So today I've just ripped the *Apocalypse Now* Blu-Ray, and for those that don't have it on disc 1 of the box set is *Apocalypse Now* 153 minutes (original 1979 theatrical release) and *Apocalypse Now Redux* 202 minutes (2001). Both are 1080, 5.1 DTS Master Audio, etc., the extra 49 minutes is the only difference.
This made me think, what is the correct way of dealing with multiple versions of the same movie in Plex?
Ideally, what I'd like is for the movie to only be listed once in the client, but then it to offer the multiple versions when selecting it.
There's been a few other movies that I've recently ripped which have had multiple versions too (*Salt*, *Green Lantern* & *Horrible Bosses* are three that I can remember off the top of my head)... but as I didn't know what the correct thing to do was I only gave Plex my favourite version (usually the Directors or Extended cut) and stored the other version elsewhere.
As of the current version, you can name the movie identically - and just add an identifier to one ie, directors cut, extended cut etc. PMS will see this as the same film and it will only show up once in your libraries. When you go to play the movie in Plex a pop-up dialog will show and ask you to select which version to play… unfortunately the dialog will only show a quality option, not a file name - and if both movies for example are 1080p, you’ll simply see an option to play either the 1080p version or the 1080p version - not too helpful …but, it’s something. Hopefully a better solution will be baked in in a future release. I have a few directors cuts and this is currently how I’m handing it… if someone else has a better option I’d love to hear it.
What I do is if it combines as one movie. right click on poster that has the “2” badge and choose “split apart”
you will then have 2 entries for the same movie. you can reveal in finder to figure out which is which. then edit meta data and change the title to by adding extended or whatever. and then lock it.
What DavidNC mentioned is the server’s “Merged Media” feature. However, it’s really not designed for this type of functionality. Instead, it’s meant for use when you have multiple “versions” of the exact same movie that have different resolutions (1080p and 480p, say), different encodings (x264 and mpeg2), different audio formats (MP3 and DTS), or similar. The Plex Media Server can then auto-choose the most appropriate version to send to a client that requests the video (for example, sending a 480p video to your Android phone over 3G, but a 1080p to your iPad3 on local wifi). While the Plex Media Center desktop client can allow you to choose between versions, other clients won’t.
It’s not meant for cases where you have, say, a Theatrical vs Director’s cut. In that circumstance, you’re best off having two separate library entries as BigWheel suggests. In the future, it’s possible that Plex may better support these sorts of “alternate versions”.
Nope, still the same. Really wish there would be something to handle all this automatically. All these different editions are getting more common and it would be nice if Plex and the scrappers reflected this.
+1 for support of different cuts of the same movie.
tbh I do not fully understand why the multiple versions feature is needed - isn’t PMS supposed to downsample dynamically?
+1. It’s really frustrating having Legend, Blade Runner, etc.–movies where there are major differences in experience between the multiple cuts, just hanging out there. I keep them split, but whenever my library updates it resets the movie titles to reflect the file name, even though I have the title set and locked in Plex. Basically, anything in your Plex library that isn’t “Matched” can get funky upon library updates.
So what I have started doing is to just add the alternate version to the same folder the main movie, name it how I want (e.g. “Die Hard Extended Branching”) and then put “-featurette” at the end. Basically, I make Plex think it’s a local media asset. Now it shows up under Extras in the main movie area as “Die Hard Extended Branching”. Are there any major drawbacks to using this method?
Well this seems to work fine when using the Windows client. But I found one significant drawback on Roku: you cannot resume playback of Extras on Roku. So if you stop a movie in the middle of playback, you will have to search through and find where you were before. On the plus side, you can still use the chapters in the file to help find your location.
PLEX has a feature called COLLECTIONS. When you add the folder there is a pulldown to decide how you want collections to appear. I personally chose “Hide Items which are in collections” Add each version and have Directors Cut, Extended Edition, 3D, Remastered etc. for each title. You can edit the cover art individually. Now choose EDIT and select the TAGS tab. At the Bottom in Collections add the movie title. Do this for Each Individual Version. Now if you chose to Hide items which are in collections the movie Title will only show up once. When you select this Title, the different versions will show up Inside this container.
I have 3 different files for The Martian. The 3D copy, 1080P & 4K. The 1080P & 4K are together under 1 title where you can chose Play Version.
1 Movie can be in multiple Collections.
I do this for Trilogies or to Catalog all the Marvel Movies.
Just make sure to lock the title and Catalog to ensure the seperate titles dont merge as 1 title again.
For “Blade Runner” this is what I did to get all three versions loaded into Plex…
Folder Structure:
\PLEX\Movies\Blade Runner (1982)\Scenes\
In the Blade Runner (1982) folder I put the Theatrical Release version and called it “Blade Runner (1982).m4v”
In the Scenes folder I put the Director’s Cut and the Final Cut, named as follows:
“Director’s Cut (1992).m4v”
“The Final Cut (2007).m4v”
When I select Blade Runner in my Library, the Theatrical version is the main movie, and the two alternate versions show up in the “Scenes” area of the movie page, with the names listed as I named the movie files: Director’s Cut (1992) and The Final Cut (2007). This works fine. Not ideal, but it works.
I do the same thing but there’s another significant drawback. If you don’t know/remember that you have an extended version, you might not even know to look for it in “Extras”. This is a strong argument in favor of support similar to the handling of “Extras” so you could identify files with a tag like “directors cut-editions”
…but, it’s something. Hopefully a better solution will be baked in in a future release. I have a few directors cuts and this is currently how I’m handing it… if someone else has a better option I’d love to hear it.