Multi-part Movie (non-stacked)

General Discussions
1

Hi guys,

another part in my short series of “unexpected” PMS behaviour. Hope you guys can clear things up for me.

I own a couple of two-part movies. Some of them are listed as a mini-series in TVDB (my preferred series source) and go to my “Series” library. Full stop… everything is fine with that.

Others are not listed in TVDB as a series and TheMovieDB has them as a movie (their policy about multi-part movies/mini-series) is not consistent (and cannot be changed since the TMDB admins are fully aware of it and do not see it as a problem).

Ok, accepted, these go to my Movie library. All parts come are identified as the same movie. Most of the times, I don’t like them to be stacked (the other multi-part movies in the series library have “episodes” which is fine).

So, I use Plex’ “Split apart” feature, then I rename the part’s titles to “… (Part 1)” etc.
So, I get two objects in my movie library and I can edit the release data of the second part to the true value…

But Plex still handles the watched/unwatches status (together with the progress bar) as if I hadn’t split them. I can imagine a scenario in which this would make sense (same object in more than one library) but I definitely did not expect it to be like this.

b0cwfvkauvuh.jpg771×300 69.7 KB

This is why I’d like to ask if Plex team members and/or ninjas would see a way to have the best of both worlds. What if a button would be available if a movie/tv show/other media has more than one representation on the Plex server (where all the tag dialogs are) to manually make it a separate “Plex object” which gets its own status?

Does this make any sense to you guys?

Technically, I do not want this as a “new feature” request, but an open-minded discussion about which expectations a feature called “split apart” calls for and if you guys feel it would be possible to do it from within Plex Web, for example.

2

Please give a particular movie title.
It is very hard to give general advice without an example.

3

Of course… I added an image which showed a title, but it did not come up.

The following multi-part movies are handled as movies by my PMS and its settings:

“Lenz oder die Freiheit (1986)” (four parts)
“Gleichheit kennt keine Farbe (1991)” (two parts)
“Wolfsblut (1991)” (two parts)
"Ken Folletts Roter Adler (1994) (two parts)
“Der Räuber mit der sanften Hand (1995)” (three parts)
“David Balfour - Zwischen Freiheit und Tod (1995)” (two parts)
“Katharina die Große (1996)” (two parts)
“Ein großes Ding (1999)” (two parts)
“Der Kurier des Zaren (1999)” (two parts)
“Das Geheimnis in der Wüste (2000)” (two parts)
“Henry VIII (2003)” (two parts)
“Heiße Spur (2009)” (two parts)
“Entführt (2009)” (two parts)
“Gullivers Reisen - Da kommt was Großes auf uns zu (2011)” (two parts)
“Der Kardinal (2011)” (two parts)
“Deckname Luna (2012)” (two parts)

… and others… (sorry for German titles, I could fetch their original titles if there any, but this is the way I have them right now.

Oh, and it might be the case, that one or two are available on TVDB with no or almost no content, but all of them are listed as Movies in TMDB.

Another try with the image goes here:

b0cwfvkauvuh.jpg771×300 69.7 KB

4

Having a look at the image, I need to smile… since both parts have different total lengths, different “remaining times” are shown, but Plex still handles them as the same with their status… :slight_smile:

5

If you don’t want to stack it and don’t want to make it into a series, I’m afraid there is no solution for you.

6

Oh, thank you for your answer, even if it doesn’t help me with my observations and needs.

I’d be glad to have them as series, but TheMovieDB holds them as movies already and they do not accept changes for this (while other multi-part movies are treated as series at the same time).

Maybe there’s some command line magic to really separate a certain object in a certain library and give it its own stati?

I’d also be happy to understand the “split apart” process and its use cases?

I currently have movies matched as duplicates (which then I feel the need to split apart) in the following situations:

a) mistaken identity
Due to naming errors or similarities with titles, a movie gets false identification as a movie that’s already in my library.
Analysis: These are two movies that don’t have anything to do with each other.
Solution: Split them apart and do a manual identification (preferred since it keeps the Watched/Unwatched status of the original movie), or fix the naming and Plex Dance these items.

b) real duplicate
With older movies, it happens now and then, that these movies are known under different titles, but are essentially the same movie. I appreciate that Plex shows them as duplicates.
Analysis/solution: Check the titles with Wiki/IMDB, decide which one to keep and delete the other one, thank Plex for keeping my library free from Duplicates :wink:

c) different cuts
There’s a reason why collectors have different cuts of the same movie. Maybe one is acceptable for the youth, the other is for mom and dad. Or both have unique scenes in it, or just for completeness…
Analysis: Since I keep both of them I want to watch either of these. They may have different “content ratings” so one wants to split them apart, so you can edit the titles to … (unrated) or something for better distinction.
Solution: Different cuts with different lengths share the same progress indicator, watched/unwatched? Come on. I cannot imagine stopping to watch the rated movie at a certain point and continue to watch the unrated movie then. I wouldn’t say that there’s no sense in it at all, but it wouldn’t be common use case, I suppose. Oh, and did I already watch the unrated or the extended version of a movie? Cannot tell, since they share the same watched status. Option for real separation would be perfect.

d) multi-part movies
Full-length movies of 90 minutes bound together as a mini series… I normally throw them to my series library. But some of these (see my original posting) need to be handled as movies since the TMDB only provides data for these as a movie.
Analysis: Having these split apart and handled as separate movies (renamed to … (part one) etc) would be perfect for these.
Solution: I could stack them, creating big movizillas of a total length of 3 or 6 hours. Technically possible, I feel uncomfortable with this situation. I could explain why as this is for more than one reason, but I let you escape this time :wink:

Did I miss another possible scenario why one wants to split Duplicates?
I can hardly imagine a common use case where keeping these separated movie objects makes sense and I tried to explain why.

But maybe I miss the total point of this?

First reaction if I were to program this, would possibly be “Oh, lot of work, better not touch it. Needs addition to UI (if button solution), we cannot foresee side effects.”
But maybe I am just too focussed to my own advantage/workload as a programmer to see why I function that I thought was fine, does not fulfill the all-day task very good.

Is there a Plex team member, a Plex ninja who wants to help me understand the split apart function and what it is intended to do (plus, why is shared progress, watched status a good thing)?

I am not trying to make your life harder. I really want to learn. Or maybe we can come together to new conclusions of what would be a fine solution? Wouldn’t that be cool?

Thank you for listening.

7

@rossinior said:
I’d be glad to have them as series, but TheMovieDB holds them as movies already and they do not accept changes for this (while other multi-part movies are treated as series at the same time).

When I created my TMDB account a few days ago, I was greeted with an announcement that multi-part movies have to be added as series now. Maybe they are in the process of revising their policy?

Maybe there’s some command line magic to really separate a certain object in a certain library and give it its own stati?

The secret is to perform an ‘unmatch’/‘match’ or ‘Fix Incorrect Match’ operation after the split. This separates the item from its guid. The identity of a media item is defined by its guid in Plex.

a) mistaken identity

Will be taken care of through ‘Fix Incorrect Match’

b) real duplicate

Plex will not delete your media. You have to decide which file version to keep. Plex is merely pointing you to the fact that there is a duplicate.

c) different cuts

Make a search in the forums. There is currently no satisfying support for this in Plex. Just a few workarounds.

If you only have 2 ‘cuts’ of a movie, you can match one with the ‘Plex Movie’ agent and the other one with the TMDB agent. Then they will have different guids and therefore separate ‘watched’ status and playback progress.
If you are willing to do a little copy&paste of metadata, you can extend that to 3 versions if you ‘match’ the third version as ‘Personal Media’.

8

After sending the finished post, and while re-reading it, I knew it would provoke an answer like that.

Thank you for pointing out how to fix one or two of the scenarios mentioned. It was not my intention to discuss These Points. I just summarized any real-world Scenario that came across my mind, in which a “Split apart” Feature would be useful or needed. Then I tried to be open-minded about whether it would be helpful in any of these use cases if the split parts would share viewing data. In my opinion, there is no advantage in any of these use cases, in fact I have a number of scnarii in which split viewing history would be the only good situation.

So the unanswered questions are: can you imagine other real-world use cases for “Split apart” in which it is perfect to have a shared viewing history (as it currently is)? Which Situation? Which advantage? Would it be of disadvantage if this is not shared?

@OttoKerner Again, thank you for your helpul and assisting comments. Please continue to help us like this, it is much appreciated.

In this thread, I would be happy to have a fruitful discussion with Plex People or guys near to Plex if this feature can be made better (not throwing opinions back and forth, coming to conclusions only AFTER analyzing the usage of this feature).

Maybe other Long timers, Ninjas, heroes and Plex employees can jump in, Show me what I did not think of or maybe agree/disagree with my analysis. After all, this is the kind of discussion that I am used to in my real-world life with collegues and friends. Be nice to each other, listen carefully if somebody has something to say, trying to find arguements not only for your own opinion, but also for the other side… finally, come to conclusions and act according to them.

Wanna try, anyone?

Thank you very much for listening, thank you even more for participating.