New Plex Media Server TV show/series scanner and agent preview

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Okay here’s a weird one. I’m not sure if it’s related to the PMS build or if the Plex app on Xbox is having a bit of a freak out with the libraries, but all of a sudden the wrong backgrounds are being used for the Entertainment screensaver. It seems like every second title uses the incorrect background image. Just now they were using Gummi Bears, now they’re using Unikitty!

My initial thought here is that the server has no background artwork for these titles and so falls back on the last shown artwork with the closest title match (going as far back as simply matching the first letter).

I rebuilt my library from scratch two days using entirely the new agents/scanners (I don’t like to do things in half measures :joy:) so not sure if things like background artwork for the screensaver only get pulled during maintenance?

The same (or very similar) thing has been happening on displaying the libraries in the Home section. Each library’s “Recently Added” shows the same poster sequence. I’ll try get screenshots of that when I can. It was happening before I nuked my PMS folder, i.e. when I was still using the old agent/scanner but had a separate library with the new one too.

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That is indeed a side effect but generally the quality of the metadata will be better especially for popular shows and the more obscure shows tend to only exist and have metadata in one of the sources. This hasn’t been a real issue with movies and we’ll continue to improve the agents if it does turn out to be an annoyance.

You can do that in the forum but we can only use what exists upstream so we encourage users to contribute to TMDB and/or TVDB and we’ll pick up the changes. If our data doesn’t make sense with what exists in the sources then you can report that here in the forum.

Do you mean every time a change is made in one of the sources? No because that happens very often but we do plan to add periodic refreshes in PMS and you can manually refresh your library at any time.

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Any update on this build?

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I’m concerned that this is going to mean a lot of extra work for us that contribute with metadata to these sites for use with Plex. Since we’d need to keep track of what’s being picked up by PTVS and over many days as well to make sure.

Manually refresh would only pick up any refreshed data that PTVS already have cached wouldn’t it? So that only help when I know that PTVS have the correct data.

So we’d still need to wait and figure out what PTVS actually pulled/changed from TVDB/TMDB/IMDB during the next refresh against their libraries, and if the data the algorithm pulled/changed isn’t good enough we’d need to start a forum thread. This could mean keep checking for days.

Then I can only hope this will work out as planned and I’m just seeing problems that won’t exist.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the new movie agent, but there is so many more entries with TV-series and using multiple sources without a way of knowing where to make effective changes is a recipe for people (me) giving up and stop contributing and rather just edit their own personal Plex library instead…

So I still urge you, like we’ve done for years already, PLEASE fix the normal TVDB agent for Norwegian (and other non working languages) so we have something to fall back on if the PTVS agent doesn’t work for less popular stuff. PLEASE! Is this even being worked on?

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If i am reading this correctly, data with this new agent comes from TMDB & TVDB
What happens if an episode exists in both, but they relate to are not the same episode in reality, which gets used?

One i have seen is the latest Doctor Who special
This has a special episode number on TVDB, but on TMDB it is a different number
S00E157 on TVDB is the Daleks Special
S00E157 is Good Bye Sarah Jane on TMDB

S00E158 is Daleks special on TMDB
S00E158 does not exist on TVDB (No episodes exist after the special)

How does Plex know which is correct?

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Sorry, I’ve been using all my time trying to get as much stuff completed and haven’t had time yet to putting a new build together.

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While I can’t answer for which one Plex knows is correct, I can definitely say - as I got highly confised by this - that Plex has used TMDB in my library and labeled the episode “Good Bye, Sarah Jane” despite the episode on disk being labeled as “Revolution of the Daleks”.

I’m also interested to hear how Plex deals with discrepancies like this or whether Doctor Who now falls under the same category as Firefly in times of alternate episode ordering?

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Many thanks for checking that out

Disappointed to here it is picking up the wrong one (I was hoping initial matching would be like now using TVDB, then getting any extra from other sites), I have quite a few specials of various shows, all named as per TVDB

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Alternate episode orderings is coming but it’s not ready yet.

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So how is that going to affect people like me that have named all there episodes as they are on TVDB
When i switch to the new scanner/agent, i assume i will need a full refresh of the data, how do i know the correct metadata has been picked up (based on TVDB not TMDB)

I dont want it to default to matching based on TMDB, as that data is not what i have been naming my files on, even though the majority could be the same on both sites

As mentioned above, some Dr Who specials will get messed up if the default is TMDB

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Gave the agent another go this morning.

I would not see the Doctor Who example as alternate episode ordering. Doctor Who S00E157 is clearly Revolution of the Daleks and not Farewell, Sarah Jane. This is the aired order, TMDB is wrong in this regard which I guess is what plex is using as its master list, TVDB is correct.

Anyhow, lets see alternate ordering comes and if it helps.

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You’ll be able to choose which ordering you want. When you upgrade a legacy TVDB library it will keep the ordering consistent with TVDB. If you upgrade a legacy TMDB library it will keep it consistent with TMDB.

That’s the plan. It’s being worked on currently.

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I’ve just kicked off a new build which is based off what the public beta will have minus the episode ordering (but that will be in the beta).

Should be done in a couple of hours. Would love if folks could test some of the stuff I’ve added for local extras :eyes:

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Thanks, will this resolve some of the mismatches I reported previously ? I seen them again this morning with the build currently posted.

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No, but I’ll go through those now and consult with our the resident matching expert :face_with_monocle:

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That sounds great, thanks for the info

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I’ve ignored this one for now - could you tell me exactly how these files/folders are named?

I actually didn’t have trouble with these, they matched correctly. Could you tell me the exact file/folder structure.

Confirmed. Got the bad match too - S2-5 probably matched because those seasons don’t exist for The Andromeda Strain, so it would have been the next “best” match.

Confirmed.

Also confirmed! I’ll pass this info along.

Thanks for testing so far and let me know about those file names.

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@drzoidberg33 thanks. Attached is a txt file with the folder path and shows you asked about above.

shows.txt (18.7 KB)

My setup is a fedora 64bit machine mounting a WD NAS over NFS with the media.

If you need anything else just let me know.

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Forum Preview version 1.21.3.3983-a090db7d3
(links have been updated in the first post)

Added:

  • Agent is now listed as Plex TV Series (BETA)
  • Theme music is back (both automatic and via using theme.mp3 in the show folder).
  • Experimental support for local extras in Plex TV Series libraries (see my separate post about this)
  • Upgrading existing libraries on legacy agents to the new Plex TV Series agent is supported but it’s still suggested that you test using a completely separate library.

Fixes:

  • Audience Rating is now an available sort option for Shows and Episodes.
  • The bundled web version now allows you to edit Season titles.

Remember to use the local web bundle when testing (http://127.0.0.1:32400/web )

The bundled web version also no longer will default to using the new agent as default for new libraries so make sure to change the agent before creating a new test library.

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Experimental support for local TV extras

With the latest preview build, local extras are supported for Plex TV Series libraries. Note that as this is a very new addition not all clients will have equal support for this.

There is support for the extras at the Show, Season and Episode level, the required naming for these is detailed below.

Shows and Seasons:

Follow the same guidelines as per local movie extras: Local Files for Trailers and Extras | Plex Support

Example:

/Game of Thrones
  An Interview With Emilia Clarke-interview.mkv
  /Trailers
    Trailer 1.mkv
    Trailer 2.mkv
  /Featurettes
    Special Effects.mkv
  /Season 01
    /Behind The Scenes
      A look at season 1.mkv
    Season 1 Deleted Scenes-deleted.mkv

Episodes:

Episode extras must be named exactly like the episode it’s accompanying. Use the suffixes outlined in the “Inline extras” part of Local Files for Trailers and Extras | Plex Support.

Example:

Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming.mkv
Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming-deleted.mkv
Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming-featurette.mkv

You can add multiple episode extras of the same type by adding a number index to the end of the suffix:

e.g.

Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming-deleted1.mkv
Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming-deleted2.mkv
Game of Thrones - S01E01 - Winter is Coming-deleted3.mkv

Client limitations:

As mentioned earlier, this feature has limited support for now and not all clients will show all the extras. From preliminary testing here are where some clients sit with compatibility:

Web Client: Only supports extras at the Show level. There is a bug currently where the extras may disappear, you’ll need to leave the show screen and go back to it to get them to display again.
Android and iOS Mobile devices: These are generally found to support all the local extras types.
Android TV and Apple TV: Support at the show level.

This information will be documented on our support pages once the feature is stable.

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