Organizing my home videos

General Discussions
1

Hello,
I have read several posts on this topic. I am posting this here because I yet havn’t find the proper way to organize my homevideos.
I would like to know if anyone here have found a solution that works great for him and can share it with us ?

What I would like to do :
Be able to use plex with family to browse some of our family videos in a “simple” manner

In the past I have had some success but I needed to rename a file that was called:
MVI_3098.mp4 into Danse - s2015e01 - 25 sep 2015 - MVI_3098.mp4

It’s just that it is a bit diffuclt to rename all of my files that way.

What I could do though is placing them into the right year folder like 2016 2017 2019 etc…

and I also have programs that can batch rename so I guess if needed I could rename them like this

s2015e01 - MVI_3098.mp4
s2015e02 - MVI_3099.mp4

etc…

I also would like to know if there are some addons or plugins that facilitates the browsing of personal media if any of you know ?

I love Plex and hope it can be a god companion for family gathering looking at past videos

Cheers and thanks to the Plex team

Z.

2

You need to use file names and structures that are valid in a TV Show Library:

A TV Show Library/
.......Home Videos/
...........Season 2015/
............Home Videos - S2015E01 - MVI_3098.mp4
........for instance... 'Home Videos' can be any name - the rest must be compliant

Also do this - you don’t need embedded metadata right now and any metadata that’s present may hinder the operation:

Then, create the structure and file name theme above - or one very close to it with Season Folders and File Names that are valid TV Show items - then drop it in a TV Show Library.

Then:
Fix Match
Search Options
Agent
Select Personal Media
Select the only item in the list - your ‘fake show’
Done

That tells Plex to stop trying to match that ‘show’ and you can hand edit it without issue.

The ‘Fake Show’ will behave like a regular TV Show…
can’t be any easier to access…

3

Thanks JuiceWSA for your detailed answer.
Just some quick thoughts:

  1. When I want to know if I transfered a video or not usually I use a comparaison software (like Beyond Compare) to compare folders.
    If I change the original filename, then my comparaison software gets confused…

Would there be a way to import the files into Plex without touching the file names ?

Could the “Home Videos - S2015E01 - MVI_3098” info be in a txt file that then would be imported into Plex ? or apply this info after importation in Plex ?

Not sure I explained clearly… :confused:

  1. I did try to use a renaming program (called ant renamer) to batch change all the files and use the naming you suggest.
    Something I don’t understand is that on my computer it’s done instantly but when I do it on my NAS files it takes around 5 seconds for each file to rename, is that normal ?

  2. After I did rename the files I hit refreshed the page inside Plex and I now have Season 2015 with inside 300 episodes… :slight_smile:

The thumbnails are generated okay.

What to do after ? Create playlists ?
Do you take the time after to rename every episode with content of the video ?
Sort the videos that are usless ?

Would like to have feedback from users on what they do , intersting to know what people do actually find the time to do with personnal videos :slight_smile:

I once thought of editing them for example but I find that maybe accessing them through Plex that way can be also a nice exprience and whatching some from time to time

Z.

4

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