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I mentioned this over on the [BETA] New Plex TV Series Scanner - #643 by dokuro thread but I think this might need its own topic so have broken it out.
The new TV Series Scanner currently in beta is now pulling season specific fanart. For various shows its not getting good results or is missing which then defaults back to the show level fanart.
One example is https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/66023-marcella . For this show you will have a different season fanart background for each series within plex. These are not local assets so plex itself is setting them based on whatever scrapping its got from its sources.
Iām trying to figure how its doing this so I can help influence what sources its using so we get better matches. From what I can see TMDB, TVDB and IMDB have no series specific fanart so Iām puzzled.
Maybe its just a bug or some level of fail back and the wrong stuff is being used for series fanart ?
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Yep - I gotta admit that Season poster thatās auto-selected - in an English Library - does me about as much good as screen doors on a submarine:
ā¦ and thereās no way to āunselectā it - apart from āreplacing itā. I got plenty to do already. I donāt need more.
@leelynds ?
Donāt you just love a Season Poster?
I know I doā¦(if used in the right area):
So series posters I get, they can be uploaded to TMDB etc and will eventually make it to plex.
Its series/season specific fanart (background) that I donāt understand.
I donāt know what language that is - but itās not mine - or any of the old people I grew up with who are wondering - whatās that?
I know what the show is - 'cause I added it a few minutes ago - but in a few minutes from now?
LOL - Thatās obviously a case where the show poster should be used, but it aināt likely enough evidence to change my opinion that season posters should be used for on Deck and Recently Added. 
I checked the TVDB.com just for fun, and thatās the only poster available for season 1 of Ancient Skies. TMDB had a single poster as well, but it clearly was in English. I havenāt experimented too much with the new scanner, but I thought it was supposed to get stuff from multiple sources, and use the most popular in your language as the default.
Letās stay on the topic please.
Iām not talking about posters. I 100% know what way posters work. If there is poster problems then separate thread please.
Iām talking about fanart (backgrounds).
@anon5074910 You can change the season background art for a season in the season editor. Which if not set will default back to the series art. But what you are saying is the new agent downloaded some seemingly random background and itās the only one so you canāt get rid of it unless you upload a new one?
@VTron21 right, I know you can set specific season level fanart if you want and use local assets to set them if you want as well (season01-fanart.jpg etcā¦). I have not. I typically set a show level fanart (fanart.jpg) and up until this new agent was rolled out this fanart would be used for all seasons.
However, Iām seeing with this new agent this getting set automatically and Iām not sure how. Let me use another example with Marvel's Daredevil (TV Series 2015-2018) ā The Movie Database (TMDb)
In plex I see s01 and s03 with season specific fanart and s02 does not and is blank as it does not exist. Checking the plex editor I see this ā¦
As you can see the new agent has fanart backgrounds for these series/seasons and Iām trying to figure out how these are getting set.
BTWā¦ this is happening for a large amount of shows.
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ā¦ and I would want NEITHER of those two images as backgrounds as neither of them work!
Background images that are too busy in the left quadrant donāt work with Plex, or my eyeballs.
Those backgrounds you show are no good - this one is:
When those two you show are auto-selected - the only way to get rid of them is to replace them. Plex shouldnāt make MORE work for Users. Plex should be interested in making my life easier - not harder.
Just providing another example of āwhere did this come fromā from the other thread:
That background image is not in TMDB or TVDB for Season 2 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It does appear in Fanart.tv but that site doesnāt do season references (orā¦ does it? I canāt tell). Trakt.TV does show that image as background though but I didnāt think Trakt.TV was a source for metadata - but their API listing for images indicates maybe it could be? And season art could be pulled from fanart.tv that way? They certainly integrate with other media servers and services. Iām not good enough with API to interpret that well enough but maybe thatās the sourcing?
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Iāve been meaning to go and complete the creation of local fanart for all my shows. Guess what Iāll be doing for the next while in my free time 
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Iāve seen it mentioned more often lately that āif you want specific art, itās best to use local assetsā ā¦ which makes sense if you factor in future hardware migrations.
I like having organized and coordinated art but I also donāt mind going and finding new stuff either.
As mentioned in the other thread, this is most likely coming from fanart.tv. Their api provides show backgrounds with season numbers: fanart.tv Ā· Apiary
e.g:
"showbackground": [
{
"id": "19374",
"url": "http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/tv/75682/showbackground/bones-500994f33356b.jpg",
"lang": "en",
"likes": "2",
"season": "7"
},
Okay, thanks. I really cannot see via their UI what is season specific. Maybe I need to be logged in with an account. Anyhow, if the api returns it then thatāll explain it.
Iāve never contributed to fanart.tv but the season index looks optional, which explains why some have it and some donāt.
https://fanart.tv/tv-fanart/
- Can be set to a specific season or for all seasons
I wonder if season specific fanart should be downloaded at all from the agent considering how sparse good data is for it? More wondering than making a recommendation. Iāll likely just go local for all this anyhow so not a big deal for me.
I donāt remember the old agent pulling this but I donāt want to compare new vrs old as thatās counter productive.
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Thatās a valid question and Iāll bring it up with the team.
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Tell 'em there are (at least) two guys out here wondering that and both of 'em have had a negative experience.
Itās easier than you think to find something suitable in Google Images, but a perfect backdrop is one you create - and after a short time you get good at it.
I also just drag my found or created drops into the editor. Some items are dynamic and Plex doesnāt clean up after itself - at all. Deleting a video file leaves everything else in itās folder. That trips my OCD trigger.
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I would see about passing the Series background art to as a selectable option on the season background art, or a remove/delete option.
I too would find this annoying.
I really like @VTron21 idea of an option to use Series background for Season background automatically - I hadnāt thought about that before and might just do that manually anyways.
For me, that would make navigating in a show feel more consistent ā¦ the background stays static as foreground content changes. Definitely a personal preference though, the art setup can be very personal to some of us.
