Merge Items like Emby does?

[marcusdurkan]

Hi,

Emby does a really good job of matching items based on their IMDB or TMDB tag and merging these items together.

As I add more and more 4K version to my library I’m spending more time going into Plex to merge the items. There must be a way Plex already does this but I’ve just not found it yet.

Can anyone shed some light on how I automate this?

Thanks,

[SimonCraddock]

I thought you just put the 4k versions in the same folder as the lower res versions, is that what you meant?

[marcusdurkan]

Yep, thats what I’ve done. So I’ll have ad folder name ‘Film (2020)’ and inside ‘Film.1080p.mkv’ and ‘Film.2160p.mkv’

Plex has them separate when added them to the library which doesn’t make sense as Plex handles different version and will prompt you before you start playing.

[tom80H]

Name it like this:

Movies
  Film (2020)
    Film (2020) - 1080p.mkv
    Film (2020) - 2160p.mkv

See:

Multi-Version Movies | Plex Support

[marcusdurkan]

Thanks for the reply. That’ll take longer than manually merging them

I also need to leave the video and audio codec in the file name.

[tom80H]

@marcusdurkan

I also need to leave the video and audio codec in the file name.

If you want to ensure this is not throwing Plex off… best put the section with technical details in square brackets (e.g. Film (2020) - some optional arbitrary text [1080p HEVC DTS-HD 7.1 ...].mkv). Plex will ignore the information in square brackets when it scans/matches the files.

[FordGuy61]

FYI, here’s a post with details on how Plex matches things.

It explains why it is good to name things as @tom80H recommends.

Naming conventions

If I may add here, having gotten a much deeper understanding of how the matching software works tonight from the dev himself, I am using the example given. I’ve not tested in it in this form. I am writing here only to explain how it works and this was the first-available example. During automatic matching, Everything found is used. Dark.Waters.2019.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTG.mkv) is broken into words Dark+Water+2019+720p+AMZN+WEB-DL+1+H+264+NTG and used as the search criteria. T…

[marcusdurkan]

Thanks but that would take longer than just manually naming them.

It’s odd that plex doesn’t merge them automatically once it’s matched them. If they have the same IMDB or TMDB tag they are the same film so why would plex keep them separate.

[tom80H]

Plex will merge them.
You’re just likely to run into serious issues if you throw a bunch of technical gibberish at Plex – hence the naming schema.
If it feels like too much work to manually fix it you could consider use an app like FileBot… or go with your names and work out potential mismatches later in the app.

[shark2k]

@marcusdurkan

Thanks but that would take longer than just manually naming them.

It’s odd that plex doesn’t merge them automatically once it’s matched them. If they have the same IMDB or TMDB tag they are the same film so why would plex keep them separate.

You really should think about fixing your naming convention so it is much closer to what Plex recommends. My naming convention is 98% what Plex recommends, I put the resolution in parentheses and additional info after that not in square brackets but that is rare, and whenever I have multiple copies of a movie it combines it together without issue.

Again, and like @tom80H said, you should really consider renaming them and look at something like FileBot to help you. Or depending on the OS you are using and your technical skills, you could look at writing a script or doing something like using Excel to mass create the command (I’ve used Excel for instance to quickly create the value portion of an INSERT statement for SQL for instance and then just dropped it into SQL Management Studio).

-Shark2k