[Implemented] - Multiple Cuts Of Movie

Feature Suggestions
463

I guess I also come from a personal experience prospective. We’ve had tons of people ask for things that just aren’t possible, or go outside the established structure we have to live in. So no matter how much people ask for those things there’s nothing we can do. But if someone gives a request that takes those things into consideration we can at least try to find a way to do them. When someone tries to think of how it could be done, I’ll be honest most of the time they don’t have any idea & are way off the mark, but sometimes those ideas help us think of a way it could actually be done. Oddly enough they more often give us ideas on how other things we were working on could work, but at least it’s something. Fanciful ideas just make people happy to dream, but they’ll never go anywhere. I could put in a feature request to have plex detect when I need a refill & automatically refill my cup. & I could get 1 million votes. But anyone looking at suggestions won’t read a single comment because it is outside the scope of the system.
This is a discussion board about a feature suggestion. Every thing we talk about will be considered. I point out potential flaws to try to get others thinking in a more realistic direction. It does not mean those suggestions I dismiss are bad, just that from what I know, which is not a lot more than others, but I have been doing research into scanners because I want to edit an existing scanner to enable a thing I think is pretty simple. But the more I researched the more I learned how not simple it is. So when I see something that from what I know makes a problem I point it out. I know if I were reading through suggestions & got to something that isn’t possible I’m going to dismiss it, but if I see something that I can picture how it would work I’m going to start thinking about how to make it real. Once I’ve started I’m invested & more likely to try to do it.

As far as my use case, I personally have no problem with more menus. I think that’s fine. But I am used to having to be thinking about practicality. To be looking for holes. When I see an idea I feel has merit I’ll try to break it apart & look for problems or ways to make it better. I’m not going to do that for things I see as “fanciful ideas” that’ll never actually happen.

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464

What scanner are you studying? The one from Jellyfin?

465

I’m looking at the Absolute Series Scanner Official Plex Series Scanner & there was a couple others I started with before deciding to go with those 2. It’s off topic so I won’t go into too much detail here, PM me if you want more information. Essentially I am trying to get it to use the TVdb.id file like Absolute Series Scanner but to ignore the season information on the file & only use the folders for seasons. Essentially I’d like to be able to have absolute episode numbers but also still be divided into seasons. Absolute let’s you make Season 2 match to a different show with the TVdb.id file, but only as a Season 1 of whatever show. I know it’s not something many people would want so I’m just trying to do it myself. I discovered it’s a lot more complicated than I initially thought, & the Absolute Series Scanner is like 20× as big as the Plex Series Scanner & changing the conditional elements leads to lots more problems & chances for errors. The thing I thought most relevant to this discussion is that conditions can only sort 1 way, so the idea of using a -EndOfFile tag to do a 2nd sort would be impossible, it’d have to be a different thing

466

16 posts were split to a new topic: Naming of different language movie files / different cuts

467

The solution that seems practical to me is to let something in the filename be placed in the Play Version menu so you can say which version is which.
For example, everything after the (year) part of the file.
This solution at least seems to work well with some of Plex’s alternatives.
It would be nice to find a resolution to such an old request.

468

For those asking if this is complex to add, lol no, it’s been in Jellyfin for awhile now, and that’s made by people who are literally unpaid to make it.

It may be difficult for PLEX to add as the app is a decade of spaghetti code.

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469

It’s not about whether it’s complex to add, it’s about whether it’s got enough interest & more importantly about how to do it.
Just because another service has added it, doesn’t mean that that addition didn’t cause problems, & Plex has a lot of users who have been around for a long time. If they add things that mess stuff up for 1% of the millions of users, & mess up their 10 years of collecting into their library that’s a lot different than the thousands of Jellyfingers who have had their libraries for maybe 10 months at most

470

Except we have figured out how to do it

Moviename (20xx).mp4
Moviename (20xx) - directors cut.mp4

This should break absolutely nothing for long time users, it only groups movies with the exact same title, and use the proper spaced -. It should only group movies that are in the same folder as each other, no issue if you follow standards.

“But what if I have reboot movies and they group?”

Then you should have properly tagged them with the year it was released, following the years long standards, I find it hard to sympathize if a update broke a user’s library cause they refused to follow proper standards.

“What if I have split movies?”

That I can understand being annoying, but programs like mkvgui can fix that in seconds.

And hell If you don’t wanna break that swap the - for a +.

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471

I don’t know if this would throw a kink in that idea, but you also have files like…

The Dark Knight (2008) - pt1.mp4
The Dark Knight (2008) - pt2.mp4
The Dark Knight (2008) - 1080p.mp4
The Dark Knight (2008) - SD.mp4

The Dark Knight (2008) {imdb-tt0468569}.mp4

The Dark Knight (2008).eng.srt

The subtitle files specifically would probably have trouble getting matched up to multiple different cuts.

472

Okay Troll, if you don’t use Plex you don’t belong on this Forum, Plex already uses a - system. In movies it classifies extras. & that’s already a hinky system. There are titles that have dashes in the title, plus it’s the MOST commonly used divider in file naming in general.
Plex also has a general standard for hyphens, more used in TV, but anything after the hyphen is ignored by Plex, so the long standing standard is that everything after the last - is Optional Info which is specifically things ignored by Plex. So following Plex standard people often use that to include whatever extra info they want, knowing it’s ignored by Plex. Now most of the time for movies that’s going to be the cut or version it is, but maybe a family wants to keep a record of whose Disc was ripped. I know I have discs added by my family & roommates that technically aren’t mine. I keep a log separately, but I can see it being a logical thing, especially if there are more than just a couple contributors like I have.
To have Duck Dynasty Movie (1956) - Joe Bob.mov & Honey Boo-boo (2010) - Karen.avi & Star Trek 12 - Yoda's Revenge (2021) - Kyle.mkv

Not to mention your proposed system requires a 2-level delimiter, requiring a date on the file name (something many do without as the date that is used by the scanner is on the folder not the file) followed by the hyphen. You realize that means the scanner is literally doing an exponential amount more work. Not nearly as simple as you seem to think it is.

While I’m all for having you’re movie as a single file, sometimes people don’t want that. Just because you & I don’t use something or see little value in it, doesn’t mean that others don’t rely on it. Some people built their libraries back when a single file couldn’t be larger than 4GB, so if you wanted a higher quality you had to split it. Now those people most likely have migrated their libraries to larger drives, with bigger discs, but they might not have converted everything or want to take the time to if it works fine for them. Now I’d recommend to those people to “fix” their files, but that’s another group, albeit probably very small, that’d be inconvenienced by your system.

My intention here, on this topic that’s been running a long time with no progress, is to spitball ideas & find the BEST solution, one that has the Best implementation with the least amount of hindrance, that best fulfills users’ desires. The Cut Options in the Info Menu seems to provide a much better solution with none of the pitfalls of your solution. On top of that it would require no alterations to the Scanner, have no affect on library scans, would be an easier implementation as far as I can tell, & gives users More control

The subtitle file would actually not match against any of them. Unless something has changed Plex requires the subtitles to have the exact same name aside from the extension & language code

473

Upon rereading, I think he’s just saying show all the optional info after the hyphen in some kind of picker screen. It would mean all the versions, cuts, and “notes” would show in that list.

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474

No, he was definitely saying to have that be what is displayed on the Play Version list. Unless JelloFlipper has an option screen, which I don’t think it does, it’s read by the scanner & automatically listed.

  • Brown Eyed Sue’s Brown Eye (1993) - Unrated.mp4 would show up as SD, 512kbps "Unrated" or Unrated - SD, 512kbps
  • Mrs Lucy’s Secret Garden (2011) - Joe’s Bootleg.mkv would show as Joe's Bootleg - HD, 9.4Mbps
  • Moose Knuckle Battle (2018) - Director’s Cub.mp4 would show as Director's Cub - HD, 12.7Mbps
475

Read your essay, seem kinda mad and defensive over a program you don’t create nor develop in any way, but I’ll touch on those key points of yours.

“Ok troll, don’t be on this forum if you don’t use Plex”

I did use Plex, for 3 months, it’s what got me into self hosting, and I’m forever thankful for that, but I jumped ship the moment I saw their focus switch into streaming, not to mention all their data collection of god knows what that they don’t need. To dismiss my point as being a troll, despite me offering an alternative to the - because I knew it has a use in Plex, is just sad.

“Your system requires the usage of dates”

Yes, adding the dates to both files and folders is the literal Plex standard, for someone who dismissed me for supposedly not knowing Plex standards, you seem to have not known about that one.

If someone didn’t correctly follow the programs instructions, they should not be surprised if it breaks.

Plus, we can remove the dates if we decide that we just can’t be asssed to follow standard, since it will only 2 files both in the same folder, and named identically before the -

“People use the - knowing Plex won’t pick it up”

Great, they can continue to do so as it will still be ignored unless two or more files are in the same folder.

“People like split movies”

Cool, I’m all for choice, since the - is taken, we can use + , or ^ , or | , or literally any other non taken key since the system works regardless of chosen symbol.

“Questions about how Jellyfin handles it”

In response to you and the other one about how it works it works in Jellyfin, it’s simple.

We have epicmovie - theatrical cut.mp4
And epicmovie - raw and unrated.mp4

Within Jellyfin the movie will show up as epicmovie, once you click on more details, it will have a select screen, with the options being in this case “theatrical cut” and “raw and unrated” works well, looks clean, I can provide photos if needed.

If i accidentally strawmanned any of your arguments feel free to correct me.

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476

He didn’t like it when I described how emby does it either. They use the [Cut Name] after file name to do their implementation.

I personally am rather put off how he has made himself the de facto leader of this discussion.

Although making files work with other systems would be a great idea as lots of people do choose to run other systems in tandem for whatever reasons they may have. Giving people options is always good idea in my book.

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477

Feels like he’s a developer on Plex who failed to navigate the 10 years of spaghetti code and dependencies and wasn’t able to create the feature.

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478

You’re post was straight up trolling, & showed that you don’t use the system. It doesn’t contribute to the solution. This request has been around for a lot longer than your alternative, saying “it should be easy because someone else did it” is pointless & just sounds like you’re saying “look at me, I’m better than you” which does nothing to help get a solution fulfilled. You literally said you used it for a couple months then left back when they started focusing on streaming. So if you are not a current user, why are you on the forum? It seems like your only intent is to tell people how cool your other choice is. Which is fine, sing its praises. But don’t pretend your post was intended to help, when it was clearly just promotion of a different thing.

This request has been around for a long time. & no progress has been made. Spouting the same thing over & over again isn’t going to help. That’s why I am trying to suggest different solutions, because obviously, for 1 reason or another, those solutions aren’t going to work. Whether it’s because of problems in implementation or just the developers’ pride & unwillingness to use a solution from a competitor, or fear of being sued if they do, doesn’t matter. The fact is that solution is certainly already something they are aware of & decided to not do.

I’m aware of the standard, but I’m also aware that the naming of the file has not been essential, & until the special features were added it was much less important. My goal is not to say “this is the way to do it”, rather my intention is to dissect every proposed solution & look for possible reasons they might be rejected. It in no way means that I am correct, or that those things even matter, but that’s the whole point of Think Tank like discussion, to present ideas, & have others tear them down, & lead someone else to think of solutions neither of you could have found alone. In all reality I have no idea why the developers didn’t use another solution, I can only present possibilities to encourage people to think of ways around those possible problems. Because those solutions haven’t been used. & the idea of trying to get it done like a kid asking over & over until Mom gives in is pointless. Getting enough siblings behind it that Mom feels pressured into doing it is a better solution, but with 1123 votes over 8+ years that probably isn’t going to happen.
As far as the solution I’m backing, it wasn’t mine, it was the result of this Think Tank like amalgamation of ideas. Someone had seen their suggestion picked apart & thought “how can I overcome that?” & came up with another idea, that idea was picked up & tweaked & tweaked until I saw a solution that I can’t find a fault with. Are there faults in it? Almost certainly, & I’d love for someone to see them & point them out, so maybe someone else can think of a way to improve it.
& it’s very possible that some of the potential problems I’ve presented are not problems. & if that solution is the best the people looking to implement it will see it & say “Nah, I got this” & it’ll happen. None of my comments picking apart anything remove that suggestion, that suggestion is still on the table. But the fact of the matter is that this discussion was essentially a bunch of people just saying “we want it”. & all the solutions were the same thing Use the words after the movie name or Use the words after this symbol or Use the words between these symbols & Plex has done nothing with that for 8 years. Whatever their reasons are that is not a solution they’ll accept. Coming up with a different symbol isn’t an improvement, because the developers, who know much more about this than any of us, could easily see the suggestion for a symbol & say “that wouldn’t work, but if I make that a $ instead it’d work flawlessly”. & JelloFlipper’s use of that system, as well as M-b’s, almost certainly came from those suggestions from 8 years ago. Which I’m sure is much easier to make work when you are building the thing from scratch with that idea already in mind before you start. But that’s why I initially suggested a code like the language code for subtitles. A short, maybe 5 character code at the end of the file name. It was by no means perfect, but it was different, a solution that hadn’t been thought of yet. & a system that is already used in an unrelated part of Plex.

I’m sorry if it came off that way, I am in no way any sort of authority. I came to this thread because I found myself with a lot of extra time due to the current state of the world & it’s a feature I think should be implemented. I read through a good chunk of what was suggested 8 years ago & saw that it was essentially just the same thing over & over, & I wanted to get a discussion going that might get real ideas flowing.

It’s not that I didn’t like your idea, your idea would be fine, but it’s the same idea that’s been suggested before. The PLEXtocracy obviously already dismissed that idea, I was just trying to give possible reasons, & yes, trying to get people to stop trying to suggest the same things, & possibly think of a way that could avoid those potential problems. & yes, I will admit I’m a bit tired of the revolving door of “Somebody else did it this way so that’s indisputable proof that this is the answer”

479

I guess I’ve been around long enough to know that until plex sees the need for a feature it doesn’t seem the amount of requests or if a solution is drawn out for them. It will not be implemented. Don’t get me wrong I love plex but I wish they would listen a bit more. We are their fans. We are their advertising. We are their reviewers and until they stop and listen. Change won’t occur.

And it’s not really my idea. It was just what another system already uses. Interoperability would just be another baked in feature.

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480

I’m with you there, but I know they have to monitor the Feature Suggestions threads, so keeping the discussion going also makes them have to see it over & over. So maybe I’m that kid saying “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mommy, mom, mom, mama, mom, mom” a little bit too

I’m all for interoperability, but I learned a long time ago not to count on it.
& just to be clear, My comments about it causing problems for people with naming is 100% devil’s advocate, I personally have no problem renaming my files, & actually go in & change every "and" in Plex to "&" & capitalize a the if or etc because I think it looks better that way. Interoperability solutions are a big draw for me personally, & I would like that solution, I just don’t want to put money on a horse with a broken leg

481

I’m not sure we can consider “no progress” as an indication they can’t figure something out. After adding categories a couple years ago, have they made any improvements to the local video management system?

It seems like they have mainly been working on everything else under the rainbow like podcasts, external subtitles, music, video streaming, and the dadgum EPG fiasco.

482

I mean Movie Extras still a pretty recent addition. Plus the new Metadata Agent that came out just this year. & the New Movie Scanner is like a month old, maybe two.
Nobody is saying they are perfect, but there are lots of people who want those features. & If they were working on this instead of those there would be others having the same complaint.

But it’s been 8 years… 8 years. & if you read through this chat before the last couple months it’s pretty much just the same thing, over & over, being said in different ways. If that is going to be used, it’s already there. But I think the solutions we came up with are improvements, even given the choice between the bracket or hyphen solution or the Details Tab option I’ll take the Tab any day. That idea only came about because we were having a discussion.
Maybe this won’t help at all. I dunno. But it won’t hurt. & if, say, there isn’t any development on it because they just don’t care. Maybe someone, looking over this, will see one of the suggestions we came up with & want to do it. Guess what, I’ll take it.

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