Does it work if I name TV episodes by **year ** instead of a sequential number starting with 1? For example:
\TV\Muppet Show\Season 1976
vs.
\TV\Muppet Show\Season 01
I know thedtvdb.com works on episode number, not year, but I sometimes don’t want to match my episodes to their data, e.g. when their data is wrong.
You need to use whatever TheTVDB uses. In most cases it is season number, but some shows it is the year. PMS will always call it “Season”, so you could have “Season 2018” shown in PMS.
If TheTVDB has wrong data, it is best if you report it and try to get it changed on their end.
I’ve tried reporting incorrect data to TVDB before and they blew me off. Is there a way to tell Plex to ignore TVDB and use my own, other than manually editing 100+ episodes? (I.e. some sort of setting, folder/file renaming, etc.)
Also, TVDB has an alternate “DVD order”, so is there some way for Plex to use that in its ID’ing?
@LloydGM said:
…but I sometimes don’t want to match my episodes to their data, e.g. when their data is wrong.
It’s easier to submit to the idea - that TVDB is right… even when they’re wrong. Your options are rather limited, as in, you don’t really have any options.
DVD ordering sometimes works - providing the DVD ordering at TVDB has been created and is Plex Compliant. If it’s not there, or is non-compliant - you’re out of luck.
TVDB uses the original air date of the televised event. DVD Ordering is done my mindless minions that don’t bother checking their work at TVDB - they just do what they want to. If you’re counting on DVD order to be correct in any way you’re working on a wing and a prayer, having neither a wing, or a prayer.
You can use the Personal Media Agent wherein Plex won’t try to match the show at all - leaving you to hand edit everything. I doubt if your 4 year old will care one way or the other, but that is an option you can employ:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1608077/#Comment_1608077
You can also attempt to use local metadata through wild gyrations, much trial and error along with a fair amount of pain and suffering, but you should know as soon as you move Local Media Assets to the top of your agent lists - your Plexiverse will come crashing down around your ears when every other MP4/M4V file in your Plexiverse (with bogus embedded metadata) refuses to cooperate:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265256-naming-home-series-media/
If it were me - I’d just use TVDB’s ordering and call it a day, but it’s up to you.
@JuiceWSA said:
TVDB uses the original air date of the televised event. DVD Ordering is done my mindless minions that don’t bother checking their work at TVDB - they just do what they want to. If you’re counting on DVD order to be correct in any way you’re working on a wing and a prayer, having neither a wing, or a prayer.
That’s the problem in my case…5 seasons of The Muppet Show and TVDB’s air dates are no good because “original air date” means something different in different regions. TVDB’s DVD order is actually correct, but it’s apparently not Plex-compliant because Plex blindly accepts only “air date”. I wish I could tell Plex to use only metadata as I’m meticulous about entering it for all of my media, but Plex is sadly mindless in that regard.
Too bad I can’t bill Plex for my time for manually editing nearly 150 episodes. And I’ll just have to use fake season+episode text in my file names just so Plex won’t match 'em with TVDB’s bogus listings. Grr.
@LloydGM said:
That’s the problem in my case…5 seasons of The Muppet Show and TVDB’s air dates are no good because “original air date” means something different in different regions.
TVDB doesn’t care about multiple regions, only the region it was originally aired from.
Take Dragon Ball Z for example, it took many, many years before it was aired in US.
@LloydGM said:
TVDB’s DVD order is actually correct, but it’s apparently not Plex-compliant because Plex blindly accepts only “air date”
Are you sure you’re doing that right?
TVDB’s DVD order looks exactly like Firefly - the ONE and ONLY DVD order I have EVER used.
Firefly works perfectly over here… but you do have to follow the rules for TV Show naming and structuring or you’ll get nowhere pretty fast:
$\TV\Muppet Show\Season 1976
vs.
$\TV\Muppet Show\Season 01
Neither one of those will work - 'cause the name of the show is ‘The Muppet Show’ and if you need a (YEAR) field it’s gonna have to be:
The Muppet Show (1976)/
.......Season 01/
..........The Muppet Show (1976) - S01E01 - Episode Name Optional.xxx
and if your file is an MP4/M4V (with bogus embedded metadata) and you have Local Media Assets in the top slot in your Agents Lists - no shortage of pain and suffering will be doled out by the friendly Plex Server - insisting on that bogus Title Field, even over a perfectly named file:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200241558-Agents
I don’t know a lot about DVD order, but at first glance it does look like it’ll work…
Considering what you must have been doing over there and the amount of fiddling you’ve been doing with a show still in the library - and not knowing if it’s actually matched or not… I’d start that bundle over with proper file names, show name, and folder structure amidst:
The Plex Dance®:
All Steps. In Order. No Shortcuts.
Firefly is our baseline for checking if DVD order is working. I don’t know about the Muppets.
Me either, but Firefly works fine and at TVDB Firefly and The Muppets are identical in appearance when looking at DVD Order.
Whatever that means…
It must be something at TVDB’s end then, because my Firefly episodes are sorting correctly where my Muppet Show ones were all wonky no matter the Plex sort setting. However, I didn’t know about the “episode ordering” setting, so I’ll give that a try. (Odd that it never got picked up in my googling and forum searching, just the “episode sorting” which, to me, was the same thing, not knowing that there are 2 near-identical settings…i.e. “sorting” == “ordering” to me.) Odd, though, I would never equate the “ordering” help text with episode ID’ing which is what my issue appeared to be.
Guys, especially JuiceWSA, thx for that setting info. I just finished manually editing all of my episodes, but I’m definitely going to play around with that setting for my new set of Bab5 dics arriving this weekend. 
/cheer!
