I have my Plex DVR set up to record to a Windows NFS share on the same volume my movies are stored on. Since I set up Plex DVR a bit back, I’ve been wanting to do something to remove commercials and potentially slim down the recordings, but the roadblock was getting it to run as a Plex post process, but my Plex server is running on CentOS 6.9 and best I can tell, all the utilities like ComSkip and MCEBuddy are Windows apps.
It then occurred to me - why can’t I have MCEBuddy running on the Windows server and monitoring the folder that Plex records to? To that end, I started testing MCEBuddy, and the removal of commercials and conversion to MKV seems to be working quite well, however, there’s one issue I’ve found that I’m not sure if there’s a way to fix/change.
I have a ‘TV’ root folder that Plex records TV shows to, inside which Plex creates folders for each show (IE ‘Grey’s Anatomy (2005)’) and inside that, Plex creates a folder for each season, which is where the appropriate recordings reside. From my testing, MCEBuddy nas no issues finding the recordings three folders deep and processing them, the problem is what it does with the output files. The problem is it places the output files in the root.
If ‘Rename and sort by video information’ is checked, what ends up happening is it creates a new folder for each episode, with the same name as the episode.
Is there any way that I’m missing to get MCEBuddy to place the output file in the same place as it was picked up (I currently have it set to archive the original) to make sure Plex stays happy with the file locations?
You can check the ‘Custom Naming’ string to see if you can customize it further, but since it’s going to be rather dynamic you’re probably going to have to come up with a work around:
Using MCEBuddy as above I doubt I’ll ever need Plex DVR at all. No need to redesign that wheel, frankly. It’s been rolling along fine now for a decade or more.
If there is some issue I’m just not seeing, you can ask the developer to chime in. I’ve never gone there and not gotten input. The guy is ready, willing and able to pull off just about anything that’s doable. If you can come up with a way to break MCEBuddy, he can either come up with a way to fix it - or tell you it can’t be done:
For instance:
Using the Custom Naming String MCEBuddy gets the files from my Recorded TV Folder - or where ever - and puts them into one of the two libraries I’ve set in the string - with perfect naming and structuring for the TV Shows. The libraries are on local drives, the libraries are updated automatically when something new shows up, then added to my recently added lists and I watch them. Where’s the problem?
%ismovie%<MCEB-Movies\%showname% (%airyear%),MCEB-TV\%showname%\Season %season%##\%showname% - S%season%##E%episode%## - %episodename%>
(Note: My library folders are named EXACTLY like they are in the string, but I cleaved a dash out or threw in a space here and there, or adjusted the Library Name for the client presentation)
I suppose if you want this string to work with the ‘New and Improved Plex/TVDB Crapshoot’ - do this: %ismovie%<MCEB-Movies\%showname% (%airyear%),MCEB-TV\%showname% (%airyear%)\Season %season%##\%showname% (%airyear%) - S%season%##E%episode%## - %episodename%>
