"OLD" DOG...NEW (PLEX) TRICKS?

General Discussions
1

OK, so…FTR; I’m not 80! I can only somewhat-ashamedly admit, I’m 49; but I’ve been streaming audio and video, since you could.

My approach…and I’ve helped, a TON of others get started (in my day); is you break it down, into these components:

Ripping > Storage > Transport > Hardware > Playback

For many years…I thought definitive approaches, to these issues; were very tough to make…because of ever-shifting paradigms. For example…when you 1st starting ripping BDs, no one would dare do ISO; too much space! But then storage got cheap. And don’t even get me started, on how many boxes I’ve tried (WDTV, PCH, Dune, etc.)…or Playback options (XBMC, Zappiti, et al).

However…I think, I have finally hit on a stable solution: with PLEX! I use unRAID for storage, it can host PLEX; and (for the most part), I like the front-end and options for hardware (currently just using FireTV, and occasionally my PS3; but I’m open, to like the Nvidia Shield, etc.)

So…what’s the problem? Well…while I was w a i t i n g, for all of this to sort/shake out; at least for me…I got stuck, in a real rut! Hell…I still rip my SD with DVD Shrink, lol (hey…if it ain’t broke; don’t fix it. And actually…as you all obviously know…SD is a piece of cake, and not the issue); and my HD/BD…wait for it: with ToNMT…ROFL.

OK…so; that is where the questions start…and, I’m sure right now I’m driving the Ferrari that is my PLEX, about 35mph in the slow-lane. I want to know how to do this, and that.

We’ll start here, if we can; and again…please keep in mind, the solutions I assume, are dependent on how I host (which is on uR). For example, setting up shares…and mapping to libraries, and such.

OK…so it may be 35mph, but I am at least moving and “getting back-and-forth”; with regards to movies. Now that I plan to ditch “everything else”…and implement PLEX household-wide; I need to get TV episodes working, and scraping, etc.

Can someone start, pointing me in the right direction? By all means…if something like this, has been asked, answered, and documented a million times (which I imagine it has); if you want to point me at a link or Wiki, that’s fine. But don’t be surprised, if I come back…with some follow-up.

TIA,
CD

2

#Preliminaries
Avoid interference from nonsensical embedded metadata (some rippers embed them too)
Settings - Server - Agents - Shows - TheTVDB
In there, grab the line ‘Local Media Assets’ with your mouse and drag it downwards, so it ends up being at the bottom of the stack of active agents.

Create a folder to hold your tv shows.
Put it outside the folders where you store movies. It must be completely separate.

Then create a new library of the type ‘TV Shows’ and point it to your newly created folder on disk.

#The crux of the biscuit
The key to tv episodes is meticulous preparation of your video files in regards to naming the episode video files themselves and organising them into suitably named subfolders.

  1. Look up your show on TheTVDB
  2. Take the title as it is used on TheTVDB. If there is something in parentheses, take that too. If the title contains invalid characters (depends on your file system), like § : % *, simply leave them out.
  3. Check the naming and the folder structure of your show. Name the top folder of the show exactly after the title on TheTVDB. No abbreviations. No additional subfolders. No aliases.
  4. Name the episode files according to the above linked naming guide. Use the same title as for the top folder. Show's Title - s01e01 - additional info.ext (’- additional info’ can be left out)
  5. After you corrected the naming and folder structure, perform the Plex Dance with all files for this show.

Step 5 is only necessary if you did already add your tv episodes into Plex and they were promptly mis-identified :wink:

Steps 2-4 can be made painless and fast by using Filebot
Make sure to not only install Filebot but to also set the {plex} naming pattern in its preferences.
There are introductory videos available for Filebot.

Adhering to the above will prevent almost all of the pains that new users report in these forums :smiley:

3

OK…getting started! :slight_smile:

Oh, BTW; I’m a very visual person…and stuff like this, can just be too “complicated” to describe (when in this case…a picture is worth a thousand words).

So…you’ll see me post LOTS of screen-shots :slight_smile:

4

take this as an “illustration” for steps 2-4 :smiley: :

TV Shows /  <-- tv show library points here
   Title Of TV Show /
      Season 01 /
         Title Of TV Show - s01e01 - optional info like episode title etc.ext
         Title Of TV Show - s01e02 - optional info like episode title etc.ext
         ...
      Season 02 /
         Title Of TV Show - s02e01 - optional info like episode title etc.ext
         Title Of TV Show - s02e02 - optional info like episode title etc.ext
         ...
5

Feel free to name a particular tv show and I can guide you through the process of preparing the files etc.

6

Awesome; will do.

7

OK…let me start, with pics that I think are relevant.

This is how, I currently have my folders/files structured/named…

Let’s focus on The Shield

faa2vcexpuse.png1213×177 11 KB

Next post…we’ll take a look, at the PLEX set-up.

8

Stop right here.
This will give you grief.

VIDEO_TS folders are not supported.
Transfer each individual episode into an MKV container with makemkv (procedure is lossless),
so that you end up with one file per episode, instead of one folder and 5 files per episode.

  • no subfolders per episode
  • episodes are supposed to be named like explained above
  • even the season folders need new names
9

@OttoKerner said:
Stop right here.
This will give you grief.

VIDEO_TS folders are not supported.
Transfer each individual episode into an MKV container with makemkv,
so that you end up with one file per episode, instead of one folder and 5 files per episode.

  • no subfolders per episode
  • episodes are supposed to named like explained above
  • even the season folders need new names

Maybe not as big a deal, as it sounds.

I know I’ve taken the “main”, .VOB file…and just renamed it .MPG; and it played fine. In fact…that’s how I used to rip ALL my SD TV. But then subtitles were tricky…so I started doing it this way.

I wonder if I can just rename, with .MKV??

10

I’m not so worried about the re-naming. Knew it might be a possibility; and it’s just laborious.

Here’s where I get confused:

589×533 15.9 KB

As with ‘Movies’; it’s not like I’m pointing PLEX, at my movies share (on unRAID). I need to create, like a TV directory…point that, at my TV share; then point PLEX at the TV directory??

11

@CDLehner said:
I know I’ve taken the “main”, .VOB file…and just renamed it .MPG; and it played fine. In fact…that’s how I used to rip ALL my SD TV. But then subtitles were tricky…so I started doing it this way.

That’s because the subtitles are referenced in one of the smaller sidecar files (probably the IFO) if you just rename the VOB, then the information about the subtitle is not visible anymore.

I wonder if I can just rename, with .MKV??

No way. Simply renaming won’t do any good. This will only cause additional issues later on.

12

Here is the unRAID volume mapping

lsmd17b79w3f.png1027×122 17.1 KB

13

@CDLehner said:
As with ‘Movies’; it’s not like I’m pointing PLEX, at my movies share (on unRAID). I need to create, like a TV directory…point that, at my TV share; then point PLEX at the TV directory??

I have no idea how it works on the Shield.

How does the path to your movie files look like?
(you can check by editing your movie library, then go to the ‘Add Folders’ tab)

14

@OttoKerner said:

No way. Simply renaming won’t do any good. This will only cause additional issues later on.

As such?

15

@CDLehner said:
As such?

As I said: Don’t do it.
You will lose subtitles and it will create further issues down the road.

16

@OttoKerner said:

@CDLehner said:
As such?

As I said: Don’t do it.
You will lose subtitles and it will create further issues down the road.

No; I have it open for conversion…in MKV. Yes?

17

@CDLehner said:
No; I have it open for conversion…in MKV. Yes?

Sorry, I totally missed that 8-}

Yes, of course. This should do the trick.

18

As far as your UnRaid setup goes, I have a share called “Media”. In there I have folders called ‘Video’, ‘Music’, ‘Books’ & ‘Magazines’. Inside the Video folder I have further folders called ‘Moves’, ‘3D Movies’, ‘TV Shows’, ‘Concerts’, ‘Documentaries’ & ‘Stand-up Comedy’. This way I only need to map the Media share in my Plex docker to be able to see all these folders. I then point my Plex libraries at the individual folders…

dockers.jpg1000×706

19

@OttoKerner said:

@CDLehner said:
No; I have it open for conversion…in MKV. Yes?

Sorry, I totally missed that 8-}

Yes, of course. This should do the trick.

Otto, thanks for your time and dedication thus far!!

Have my 1st MKV conversion; now I’m going to work on the naming conventions…and Neo’s mapping suggestion!

20

@Neodude said:
As far as your UnRaid setup goes, I have a share called “Media”. In there I have folders called ‘Video’, ‘Music’, ‘Books’ & ‘Magazines’. Inside the Video folder I have further folders called ‘Moves’, ‘3D Movies’, ‘TV Shows’, ‘Concerts’, ‘Documentaries’ & ‘Stand-up Comedy’. This way I only need to map the Media share in my Plex docker to be able to see all these folders. I then point my Plex libraries at the individual folders…

Neo, that makes total sense; except I’m not quite 100% PLEX yet.

NM