I have been adding Blu-ray extras to my Downton Abbey collection. The files are named with the proper naming convention (-behindthescenes, -deleted, etc.), and are organized in folders using the same categories (Behind the Scenes, Deleted, etc.). The Extras do show up in Plex but there are a few issues with the way they are organized and display:
Each season has its own Extras (deleted scenes, behind the scenes, etc.). Nevertheless, all Extras only display under the main title page for the TV show, not under seasons. Since some Extras are recaps of the previous season this has forced me to add the season number to the name of each Extra (e.g., “Season 1 - The Making of Downton Abbey-behindthescenes”). Can an option be added that would allow Extras to display with their appropriate season rather than under the main title page of the TV show?
This is a real OCD catch but the categories of Extras are not displaying alphabetically - “Deleted Scene” Extras appear before “Behind the Scenes” Extras. I’m not sure whether any other Extras categories are affected as I currently only have “behind the scenes” “deleted scenes” and “featurettes” in my collection.
Within each category the Extras do not currently display alphabetically. Rather, they appear to be displaying by file date. For example, here are three “Behind the Scenes” Extras as they currently display in my collection:
Should be only one or the other… using subfolders and filename suffixes to determine the extra type in a single file can probably cause some hiccups.
If properly named, season extras will show up on the season tier (although only the mobile clients for Android / iOS currently support displaying that tier) – so my guess is there’s something fishy with your naming/organization
Personally I’m ok with that sequence… but I suspect it’s not so much a design decision but extra ordering being a bit wonky in general
see #2 → this does not only apply to local extras for tv-shows; IIRC it’s a known issue but sadly hasn’t made it to the priority list of the Plex team
I’m not sure I agree with your analysis on #1. Per this support article Extras can either be sorted into subdirectories (which causes them to display on the top-level show page), or they can be assigned to specific episodes, not seasons.
Just to be certain I tried moving two of the Season 4 Extras to the Downton Abbey/Season 4/ folder and renamed them as follows:
Downton Diaries-featurette
Meet the New Cast-featurette
After rescanning the library and refreshing metadata these two Extras no longer display, either on the main show page or under Season 4.
After moving the files (as named) to the Downton Abbey/ folder, scanning, and refreshing, they once again appear on the main show page.
After moving the files (as named) to the Downton Abbey/Featurettes/ folder, scanning, and refreshing, they continue to appear on the main show page.
In short, there does not appear to be a way to tell Plex which season specific Extras belong to without assigning them to individual episodes within that season.
That’s not correct. You can have extras on all tiers of a tv show. My point was more that an extra should be specified either using the subfolder approach OR the extra-type suffix – not a mix of both for the same extra.
Here’s a fake example, squeezing pretty much all possible types into one show.
This example has extras for all possible tiers (show, season, episodes). For the show and season tier I’m using both the subfolder and suffix option to specify the local extras.
The episode level extras are a bit trickier. There’s no option to use subfolders but you can get Plex to recognize local extras with specific titles anyway.
Example:
TV Shows <- the folder linked to the tv-show library
Downton Abbey
Featurettes
Downton Diaries.ext <- show level extra (subfolder)
Meet the New Cast-featurette.ext <- show level extra (suffix)
Season 04
Featurettes
Gag Reel.ext <- season level extra (subfolder)
Making of-featurette.ext <- season level extra (suffix)
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes.ext <- episode
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes-deleted.ext <- episode level extra (generic)
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes-featurette1.ext <- episode level extra (generic, multiple extras of type)
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes-featurette2.ext <- episode level extra (generic, multiple extras of type)
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes - Maggie Smith on the episode-interview.ext <- episode level extra (named)
Downton Abbey - s04e01 - Schatten des Todes - Julian Fellowes on the new season-interview.ext <- episode level extra (named)
Schema
Show tier
Show Name
[extra type subfolder]
[extra title].ext
[extra title]-[extra type suffix].ext
Season tier
Show Name
Season XX
[extra type subfolder]
[extra title].ext
[extra title]-[extra type suffix].ext
Episode tier
Show Name
Season XX
[exact episode file base name]-[extra type suffix].ext
[exact episode file base name]-[extra type suffix][index].ext
[exact episode file base name] [extra title]-[extra type suffix].ext
The “exact” in [exact episode file base name] is absolute… this will only work if your filenames match to the letter!!
So much for the theory… while typing all this, I remembered other users had recently reported there’s been a problem with season tier extras and (some) subfolder based extras. IIRC this resulted in Plex recognizing the extras but assigning them to the show tier (as per your post). You can currently work around this issue by using the suffix based approach for the season extras. I think I had forwarded this issue to Plex when it was first reported – let me check if this is on their agenda…
