1)
I put almost all of my videos through Handbrake.
Videos from DVDs, I crop the black borders away, because having those in a video file will eventually bite you in the back.
If the video is anamorphic (and if its from DVD it always is anamorphic), i simply preserve the anamorphic flag. I don’t change the file to quadratic pixels.
All Plex clients I use have no issues with that.
2)
These are the rules. The subitle filename must be identical to the name of the video file.
Only put forced in there if it is really a subtitle that only translates some of the dialog (or on-screen writings).
If you have a subtitle which transcribes all the dialog, it is not a forced but a ‘complete’ sub.
The language of the subtitle is recommended to be included in the file name. But it is only required if you want to use Plex’s automatic stream selection feature.
You may want to have a look at Filebot. While it changes the names of the video files to a Plex-conforming structure, it can optionaly treat the external subtitles as well.
3)
You can disable the removal of articles from the sort titles. It is a relatively simple procedure, but it only affects newly added (or Plex Dance’d) items.
4)
If you are “repurposing” meta tags which were intended for other things, you’ll have to prepare for such occurances.
If the ‘Album’ meta tag present in a video file, Plex will put this video file into a ‘Collection’. So you better not use it for anything else.
I can only recommend you to tell Plex to look at embedded metadata last, only after it has fetched metadata from its external sources.
Like so:
Go to
- Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheTVDB
In there, grab the line ‘Local Media Assets’ with your mouse and drag it downwards, so it ends up being at the bottom of the stack of active agents.
Repeat the same under
- Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheMovieDatabase
- Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - Plex Movie
- Settings - Server - Agents - Movies - TheMovieDatabase
