I have a seven-season television program with a number of behind the scenes videos for each season. I read the instructions on how to name Specials here:
Those instructions tell me to name the specials with season = 00 and to match to the "Specials" section of http://thetvdb.com. The specials I have are not listed on the database, so I am looking to manually list them. So the question I have is: how to name "Special" content to fall under the episodes by season.
If an ‘episode’ you have doesn’t appear in TheTVDB (ie DVD Specials/Goof reel), place this content in the Season 0 or Specials folder named using s00Eyy using a false ‘yy’ number (ie: Heroes s00e99). The show will be available to play in a Plex client but won’t have any special metadata like posters etc.
Thanks to you both. That is what I ended up doing (assigning them all to season 0 and making up episode numbers for content not listed on thetvdb..com).
I do wish that the naming convention accounted for users who want to display "special" content within a season, as opposed to separated from the seasons.
“I do wish that the naming convention accounted for users who want to display “special” content within a season, as opposed to separated from the seasons.”
For example, Downton Abbey has a “Special” aired after each Season - the Holiday Episode, which is both by airing date as well as logically between seasons (or - if you will - at the end of each season). I don’t want to collect them in a “Specials” Folder. All the data is there in thetvdb… it is just that Plex isn’t using it (and without even giving a good reason to ist paying customers).
This is one of the things in the mind-sets of a couple of developers who want something else than everbody else is doing it - and who defend this against all good reason and common sense.
Why would anybody have episodes which are clearly “sorted” between other episodes have singled out and grouped together?
@OttoKerner said:
The special content will show up at the right moment in ‘On Deck’, based on the ‘Originally Aired’ date.
I will try that out, however even if there was a list view for all episodes that I could sort by my liking (e.g. air date or hell, name even… whatever!) that’d be amazing!
I’m currently trying to switch away from iTunes and I would have never expected to have so much more freedom and control in an Apple application over one dedicated to and hyped for a specific job.
I mean, iTunes hasn’t been really rewrote like many other apps by Apple, so maybe that’s why it’s still powerful, guess they’ll ruin in sooner or later, even better I’m moving my bum out of that pit of doom.
I have found this issue with LOST (as well as other shows). I have 100’s of found goodies for each season as well as for the entire series (interviews, lost footage, pre-production videos of location hunting, casting, etc…) all stuff that is NOT listed on thetvdb.com or any other place for that matter. Thus, a Season Specials naming convention would be a HUGE bonus. Keep Specials for the series, but add the ability to have one inside each season folder as well.
I tweak my naming convention a bit which I know many people absolutely FROWN ON!!! but it’s my server and I don’t care. I need it to do what I need it to do and if those that create the program won’t give users what they keep asking for…well…
Series specials and those season ones already listed on thetvdb.com use the normal S00E01, E02, E03, etc… I find the highest number used conventionally and have never had that be over 100. Thus, I start my numbering at E101
This give me the season number (1) and the episode number (01). So, I have 8 specials in season 1 and 3 in season 2 and 15 in season 3 you just number them as such:
S00E101
S00E102
.
.
S00E108
S00E201
S00E202
S00E203
S00E301
S00E302
.
.
S00E315
Now, if you have more than 9 seasons it works fine as it just moves from the 100’s to the 1000’s.
S00E1001
S00E1002
This at least allows YOUR special episodes to be included in your specials folder. No, they don’t show up in the seasons they belong in, but they don’t now either… THAT really should be fixed and would make show view-ability and server maintenance so much nicer.
The easiest way I could see for Plex to fix this would be for developers to add the ability for a 3rd part to season and episode. Perhaps, call it parts S02E17P01 for example, would allow us to put Razor in between BSG S02E17 and S02E18, … where we see it as belonging. (Great that it might put it on deck if in S00 with naming it can recognize,) but it would also be on deck if it were able to put where we want it… Until then, I guess it will have to be S02E21 and “The Resistance” will be S02E22… Ughhh…
Ever since trying to load Doctor Who Season 7 into Plex I absolute hate plex. Season 7 had three specials, all of which are critical to the plot lines, and one of which was a xmas special that sits right in between episodes 5 and 6. There is no way at all to have that special appear in S7 as an un-numbered episode between E05 and E06.
When it comes to sorting movies, you can get around the ordering defaults by editing the ‘Sort Title’ tag (eg: MCU, MCU 11, etc so Marvel movies are in the right order) however that option is absent for TV series. All Plex need to do is add the ‘Sort Number’ field to TV Series and allow for an ‘S’ or a decimal point in the Episode Number fields. Then within the season it could display E05, Special, E06, as the show creators intended.
@Frustrated_with_Plex I totally agree. I’m trying to have the Firefly movie ‘Serenity’ appear in the correct viewing order within season 1 but instead it sits in it’s own ‘specials’ folder/season. Mediaportal was able to insert specials within seasons seamlessly (eg; top gears specials) so I’m annoyed Plex cannot.
