized the way I want. I’m only asking Plex to allow me to manually do what it already does automatically.
Is this easy? I don’t know. Sounds like it’s not. However it’s something I want. If other people have suggested it, then maybe you should consider it. I’m willing to bet this is a feature your users would like to have, more than you know.
For (at least) this example your feature isn’t needed as TheTVDB agent will match and grab metadata for the “Best of” collections you’ve listed. TheTVDB has them (correctly, in my opinion) categorized as specials (Season 00). For example, “Best of Dana Carvey” is S00E32 by their reckoning. I tested on my server with the following naming and it was immediately matched:
TV Shows/
Saturday Night Live (1975)/
Season 00/
Saturday Night Live (1975) - S00E32 - Best of Dana Carvey.ts
Your request may have some value for the other cases you’ve listed but, at least for SNL specials, it’s a solved problem. I mention this only because it may be the same for some of your other media and you may be trying to fix the wrong problem (missing feature vs. naming).
Awesome. Thanks. I have tried labeling similar to this in the past. I didn’t know to label season 00. How did you find that it was episode 32? I looked it up on thetvdb.com but it doesn’t give that info. It lists it as a movie…go figure.
Much clearer now, I wasn’t allowing for the tv show vs tv movie distinction. I would still like to see all the agents as an option in the match search options tho, it’s is already in the fix-match function, why not the match function as well? Then it wouldn’t matter which library I use locally, I could get a match. Wish List item.
