Indexing Tv Shows...again

General Discussions
1

Hello everyone,
I searched in as much as I could of the many many posts on indexing tv shows. I searched some support tips, but I can’t get it to work right. Here are the issues…

I have indexed the tv shows according to the instructions and for some reason there are a few (not the majority, but a few) tv shows which operate as if they are indexed completely different. For example, there are some different Looney Tunes folders (Daffy Duck, Bugs, All Stars, Sylvester & Tweetie, etc.) and for some reason the Daffy Duck episodes end up in the All Stars episodes no matter what I do. They are all indexed in the same format, and they don’t do this with the others, just Daffy into the All Stars. This is an example of my indexing: DRM-removed media - TV Shows-iTunes - Looney Tunes All Stars - Season 01 - 01The Trial of Mr Wolf_Three Little Bops - s01ep01

I used to just index: DRM-removed media - TV Shows-iTunes - Looney Tunes All Stars - Season 1 - 01The Trial of Mr Wolf_Three Little Bops but I found some post showing a 0 before the 1 in the season along with the s??e?? tagline so I tried it. No dice. This problem seems completely random, as if its getting some weird indexing from another source other than what I setup.

Other than that, I have covers and names that don’t match what I have as iTunes artwork and names. Again, completely random. (Like indexing the classic Looney Tunes Sylvester and Tweetie as the new Sylvester and Tweetie Show with the new modern miniature characters, Peanuts not following the folder names and putting special holiday shows in the season folders, Saturday Night Live doing the same, putting a colon in the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny indexing that isn’t there on my media folder and throws it out of order, splitting The Adventures of Batman into two seasons even though its only one and indexed as one, and not even recognizing D Ali G show and won’t list it anywhere in Plex. Same with episode 1 of the Star Wars the Clone Wars. It sees episode 1 as the preview trailer for the series which isn’t even in the season folder .

Movies have been alright except Star Wars Return of the Jedi and Star Wars Empire Strikes Back which are listed alphabetically under R and E instead of S with the rest of the series. Which is weird because, again, they are all indexed the same. Star Wars A New Hope, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, etc. are all listed under S together. So weird.

Thanks to anyone who can help. I know the TV shows indexing thing has been around since the dawn of Plex, but I appreciate your help,
Ryan

2

Looney Toons is a unique series. Though, some sources will give the show another name you still must abide by Plex rules.
The short The Trial of Mr. Wolf is from s1941e14

Here is a complete list of Looney Toons.
https://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=seasonall&id=72514

As far as star wars, well… The title is The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Plex will sortby the titles Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi
You will have to manually change the title or sortby title to get it the way you want it.

1 Like
3

You should always follow the Plex guideline on Media Preparation which includes detailed instructions on what folder structure / file names Plex supports.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/media-preparation/

e.g.
TV Shows > Looney Tunes All Stars > Season 01 > Looney Tunes All Stars - S01E01.mkv
The leading zeros aren’t mandatory but can be helpful when accessing your media via DLNA as some DLNA clients order their content purely alphabetical (such as 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2, 20, 21, 22... – with leading zeros: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11...). Don’t bother about the tagline – Plex will ignore it and if you include certain punctuation or quotes this might throw Plex of track, preventing it from scanning/matching.

if you deal with shows or movies for which different versions exist (e.g. original Loony Tunes from the ~1930s vs. any remake / new spin off), make sure to include the year the show first aired.
TV Shows > Looney Tunes (1929) > ... (just checked… first show really aired in the 1920s as per The TVDB)
TV Shows > The Looney Tunes Show (2011) > ... (despite my earlier statement, the name of this revival is slightly different – however try to be as precise as possible or you end up fixing Plex’ matching again and again).

If you’re worried about renaming a huge number of files… there’s apps to help such as filebot which has a built-in template/preset for Plex naming.
Important: Keeping the iTunes file structure is no good!!

as for your movies…
Plex orders your movies by name, not by a prefix you added to the file name.
If you want your movies to order in a particular way, edit their metadata (in the Plex library) and give them a Sort Title. You can also organize those movie franchises as “Collections” (movie: Edit > Tags > Collection). The latest beta available to Plex Pass members allows to show those collections as their own inline objects in the library – so you can make Plex show 1 entry for Star Wars in your library. You can also define if you want the content of this collection to show by name/sort name or release date (for Star Wars, you should go with sort names due to the episode sequence – 1st trilogy: 4-6, 2nd trilogy: 1-3, 3rd trilogy: 7-9).
You can find a detailed outlook on Collections in the Plex Blog.

4

Here is an small bit from my collection as an example of what it should look like.

Looney Tunes (1929) (folder)
	Season 1929 (folder)
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1929e01 - Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid.mkv
	Season 1930 (folder)
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1930e01 - Sinkin' in the Bathtub.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1930e02 - Congo Jazz.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1930e03 - Hold Anything.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1930e04 - The Booze Hangs High.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1930e05 - Box Car Blues.mkv
	Season 1931 (folder)
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e01 - Big Man from the North.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e02 - Ain't Nature Grand.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e03 - Ups 'n Downs.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e04 - Dumb Patrol.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e05 - Yodeling Yokels.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e06 - Bosko's Holiday.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e07 - The Tree's Knees.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e08 - Lady, Play Your Mandolin!.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e09 - Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e10 - Bosko Shipwrecked!.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e11 - One More Time.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e12 - Bosko the Doughboy.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e13 - You Don't Know What You're Doin'!.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e14 - Bosko's Soda Fountain.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e15 - Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e16 - Bosko's Fox Hunt.mkv
		Looney Tunes (1929) - s1931e17 - Red-Headed Baby.mkv

One FYI. You can use season numbers instead of years. So, Season 1929 would be Season 01 and so on. But I personally like the years.

5

Considering that’s how they’re listed at TVDB… it’s best to use years:
https://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=72514&lid=7

6

Thanks all,
I am still very new to Plex so this is all helpful. I had been going by the rules listed on this support page from Plex

It appears that the page I was using is wrong (or I am reading it wrong). Its all a bit confusing. I really don’t know how to go through all my tv shows and find the years they came originally out because iTunes doesn’t list that when you purchase them. It also seems so weird that it would accept my indexing with so many of the Looney Tunes (Bugs, Porky Pig, Road Runner, etc.) and then randomly pop Daffy in the wrong folder. Well, at least you all have given me something to work with. Do you just have to use the year Looney Tunes first came out for the originals, or the actual year each episode came out?

As for the Stars Wars movies, I am a bit confused about manually changing it from Empire Strikes Back to Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, because it is already listed as the latter. When you say change the metadata, is that something different than just the name listed on my hard drive. I think i’ll try both the “filebot” and the “collections for movies” ideas.

Thanks again,
Ryan Bradley

7

Dood… find your show at TVDB - name and structure accordingly:
https://www.thetvdb.com/
Find your Movie at TMDB/IMDB(good luck) and name accordingly:
https://www.themoviedb.org/ <— my favorite
http://www.imdb.com/ <— my least favorite

Forget ITunes.
Plex uses TVDB for TV Shows, TMDB or IMDB (good luck) for Movies.