Why is it up to users to come up with a solution? That is Plex’ job, especially for those of us who have paid/do pay for Plex Pass.
The number of votes and the age of the request just serves to show how long Plex have ignored it for!
You misunderstand me, it’s not “up to” us, rather it hasn’t happened not because Plex is ignoring it, in fact in another thread it was mentioned by a Plex Employee that it was one of the things currently being discussed. But I’m actually glad Plex didn’t just do what JelloTin & Ember did because I think that “Solution” is not a good one, just slightly better than nothing. & I personally don’t want just slightly better than nothing. I’m glad they discuss it & if they can’t think of a good way to do it they hold off instead of giving us a crappy solution.
It’s one of the highest voted suggestions. & it’s been around for a long while. So all the basic crap & more complicated than it sounds suggestions like brackets or other filename things have certainly already been discussed… & dismissed… So if we do put something as a suggestion, that doesn’t even have to work, that can give the developers another way of looking at it, it’s more likely to be implemented.
Like the example I like to use, if 20,000 people voted on a feature suggestion 15 years ago to have Plex bring you popcorn when your movie starts it wouldn’t matter, because there isn’t a way to do it. But if someone said “oh look, here’s some magic coding that’ll let a computer’s processor turn electricity into popcorn & send it through an audio channel” that feature would probably be included in the next couple server updates
a few more numbers: @LostOnTheLine wrote 68 post in that topic… that is more than 10% of the whole thread … many words for somebody who is not even keen to see “a” solution to a problem he doesn’t have. You just entered my “ignore list” which is very short… you’re the only person on it.
Merry Christmas
Just adding my two bits to this feature request.
It’s silly that this does not exist. I have several movies in original and directors cut, and is annoying not to have the ability to chose the version, and to have the version visible.
I think the reason this doesn’t exist has more to do with how the online public databases (IMDB, TVDB, TMDB etc) don’t seem to differentiate the different versions (please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m using FileBot to rename them, and I’ve so far had to manually rename the different cuts).
I’ve been going around looking for a way to handle this, and I think I’ve come up with a solution that I like and thought I’d share. Generally, I don’t think most people are going to want to have to pick a version when they pick the movie; for me personally, given that choice up front would lead me down the path of overthinking (after all, I’ve already made the monumentous accomplishment of picking something to watch) where I’d spend the next half hour Googling the different versions and hemming and hawing over which to watch. Meanwhile, everyone with me has fallen asleep or dispersed.
Plex does support an “extras” feature for stuff like the deleted scenes and whatnot included on DVD/Bluray (see https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/), so what I’ve decided to do for movies like Alien, for example, is just pick a favorite version to be the one that gets played by default, and then for us over-thinking nerds who will actually deliberately look for the oddball cuts and edits, I’ll stick those in an “Other” subfolder within the main movie’s folder, and then they show up (provided you named the file descriptively) under the Extras selection area under the main movie. It shows the actual file name here.
For movies where the different editions are actually significant, like the extended versions of Avatar and the LOTR movies that add lots of extra footage, I just split them into different entries so that you can see “Avatar” or “Avatar Extended Edition” as separate selections up front.
This is a very small list though, so it’s a lot less work to just deal with these case-by-case by those for whom it matters enough, I think, than to demand that the Plex devs spend a ton of time putting work into a thing that doesn’t really add a significant amount of value for the average viewer. I just spent all night watching three different versions of Alien to figure out which version was the best one of the three cuts I have (original DVD release, a “remastered” release, and a director’s cut). Conclusion: I still don’t like this movie all that much, and I only noticed the difference after watching the DVD extra where Ridley Scott explains what he changed. Most of these different cuts are just ways for the people pressing the coasters to sell us more discs, and just not worth our time.
Would it be better to have a selection menu with a default edition selected? Maybe, for a relatively small number of users, and especially that guy who keeps posting about this, but I think the movie database people are the ones to go after about that. But there’s already a little voice in my head that’s telling me to get a life, and it’s getting louder… xD
That’s a point I’ve made before, there’s not going to be an auto-identified different versions & matching, because the Metadata Agents don’t provide that information, but most of the suggestions are about a user controlled differentiation. Which is a big reason I think it shouldn’t be on the scanner to get the name because the agent can’t do anything with it. So it should be a tab on the Edit screen. That only would affect those who want it. That pop-up to pick the version would only be there if the server has multiple versions, but some have different versions as in compression & resolution & you wouldn’t want those, so an edit screen would give the ability to turn that on or off so it’s on just for the movies you want & just with the options you choose. Ideally in my opinion you’d be able to manually sort special features with this as well as they’d be files under the movie as well.
This is already a work around many use, but it has lots of drawbacks so can’t be considered a solution. You can’t keep playback positions on extras being the biggest one, but also a major reason for the different cuts is to allow an unrated version to be filtered while a censored version to not. Another could be language versions, some movies have completely different versions for different languages or countries, Harry Potter being a major one where the 1st few movies had different scenes shot differently for different releases, most notably being the American “Sorcerer’s stone” instead of “Philosopher’s Stone” but there were others as well.
While I agree it’s not the majority, this is one of the most requested feature requests, & multiple editions are becoming more & more common. Which is why I don’t think anything that inconveniences the majority would even be considered it’s definitely a feature that’ll get used. Certainly a lot more than some of the features Plex has
Is it so complicated to just write the filename beside the version info that are already there? Simple solution that works.
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Except it’s not a simple solution that works, it’s a half-assed solution that is just slightly better than what is already there. Would that be better than nothing? Yes. But ONLY if the alternative is nothing.
I don’t agree. It would work and be a very simple implementation. Then it could be improved afterward so that in the meantime we would at least have something.
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But there’s the problem, if it’s implemented like that all improvements have to be then based on a bad foundation. If you build a house on a flawed foundation it’s a lot more work to go back & tear the whole house down to redo the foundation than it is to just put more effort into the foundation to begin with. & the longer that janky solution is in place the more people do things to cater to that system & the exponentially more you’ll inconvenience by tearing it down.
Just my opinion, observations, & beliefs but ones I could find a lot to back up
This is the biggest problem, it’d have to use the Scanner for this, which would be a much bigger change than you think, & more likely to cause problems
It’s not the foundation of a house. It’s a label from a filename. A simple text line. The filename already exists in the database where plex goes to find the file. Just adding the file name beside the other info. That’s it. At least it would be already 2times more usable than it is right now. While you continue to talk about the best of the best implementation, this could have been coded pretty fast I’m sure.
We don’t have to agree. This solution would fit me.
So you’re saying use the entire filename? I suppose that would not require Scanner changes & would be a pretty simple alteration most likely. But would cause problems with any movie with a long title because the file name would start with The Lord Of The Rings- The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) & you would never see the part about the version. But I will admit that that is a bit better, without the negatives of having to build on top of it
They could probably show everything after the “Name (year)” which they’ve used to match the movie and end up with some information that would work.
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Except that would require it to be handled by the Scanner which isn’t the simple solution
Justify right instead of left? 
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That’s a good idea, hadn’t thought of that but that would eliminate the problem
Scrolling overflow to fit. 
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Good point about the long title.
Scrolling overflow or multi line like in the media information (when you right click on a media and choose the last option I think it media information) then at the top you see the complete path of the files. It’s shown on multiple lines. Same idea, but without the path.
A lot of the suggestions here (such as showing different cuts with names) would work okay in most cases. However, it becomes cumbersome when you start having things like the Pixar Shorts Collection, which has 13 different shorts in it. That would take up far too much space in the UI. I honestly prefer the version naming solution, but that was shot down by developers.
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Well… that’s why you place those in a “Shorts” library or as separate movies… they’re not cuts/editions of the same movie.
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