Is there a straightforward way to migrate from Synology Video Station to Plex without the hassle of retagging and correcting series metadata—especially for shows with multiple versions or misidentified episodes due to varying releases?
All the metadata is already stored in the corresponding .vsmeta files. I understand these are specific to Video Station, but since they’re in XML format, it should be possible to parse and import them.
I’m very interested in switching to Plex, and if this migration can be done smoothly, I’d even consider purchasing a lifetime license. I’m ready to move on from Synology and would appreciate a solution that respects the work I’ve already put into organizing my library.
@michael_f399
I am unaware of any program which reads Video Station files and inserts them into PMS through the Plex API.
There is nothing on Plex’s side to do this.
As for metadata / tagging:
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If you’re using MP4 files, and there’s metadata in the file, PMS will use that metadata
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Be advised, PMS does the bulk of its matching using the naming standards specified below
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-movie-media-files/
If you need it, there are free renaming tools.
We can help you with the renaming rules for most of them.
From those rules, you can have the tool perform a fairly rapid naming cleanup and structuring to be PMS-compliant.
FWIW: The naming standard used by PMS is very similar to that used by other media server products.
Plex doesn’t read metadata from .vsmeta files.
When it comes to Plex, your most crucial instrument is to stick with the naming schema, e.g. including the year a movie / show aired. For super tricky cases, Plex supports so-called „matching hints“. You can include the ID of a show movie, e.g. IMDb/TMDb ID for movies or TMDb/TVDb ID for shows (example: {imdb-tt123456}).
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-movie-media-files/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
I’ve already looked into it, and it’s a complete mess. Many of the recordings were manually tagged and will never be correctly matched through automatic detection. The same goes for certain series with varying episode orders. I just want to preserve all the effort I’ve already put into organizing everything.
The naming schema won’t help at all for content that isn’t available on IMDb or similar databases.
I’m aware that .vsmeta files are proprietary to Synology. But since Synology clearly doesn’t prioritize Video Station users anymore, I was hoping there might be a community-driven solution to transfer this metadata to Plex somehow.
@michael_f399
For those types of media which aren’t mainstream movies or series,
PMS supports an “Other Videos” / “Home Videos” media type.
You can add your own additional content to these library types but there are limitations (of course).
With these, the storage structure & naming you’ve created will be preserved as-is.
PMS will analyze each file so that, when you play it, it will play correctly.
Does this help?
Not really. I want to import all metadata which are already maintained and stored in these vsmeta files which are simple XML and it should be possible to easily extract all info from there. If there is a plex API for maintaining meta data, i would also start writing some code to automate this, becaues it there would be no way, it would be a showstopper for me
If there where a way to do this it would be plastered all over the syno subreddit.
Unless Synology publishes info about how to decode the files, they are otherwise useless.
Also, someone would need to write an importer to insert the files into Plex.
( This is the equivalent of the Plex Scanner and no small feat )
