@medicineman2500 , I am with you. The way this works is really not how it should work in 2021.
When users set up a new library, PMS asks the users to “please help us” by following our naming and organizing guide.
No. PMS should help the user to make this step quick and easy.
I am still in the process of making a large video collection Plex-compatible.
It is laborious, which is a big downside in its own right and a high entry level to Plex.
The method is so error-prone (both technical and user), that the forum is full of support requests.
And the result is not even great, because even a “perfectly” organized media collection – by Plex’ definition – still has significant shortcomings.
On the one hand, the file management must be followed meticulously.
On the other hand, that file layout is often not helpful for use outside Plex, e. g. via DLNA.
- Films in classic 90-minute length must be sorted as series, if they were originally released as a 2-part mini series.
- Films cannot be named so that they sort properly, e. g. Star Wars Episode 1, 2, 3, ….
- Content, which belongs together, cannot be sorted together if it belongs to different categories series / movie, e. g. Star Trek.
- Re-edits can change the category, e. g. The Godfather.
The list could go on.
As for myself, I would happily donate fingerprints (see here) from my own collection. And then everybody else who has the same movie with the same fingerprint, will enjoy magic recognition – no matter where in the filesystem it sits and no matter how it is named.
If enough people do the same – and I expect there’s a large part of similarly cooperative people in the community –, then building a reference database, as @tom80H mentioned, will be quick and painless.
