Kids TV Shows - Bad episode metadata issues

[cahuja]

One of my biggest uses of Plex is to DVR Kids shows for my kid. Now, as anyone who uses Plex for the same purpose knows, that support here is pretty bad. So, for those who are not aware, here is the problem -

• Kids shows air in 30 minute segments because that is how our TV programming works.
• However, because young kids don’t have an attention span (I’m assuming) that long, these shows typically comprise of two 15 minute segments. For eg: Curious George, Peg+Cat, Daniel Tiger.
• Some kids shows typically last the full 30 minutes. For eg: Super Why.

Why is this a problem? Well, because Plex gets it’s metadata from one of two sources -

• TVDB (Rich metadata, Always considers each 15 minute show to be a full show)
• The Movie Database (Less Rich metadata, Mostly considers each 15 minute show to be a full show)

As far as both of these sources are (mostly) concerned, each 15 minute segment is a full show, and that makes sense from their point of view. They are discrete episodes.

However, it’s very hard to explain that to a bawling 3 year old who wants the train episode again, and I cannot find it because the metadata is screwed up. The metadata for Kids shows is screwed up because Plex recorded a single 30 minute episode, but TVDB/Movie Database is giving me the metadata for a 15 minute one.

How should Plex solve the problem?

• Separate the notion of episode metadata from show metadata. (This is what Jellyfin (and I think Emby as well) does.
  • This allows me to get the nice show information and description and photos from TVDB as it will be the source of show metadata
  • I will use the Extended Personal Media Agent to get the episode metadata. It will the show name from the file title and nothing else, and I will be happy with that instead of everything being screwed up altogether.

For all you smart folks out there, is there a workaround? Yes, there is. First, install the Extended Personal Media Agent. And it only takes a few minutes of effort.

1. Go to a show page
2. Click on Fix Match
3. Click on Search Options.
4. Your default agent will likely be TVDB / The Movie Database. Assuming it’s TVDB, try the Movie Database next. It sometimes has better episode metadata than TVDB for Kids shows.
5. Assuming The Movie Database is correct, your problem is solved. Assuming it is incorrect, click on Extended Personal Media Agent. This will always result in a match, but you lose both the show and episode metadata, but will gain the right episode name and numbering.
   I prefer that over not getting the right episode names and numbers.

Here is a handy gif showing the workaround. Notice how the episode titles got a lot better, but the show description and other nice details such as studio were gone. For those who want to expend a bit more effort, they can lock the show related fields in their bad match before going with the afore mentioned fix match approach -

Edit: For TLDRs, read the bolded sections.

[cahuja]

So, after a few days of trying the workaround, I have the following feedback. As I DVR more episodes, Plex is unhappy with the changed match settings and does not recognize a show has already been recorded. Therefore, the way to use the workaround is in an as-needed basis. Basically, change the match settings right before you want to search for an episode.

[PilotC150]

You are a HUGE savior! I thought I was going to have to go through and manually rename all of the episode, or something, to fix it all. It’s been frustrating to find the specific episodes that my daughter wants and this will make it Plex-easy.

Thank you!

[cahuja]

I glad it helped you. I’m hoping Plex can fix this so we don’t have to keep fiddling with the settings long term.

[Tobith]

Thanks, this has been very helpful. I’ll see how things go while recording, but I’m hopeful.

One thing: I had to install this agent manually using the steps at https://bitbucket.org/mjarends/extendedpersonalmedia-agent.bundle/src
Installed the scanner first then the agent, as directed in the Readme.