# Season vs Miniseries?

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774>\
**Category:** Plex Media Server\
**Tags:** server-windows\
**Created:** [April 4, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774 "2020-04-04T16:30:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![taunnnt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b3f665/32.png) [@taunnnt](https://forums.plex.tv/u/taunnnt)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/1 "2020-04-04T16:30:44Z")

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Hello I’m trying to have plex figure out the difference between V 1983 miniseries and V 1984 series. My files are like so:  
V.1983.S01E01E02  
V.1984.S01E01  
V.1984.S01E02

What keeps happenening is Plex thinks there’s two EP1 and EP2. How can I get it to just see the miniseriers and not double the episodes?

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**Author:** ![Elijah\_Baley](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/elijah_baley/32/10336_2.png) [@Elijah\_Baley](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Elijah_Baley)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/2 "2020-04-04T16:50:00Z")

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Your naming tells Plex that there are two each of e01 and e02 and is in a form that Plex does not normally use. Also it could greatly confuse Plex because the naming is so horrid.

The best structure I have found in cases like this is:  
TV Shows \<- The TV library points here and can contain multiple series  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_V (1983)  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_Season 01  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_V (1983) - s01e01 - Optional Name.ext  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_V (1983) - s01e02 - Optional Name.ext  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_V (1983) - s01exx - Optional Name.ext { for the remainder of the season 01  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_Season 00 \<- or “Specials”  
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_V (1983) - s00e01e02 - miniseries.ext

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**Author:** ![grhiner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/grhiner/32/237004_2.png) [@grhiner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/grhiner)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 4:52pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/3 "2020-04-04T16:52:38Z")

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Use the TVDB name ([https://thetvdb.com/series/v](https://thetvdb.com/series/v) see the seasons area some of this is a "specia;, some is a season with multi-part epsodes)while using the naming formats [https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/)

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**Author:** ![JuiceWSA](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/juicewsa/32/12253_2.png) [@JuiceWSA](https://forums.plex.tv/u/JuiceWSA)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/4 "2020-04-04T16:54:55Z")

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> **[Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/)**
>
> The scanners and metadata agents used by Plex will work best when your major types of content are separated from...

[https://thetvdb.com/series/v](https://thetvdb.com/series/v)

```auto
A TV Show Library/
......V/ <---The Series
......Season 01/
........V - S01E01.xxx
........V - S01E02.xxx

```

[https://thetvdb.com/series/v/seasons/official/0](https://thetvdb.com/series/v/seasons/official/0)

```auto
A TV Show Library/
....V/
......Season 00/ 
........V - S00E01.xxx <---The Mini-Series (1)
........V - S00E02.xxx <---The Mini-Series (2)

```

[https://www.filebot.net/](https://www.filebot.net/) \<—The ‘EASY’ Button.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 5:52pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/5 "2020-04-04T17:52:48Z")

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Just for the record… naming for multi-episode files should be like this:  
`Show Name - sXXeYY-eZZ.ext`

The examples in this thread had missed the `-` before the end-episode part.  
See [Multiple Episodes in a Single File](https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/#toc-4) in the support article linked above by grhiner.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JuiceWSA](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/juicewsa/32/12253_2.png) [@JuiceWSA](https://forums.plex.tv/u/JuiceWSA)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/6 "2020-04-04T18:04:27Z")

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Further investigations reveal:  
If you want this show to match - and are patient, name it like this:

```auto
A TV Show Library\
......V (1983)\ <---Put that (1983) field in
.......Season 00\
...........V (1983) - S00E01.mp4

```

It does, eventually, get a natural match, but there is something up with this show, or this show on Plex - or TVDB is about to go belly up again.

I couldn’t get a match with no (YEAR) field, as it simply picked the 2009 show.  
It took like 10 minutes to do that.

So, I Danced another version with the (YEAR) field and, again, in 10 minutes or so the correct metadata started trickling in. I still didn’t get it all, when I lost interest and Plex Danced that thing right outta my hair.

Further testing - by somebody else - is probably warranted - to see if we have a candidate for ‘Match Failures’, but here’s a hot tip - you better have that thing named and structured right the first time - 'cause you don’t want to have to mess with this thing again - if at all possible.

Here’s the natural match front-end (with the (1983) field), but I never got more than about half of the episode thumbs before I gave up:

 ![A Painful V-1](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/b/4/b410a34c5b42116e92f77cfc3f3f26a86d60cf87.jpeg)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 6:04pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/season-vs-miniseries/567774/7 "2020-07-03T18:04:30Z")

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