Getting multi-version movies to prompt with choice before playback

General Discussions
1

I know there are a ton of threads on this subject, but as surprising as it is, nobodies questions got properly answered. Plex has a feature shown on this page “https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200381043-Multi-Version-Movies” for different ways to add multi-versions to your library. One is to add them, then split them into different titles. This doesn’t interest me. The other way is to ask Plex to prompt you before playback about which version you want. The way this seems to work is when you put them in your library a certain way, when you visit the title in your library, somewhere, there will be a way to select which version you play (other than in “Play Version” which only shows resolution and that speed needed for full quality.)

I have followed that page to the letter as well as trying things I read around the web. But i’m never prompted to choose which version I play. Ive heard this option shows up under “play from beginning” after you select play. In every single forum when someone has mentioned that they can’t get this feature to work after someone suggests it, the person doesn’t answer. I can’t seem to figure out how it’s done. I essentially have full screen and wide screen versions and I do not want to split them into separate items. Im aware that this feature is meant for multiple resolutions, but given that the versions are identical other than aspect ratio I see no reason it can’t be applied to my situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

@Scottsherman07

Not having questions answered or bug fixed is pretty standard around here so get use to it…

Most of the time ‘answers’ come from other users who either through dumb luck or experimentation have figured it out.

If you have not yet put 2 and 2 together… the plex ‘documentation’ frequently lags latest release changes and might have been written years ago and are woefully out of date.

Now to your question…

Plex in its childlike manipulation of thier database structure… stove pipes content in you selected ‘Libraries’

If you have your movies segregated say … in folders with blu rays in one folder and dvd in another and set up a library for each with only the blu ray folder for blu ray and dvd for the other … you start running into problems

Lets assume further that there are no duplicates for a moment

If you click on a actor in a blu ray movie you will not see the other movies you have with him it it from the dvd library… etc

Now lets say in your case you have a movie in both folders … a dvd copy and a blu ray…

If you do a general search from the top bar or a search bar that is not in a library you will see 2 different entries for the same movie complete with seperate metadata… change the poster on one and the other wont change … treated as 2 seperate movies…

If you search from within a library you will of course only get entries from that libary…

When you play a movie like this with the same movie being referenced in 2 different libraries … lets say you have a library called kids movies and all movies. The kids movies library is only pointing at a folder with kids movies and the all movies and maps to all your movie folder locations…

When you pause or stop … you will have 2 or more movies on the main page asking you to resume…

Its a cluster******. And plex has yet to address it … plex’s database coding is like watching Hellen Keller juggle chainsaws… entertaining to a point but with gross results…

Plex assumes that you have all your movies in the same folder and that you only have one library with them all in it… if you have 2 versions of the same movie in the same library… and only in that library… things work a bit better… you will most of the time depending on the client get the option to play version… sometime not… like if you are using a preroll video or playing trailers before the movie… that complete broke that functionality for me… if I tried to select a version to play… and had either of those options in use … plex would ignore it and play whatever version it felt like… and generally it would skip over the full quality direct play/stream version I asked for and transcode… I was told it was the way the backend put the playlist together… and as far as I know its still broke… 2 more ‘pass features’ I pay for I dont use because it breaks playback of the movie… properly… which is the whole damn point of having plex… but they don’t care … brought this up serveral time over the years… even to elan… never gets addressed of fixed…

Good luck

3

I think what you are trying to do is have, as an example, a Director’s cut, and the original movie show as 2 separate movies, each with their own progress and watched status. It’s possible, I do it occasionally, but it involves a “work-around” I described in this thread:

It may look complicated, but once you have gone thru the procedure a couple of times, it’s actually pretty easy, and doesn’t take too much time.

4

@Scottsherman07 said:
I know there are a ton of threads on this subject, but as surprising as it is, nobodies questions got properly answered. Plex has a feature shown on this page “https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200381043-Multi-Version-Movies” for different ways to add multi-versions to your library. One is to add them, then split them into different titles. This doesn’t interest me. The other way is to ask Plex to prompt you before playback about which version you want. The way this seems to work is when you put them in your library a certain way, when you visit the title in your library, somewhere, there will be a way to select which version you play (other than in “Play Version” which only shows resolution and that speed needed for full quality.)

I have followed that page to the letter as well as trying things I read around the web. But i’m never prompted to choose which version I play. Ive heard this option shows up under “play from beginning” after you select play. In every single forum when someone has mentioned that they can’t get this feature to work after someone suggests it, the person doesn’t answer. I can’t seem to figure out how it’s done. I essentially have full screen and wide screen versions and I do not want to split them into separate items. Im aware that this feature is meant for multiple resolutions, but given that the versions are identical other than aspect ratio I see no reason it can’t be applied to my situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is one of those “may ways to do it” problem.

I put both files in the same location with hidden resolution in the name , e.g. [720] for a 720p or [mobile] in the same directory. Notice PMS shows the multiple version “2” tag in the upper left corner .

Here’s what I see when I go to play it. Does this address your question ?

5

@ChuckPA

That’s a new one that I have yet to see… where is that documented?
And why should it be required to manually tag a resolution when plex should be able to tell what the resolution and bit rate are… again this worked in the past… but is becoming less reliable and completely breaks in certain circumstances as I mentioned above.

Do they have to be in the same location (on drive) or added in the same library (possibly from different locations?

When are you guys going to get past database 101 and start addressing the shortfalls of the way the plex database catalogs assets… it shouldn’t matter where on the drive structure or what library a movie, show, actor etc is … once a relational item is in the database it should be fully actionable and manipulatable data… not stovepiped …

6

@dragonmel

Whenever you have two versions of the the same movie in the same Item (movie) directory. They must be co-located (Same Movies (Year) directory.
It has been this way for as long I’ve been using the version 3 Plex/Web UI.

Please stay on topic for this thread. Thank you.

7

@ChuckPA

1 loose the attitude … my inputs are on topic

2 this is a public forum, and we are all here trying to help each other, present plex with bug reports and provide the quality control that it doesnt do before a realease … without us you would need to hire a lot more people…

3 for every answer you give… members like me answer 100 more

4 you didnt address my point. Where is it documented now on the best practice to add hidden resolution tags to the file name that you suggested… that was my question to you… goes to the fact that plex documentation and FAQ are out of date

The op followed the guidence in the documents and FAQ and its not working for him

I have stated repeatedly here on this forum, to Elan himself, that the way plex users were told to stack movies did not work when other service were enabled like trailers and pre roll… he promised he would look into it… it was more than a year ago… no peep…

And to further my point on this topic… it should not matter in what folder or library a resource resides in… plex should have better database asset relation …

I get it … you are one of a woefully inadiquate support staff… but dont bite the hands that help around here or most of us will just stop… unlike you I dont get paid for my time here.

8

After re-reading the OP and replies several times, I don’t believe anyone has really provided an answer, and I don’t think there is a real solution. I actually don’t recall any apps ever asking me which version to play… they either choose the first version that fits the resolution/bitrate set in the preferences for the app or the server transcodes to those settings.

Most apps (maybe all) DO have a choose version option, but the information provided only shows resolution/bitrate, not the actual file name.

So, even if we use @ChuckPA 's suggestion, if both the wide-screen (assume 16X9 aspect) and the full-screen (assume 4X3) from the original post are ripped from a DVD, it’s possible Plex will show the same info for both versions. That is, as an example, 480p/2Mbps. (the “original” and “optimized for mobile” description only show if you use the Plex optimizing feature, and wouldn’t apply in this situation) It’s a 50/50 chance you’ll select the version you want.

In the web app, you might make a good guess at which version by clicking on the “View Info” button, and determine which is listed first from the actual file names. As far as I know, that information (the actual file name) is not readily available in any other app.

Hopefully, someone can come up with an acceptable solution for this circumstance, even if it is an uncommon problem :slight_smile:

9

@ChuckPA said:
@dragonmel

Whenever you have two versions of the the same movie in the same Item (movie) directory. They must be co-located (Same Movies (Year) directory.
It has been this way for as long I’ve been using the version 3 Plex/Web UI.

Please stay on topic for this thread. Thank you.

His reply is very much “On topic”. It must strike a nerve to bring comments such as this out into the open.

Documentation is woefully out of date. Users have to use numerous workarounds to get the desired functionality. This issue is one of many that are poorly documented, and the desired functionality has to be hodgepodged to get some semblance of a library that makes sense to the users and the admins.

There are a few ways to get the desired functionality the OP has asked about. One is to make a separate library with a different agent to get the metadata. This means you have to choose the library first to get the version you want. If you used different agents for the metadata, watched status isn’t shared. If the libraries use the same agents, watched status tracks on the agent, not the media item, so watching one marks both as “Watched”. (I use this method for anything 3D, so all of my 3D media is in it’s own library. This is less than ideal, but does work.)

Another is as @ChuckPA has suggested, naming the files with the resolution or cut in braces. (“[” and “]”) This makes a little blue “2” (or more if you have more resolutions) and then requires you to use the “Play Version” feature in the media info page. Again, less than ideal, and you can’t just start playing the media from a library browse screen. You NEED to go into the info page for “Play Version” otherwise you get the highest resolution. (You can combine this with the option below as well. Split the media for two library entries.)

The last method is to have each media item in separate folders, and then split them once they are added to the library. This method uses the same agent, and progress/watched status follows the agent, so watching one makes both marked as “watched”. This is also less than ideal, since it also requires a bit more work on your part, forces you to select the correct version to play, and doesn’t split the tracking for each item.

We have been asking for a long time, to get a pop up like “Play Version” to come up when you hit “Play”. With this you could select the version you want from the browse screen instead of going into the media item itself. The option is already there, we just need it one level higher in the tier to actually make full of the feature.

10

as far as i can tell the original question is;

“How do i get a Plex player app to prompt me after hitting the play button when i have different versions?”

the answer to that question is

No Plex player app does that anymore. The only way to choose is to select the “play version” option in the player apps which have that option.

I’m not sure why ChuckPA’s web app is still giving him that prompt from his screenshot but I assure you it is not a current feature.

I will ask to get the support article mentioned in first post updated

11

@BigWheel said:
as far as i can tell the original question is;

“How do i get a Plex player app to prompt me after hitting the play button when i have different versions?”

the answer to that question is

No Plex player app does that anymore. The only way to choose is to select the “play version” option in the player apps which have that option.

I’m not sure why ChuckPA’s web app is still giving him that prompt from his screenshot but I assure you it is not a current feature.

I will ask to get the support article mentioned in first post updated

This was exactly what I wanted to know. I still get the Play Version option, jut not the prompt.

Is there something fundamentally difficult about adding support for multiple versions? I couldn’t believe how much people were asking about this feature through the years on the forums. Having multi-versions be it full and wide screen or even alt. cuts is clearly a heavily requested feature. Can we hope to have this in the future or is this something Plex just doesn’t care about?

12

@ChuckPa said:

@Scottsherman07 said:
I know there are a ton of threads on this subject, but as surprising as it is, nobodies questions got properly answered. Plex has a feature shown on this page “https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200381043-Multi-Version-Movies” for different ways to add multi-versions to your library. One is to add them, then split them into different titles. This doesn’t interest me. The other way is to ask Plex to prompt you before playback about which version you want. The way this seems to work is when you put them in your library a certain way, when you visit the title in your library, somewhere, there will be a way to select which version you play (other than in “Play Version” which only shows resolution and that speed needed for full quality.)

I have followed that page to the letter as well as trying things I read around the web. But i’m never prompted to choose which version I play. Ive heard this option shows up under “play from beginning” after you select play. In every single forum when someone has mentioned that they can’t get this feature to work after someone suggests it, the person doesn’t answer. I can’t seem to figure out how it’s done. I essentially have full screen and wide screen versions and I do not want to split them into separate items. Im aware that this feature is meant for multiple resolutions, but given that the versions are identical other than aspect ratio I see no reason it can’t be applied to my situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is one of those “may ways to do it” problem.

I put both files in the same location with hidden resolution in the name , e.g. [720] for a 720p or [mobile] in the same directory. Notice PMS shows the multiple version “2” tag in the upper left corner .

Here’s what I see when I go to play it. Does this address your question ?

I too get this option, but mine only shows resolution. Yours says “Original” and “Optimized for mobile”. Im curious if you were able to title these yourself or if plex came up with these titles based on codec info. If you did indeed title these yourself how did you do it? It would be incredible to at least add a “Widescreen” and “Fullscreen” text in front of the media info.

13

I used the Plex Optimizer and told it to Optimize for mobile. I see no reason it shouldn’t work for another other Optimizer options but haven’t actually used it for this purpose yet.

14

When making an Optimized version when choosing custom you can give it a name for quality. I suppose you can name it whatever you want.

but there is no file naming scheme for that. you can’t name file a directors cut or whatever someway to get it to do that.

15

If i place the same movie title… with different formats or bitrates in 2 different sub folders … again . Lest call it blurays and DVD … and I add both of those folder paths to the same library… than plex will stack them in the same thumbnail with the blue 2 box in the corner… if you pull up the additional info for the library item… you will see both formats in the metadata… most clients will give you the option to play version this way

Now if you had the same folders setup and placed them in 2 different library’s… with each library only seeing one file path. I.e. Bluray library linked to the blue ray path and DVD library linked to the dvd path… than there will be 2 separate posters and 2 seperate items in the database… they wont stack and they wont offer a play version…

You will see both identical posters in the recently added section on the home page of PMS (unless you manually change one) and you can edit each movies meta seperately…

It really has nothing to do with what chuck said… if you whan to be asked by the client which version… they have to be stacked in PMS with the blue 2,3 etc box on the post and that required they be in the same libarary because plex stovepipes the meta by library as I have stated… if you click on a movie… say Bourne identity and its in dvd but you have Bourne supremacy in blu ray… and you go into that item in plex… you will not see the collection … it will not see the other title it will not link the actors… its completely isolated…