I think that the file-naming conventions imposed on people are frankly retarded. I do not want spaces are other strange characters on my file system; it’s a pain in rump to use them, and I would rather not use them at all. Meta data is not only sufficient for the task but designed for the task. How can we bypass the ridiculous file-naming debacle and use meta data only?
You can either try and find another scanner and agent setup that works for you over here - http://forums.plex.tv/categories/scanners-and-agents (or create your own if none found)
Another alternative is to provide all the metadata yourself via local media assets - https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220677-Local-Media-Assets-Movies
A third option that comes to my mind is to use a .nfo file and in it have a IMDB tt-number in it - it should help the matching algorithm.
Lastly I want to note that Plex guideline on naming is based on what the provider(s) expects, afaik, Plex doesn’t take an arbitrary stance on this just to make life a PITA for you but does so to comply with thetvdb etc for better matching purpose. Plex knows there are a myriad of ways to name said media files and does its best to an extent, but the source has to atleast have some sort of resemblance [in naming] to what it is trying to match against.
Thanks, Peter… really. But all those solutions are just as much of a PITA. I guess there should exist a feature in Plex, call it Metadata Only, to eliminate all use of scanning via “thetvdb etc” and enable use of meta data only. Then, the source has no need to match anything: it’s already there to read.
Not sure I follow. If the metadata is there because you’ve already provided it - then why not use the local media assets? If that’s not what you mean, how can Plex provide all of that data without having the chance of matching it against something, and then download it for you?
You can always setup a home video library and browse by folder if you want to skip it all together.
When you say “…enable use of meta data only,” do you mean only embedded metadata? If so, then the “Local Media Assets” Peter mention is exactly how you tell Plex to prefer (not exclusively) local, embedded metadata.
Plex won’t allow you to completely turn off scanning online services, but, if you properly set Plex to use local assets, it will only retrieve metadata from the online services if the local metadata is missing.
