Plex Agents and ratings for dummies

General Discussions
1

This all started when I wanted to get IMDB critic-ratings for my TV-shows. Now, several frustrating hours later, I am here asking for help in understanding agents. Are ratings in agents referring to all ratings? Or ratings as “who should watch” (=ex PG-13) or ratings such as “6.5 on IMDB or 52% on Rotten”.

Is there a guide somewhere that explains how to set up agents intutively?

I can for example go:
Agents>Movies>Plex Movie>Plex Movie (top of list) settings and choose Ratings source>“IMDB”

And in the same instance I can go:
Agents>Movies>The Movie Database>Open Movie Database (top of list) settings and choose Ratings movies>Metacritic

Will my movies show Metacritic critic ratings or IMDB?

Just as confusing, in my TV-show library, I only get star-ratings, but every setting I can find in all my agents are set to IMDB (and moved to the top of the agent list). I have “refreshed all”, restarted my server, “fix match”>“refresh” and still TV-shows get star-ratings - no IMDB (critic) rating… :tired_face:

2

OK, first…

Agents>Movies is where you setup the different agents there, the order, which ones are enabled etc…

The advance tab for the library is where you choose the scanner type and the agent for that library to use.

EDIT: sorry got pulled away… I see your getting the information you need…

3

Did you prematurly press reply or is that your complete answer?

4

You cannot get IMDb ratings for TV shows.
All TV-related metadata come from either TheTVDB or TheMovieDB, depending on which of these two agents was used to match the particular tv show in question.

5

So when I choose:

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and then:

image
…It is only content-rating, not critic-rating?

But “Add IMDB-rating to summary” is critic-rating (but only for movies) even when under Shows>The TVDB?

Nevertheless, a good guide for agents would seem in place as it UI is not intuitve.
I don’t understand the thought behind the setup.

What happens when I chose:
Shows>The TVDB and put “The Movie Database” on top
image
and at the same time:

Shows>The Movie Database and put “The TVDB” on top.
image
Maybe it’s the levels/hierchy thats confusing, dunno. :see_no_evil:

6

The OMDB agent is an unsupported 3rd-party plugin. All issues with it should be directed to its author(s).

7

Provided, that all agents are working as they should: The first agent from the top to deliver a certain datum will “win”. If TheMovieDB can deliver a rating for this show (and it actually can match the ID of TheTVDB to one of its own tv show records!) then it should in theory be able to override the data coming from TheTVDB.

8

I wasn’t aware as I am trying to understand agents as a whole as described, but I will take that under concideration. Thank you.

But I still don’t understand (lots about) agents, especially my last entry concerning the concequences of the order of the two last screenshots (now modified to focus on the question and not the use of 3rd-party agents). Which will dominate, the first or the last?

Again, this is why I think a complete guide to agents" (“Agents for dummies”) is a good idea, rather than partial answers to random questions in the forum.

9

I agree that the word rating needs to be more descriptive where settings are concerned.
use of content-rating vs user-rating would help clear that up…

10

Otto…
Are the agents run in the order from top to bottom as enabled?
If so does it hold that the first agent to fill the data locks that field and the next agent only fill in whats missing. That’s why putting the local media agent to the lowest point on the list then only adds to what one has, and adding local posters, subtitle files and extras…

11

That’s precisely as it works.
The catch: the “matching” is still done by the primary agent. (The primary agent is the one that cannot be “unchecked”.)
Which means:

  • if the item in question cannot be matched with the primary agent, it won’t also get any supplementary metadata from the “secondary/contributing” agents
  • there must be a method which allows the linking of records from the different agents together.
    e.g. if you want to use TheMovieDB as secondary agent, it must have the ID from TheTVDB (for shows) and IMDb (for movies) present in the record (the menu item on TheMovieDB website is called " External IDs")
12

When reading these answers, it’s obvious that agent-configuration is far from straight-forward and really needs a make-over. The question that goes unanswered is perhaps one of many keys needed to better understand how this setup is thought to work by the developers.

Levels, categories & priorities

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The combination of levels (1 (Shows) to 4 (Settings) / top > down) and then the Priority (3) under 2A or 2B is rather confusing. And then there is the issue of the Agent Priority (3) (top > down) under Agents (2A/2B) and when different Agents (2A/2B) are chosen and how priorities under these are affect eachother horisontaly/left to right(?) (as shown in previous post)…

I thank you who have tried to partially explain some of what I have asked, but all I have learned is that it’s not possible to get IMDB critic-ratings for TV-shows.

It is otherwise my impression (/experience), and has been for a long time now that the Plex team is only focusing on bloating the server-software and has no plans on modifying or improving core functionality such as what I have described, so the only “solution” would be to create a complete guide to the existing (agent) setup. Anybody up for that?

One can only hope that someday Plex will be customer-driven when developing/improving the software, and not customer-driven as today, meaning leaving the customers to support eachother.

1 Like
13

That screen shows how the agents are configured…
The library is where you select what agent your going to use.

14

I really appreciate your effort @nydave69, and with all due respect, I would really prefer helpfull answers or no answer at all.

15

on that note I’ll leave you be…

16

Let me see if I can help dispell at least some of it.

Row one in your image is pretty self explanatory, that’s the Library type (I think you already knew this as you labeled it category, but just in case… )

Row 2 is the Primary agent and corresponds to Library>Manage Library>Edit>Advanced and selecting the Agent from here:

image
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So the Agents you see in that 2nd Row, should correspond to the choices in your drop down menu.

The final section, once you’ve selected which primary Agent you’re using in row 2, is the order used by that Agent to fill in your Metadata. However, as Otto has pointed out, If your Primary Agent is “TheTVDB” But you move “TheMovieDB” to the top to acquire its data set first, the Entry at www.thetvdb.com needs to be linked to the entry at www.themoviedb.com by having the correct information in the ID Fields at both ends. Otherwise, it will skip that agent and move to the next one in the list.

Does this clear things up? At least somewhat?

Edit: I will take this a step further just in case.

Lets say we’re working with your TV Library, and we’re working with the show “Afterlife” from 2005.

Your TV Library is setup to use “TheTVDB” as the Primary Agent. You scan your library, it finds a match for the show on TheTVDB, and proceeds down your prioritization list. Your Priority is to have “TheMovieDB” information first, then to have TheTVDB Information second, and so on.

Since afterlife is not linked to an entry on TheMovieDB, as noted here on this page under “On Other Sites” (https://www.thetvdb.com/series/afterlife) it will not be able to locate the entry at TheMovieDB, and will move on as a result.

However, since you’ve selected to use IMDB ratings, it will use that, as there is an entry for IMDB under “On Other Sites”, so the agent has the information it needs to go get the IMDB rating and utilize the ratings information.

I hope I was able to help and not make things more confusing…

1 Like
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