Hi everyone, I want to add what I would call a Documentary to my Documentary Library in Plex. I name the file just like the other files in my Documentary Library,
Implosion The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025) {tvdb-367165}
When I add this to my Documentary Library it doesn’t show up in Plex, but if I add it to my Film library it does shows up.
TVDB has the Documentary listed as a Movie, but other Documentaries that show up in my Documentary folder are also listed as Movies, but show up in the Documentary folder.
So why do some Documentaries show up in the Documentary folder but others don’t?
There is no “documentaries” library type. There are TV and Movie libraries, Which you can call documentaries or whatever you want but it isn’t a library type
because some documentaries are movies and some are short run tv shows ( series). which is decided at TVDB or other sites like TMDB . we don’t decide it. Sometimes things have two separate listings on sites for both.
If a tv show/series it needs to be in a tv library with the proper notation in files (S01E01)
If a movie library it need to not have season/episode numbers
Thanks for the quick reply, so basically TVDB decide whether it’s a movie, documentary or tv show and that impacts which folder it shows up in Plex?
It would be nice if I could put all my Documentaries in the Documentary Folder that I created, but if that’s how it is I’ll just have to flip between Libraries.
There is no Documentary library type. Documentary is just a genre like Drama or comedy. it does not affect whether it is a TV series or movie.
plex uses multiple sources but yes they need to be listed on the sites we get metadata from as such. again “Documentary” is not a type on any site afaik
it may be both like this but still has to be named appropriately for the movie or tv library is it in.
Thanks for the links, so like you say, sometimes a Documentary can be listed twice as two different categories with two different ID’s. I’ll have a look to see if some of my Documentaries that are in my Film Library are listed also as a series/documentary.
I have a Documentary called “The Greatest Night In Pop”
I placed that in my Documentary Folder in my Synology NAS a few months ago and it shows up in my Documentary Library in Plex, but I’ve just noticed that TVDB has it down as a movie, so how come it shows in my Documentary Library?
So when I want to add a Documentary onto my NAS how do I know if I’m putting it in the correct folder?
Just naming the library Documentary doesn’t mean anything. You chose either TV library movie library type when you created that library. You can tell what type it is by looking at the icon or editing the library and looking at the General tab.
Things in a TV library need season episode numbers in file name to show up at all in that library type.
Things in a movie library need to not have season/episode numbers to show up at all in that library type
you coudl always name it so it shows up. Like if you name it The Greatest Night In Pop/The Greatest Night In Pop S01E01.mkv it will show up in a TV library but it won’t get any metadata since it won’t find any for a TV show by that name..
For TV series, you can change the episode ordering at either the library level (so this impacts all series) or at the series level so you only modify the series you need to. The recommendation would be to set the TV library to the episode ordering that is going to match the majority of your series (the 80/20 rule). For the rest you can change the episode ordering per series.
To change the episode ordering for the library:
Click the 3 vertical dots to the right of the library name after you hover over it
Hover over “Manage Library” to open a submenu
Click on “Edit…” to open the edit modal
Click “Advanced” in the left panel
Change the default ordering at the bottom of the modal (TMDB is the default)
Making changes at the series level is fairly similar, the only difference is you will go to the edit modal at the series level. There are also additional options at the series level for TheTVDB (see screenshot below).
To edit a series, go to the show (top level, not within a season) and then click the edit icon (the pencil icon). In the dialog that opens, clicked “Advanced” in the left panel then click the drop down for “Episode ordering” to change it for that series (Library default is the default). Lastly click save and then refresh the metadata for that series to update the metadata.
Screenshot to see the dialog and the options available.
Documentaries and other long form single-episode programs that are shown as part of a series can get multiple listings on metadata providers. Take the BBCFour’s program about Chernobyl from 2016…
But it also aired as S44E08 of the PBS series NOVA:
So you can also find it on the series’s listing on theTVDB for Nova here, as well as on TMDB here (listed as episode 15 on TMDB).
In fact, theTVDB also lists it as a whole separate TV series of one episode:
This can also apply to non-documentary programs.
The 1954 production of Nineteen Eighty-Four, starring Peter Cushing, is listed as a movie on TMDB:
This was actually a live-acted broadcast and part of a BBC series that ran for almost a decade, so you do have the option of listing it as S05E50 of the show:
So in Plex’s mindset there are 3 types of videos (2 using online databases, and personal Media not in a public databases)
1. Movies: Any single self-contained video (whether it’s a TV movie, TV Single Documentary, Movies released either in theaters, direct to disk, or VOD) Because there is some overlap some movies are both TV show special Episodes, and Standalone movies depending on where you want to put them.
2. TV shows: These are a collection of multiple related videos (Could be a documentary series on the discovery channel, Daily episodes of the Tonight’s Show, or a regular TV series like Lost, or Star Trek)
3. Personal Media - Plex completely ignores these unless they have local embedded metadata.
For Library types 1 & 2 Plex combines several data sources to populate posters, descriptions and other metadata.
