TV Series DVD Special Features / Extras (Behind The Scenes, Interviews, Trailers etc..)

Feature Suggestions
83

Now THAT would be great, but the how to do it becomes an issue.

Maybe a “specials” folder within the season.
If this happens though I think it’d be essential for there to be an Editable Play Next setting for shows & ideally a general setting for the library. I mean I would not want a “behind the scenes” episode to play automatically ever. Only if selected. In fact that could be a per-episode setting as well.

Automatically Play
× After Season
× After Episode: [Select Episode]
× Never
× After Show Completion

This would also help with the issue in some shows, particularly of the Anime variety, where an episode’s OFFICIAL numbering is episode 4.5. Instead of TVDB forcing them into a “Season 0” they could be numbered S00E7 for the TVDB metadata but because it’s in the “Season Specials” folder it’d be shown in THAT season. & then you could control it to play after Episode 4 (& Ideally be sorted that way, but I’ll take what I can get) but still get it’s metadata

84

This page suggests that Local Media Assets are an option for TV shows. Either my installation is corrupted or that page is incorrect:

This is correct, but Local Media Assets are for local artwork, NOT special features. I don’t use custom theme music, so I don’t know if that works or not, but the rest of it works exactly as it’s stated there. There is something missing from the list though, Forced Subtitles Sample Structure S01E01.ENG.forced.srt (or smi/ssa/ass)
But other than that that page is accurate. You have to have the metadata agent you are using include the local media in it’s settings, that may be where you are off

85

Do movie extras auto play?

86

No, but I think that’s for the best with movies. While I personally might like an autoplay for certain movies, certain things like deleted scenes or bloopers, I’d rather it not because those always end up at the end of the list anyway.
But TV shows have an auto-next feature already. Movies don’t, & movie special features don’t generally get watched every time in a specific order, Some TV Specials do, but not all. Movies if you wanted to autoplay, because it’s part of a movie series or whatever, you can include certain selected Special Features in a playlist

87

What is an example where you’d want TV extras to play automatically?

88

In the series “The Flash” during season 4 there are special feature 2 minute webisode series called “Stretched Scenes” each of these is a joking commentary on a specific episode. So I would have “Stretched Scene #1” to play after S04E06 & “Stretched Scene #2” to play after S04E07 & “Stretched Scene #3” to play after S04E09. I’d also have Spice & Wolf OVA 1: Wolf & A Tail Of Happiness, Which is officially Episode 6.5, but for Metadata is S00E01 by TVDB, play after S01E06. While Spice & Wolf special episode #2, Studying With Holo, S00E02, I’d have play after the season ends as a nice little in-between episode between the seasons. While “Testament of Sister New Devil” has 6 specials that go with season 1, S00E03-E08, & 5 specials that go with season 2, S00E08-E13, that I’d want to be sorted with their seasons, but would not want to autoplay. But there’s an OVA, S00E01, that I’d want to play after Season 1, & another OVA, S00E02, that I’d want to play after Season 2, then a movie S00E14, that I’d want to play after the series end, & a “bonus” episode S00E15, for the movie that I probably would have not autoplay. I haven’t seen it yet & it isn’t in my library so I don’t know, but I’d like the option to have Story Relevant specials auto play where they go, but non-story specials or like Re:Zero’s specials that are shorts grouped with their season but not autoplay, while other people might want to see them between each episode that they are making a joke about

89

It’s 2020… We should have a way to insert the specials in their intended viewing order. This is already accomplished by competitors. It’s absolutely ludicrous that Plex hasn’t implemented this.

1 Like
90

Doctor Who Specials, prequel episodes, or minisodes. For example “Night of the Doctor” should play before “Day of the Doctor.” Right now, it skips from S07E13 and goes to Series 8.

91

So for me, I put my specials inline. Apparently the “On Deck” is supposed to put the next episode by Air Date, but Autoplay doesn’t. Regardless that doesn’t work for me, because I want my stuff to play in the right order MORE when I’m watching autoplay. But then there are some specials that I don’t want to autoplay if they aired next. So I just number them as the ned of the season, So for your example:

For example “Night of the Doctor” should play before “Day of the Doctor.” Right now, it skips from S07E13 and goes to Series 8.

I’d number it S07E114 So it’d be Doctor Who S07E114 - Night Of The Doctor

The negative to this is that it won’t get its metadata automatically. You CAN number it like TheTVDB does, then lock in all the values, then rename the file. Then when the Scanner Re-Scans the file it will move it but from my experience keep the Matadata 75% of time. I personally think it is less work to just Tag it myself because doing it either way means that Trakt won’t register it as watched, which is sad, but so far I have found no way to get that to work.

As far as specials in their intended order, I think that’s a hard call, because intended by who? many times different editions of DVD/BluRay have different orders, sometimes BluRays have features DVDs don’t, Sometimes you have “Walmart Exclusive” “BestBuy Exclusive” “Target Exclusive” versions. So intended is irrelevant, but we should be able to choose. For TV Shows, which this thread is about, that’s already there, They are numbered by order, but unfortunately that order is pre-determined into TheTVDB’s intended order, whether you agree with that or not

92

@elan any chance it got passed along?

Given:

  • the functionality is there through a thrid party agent,
  • can be viewed in some, but not all, clients,
  • and has been a feature request with a substantial number of upvotes for years and years,

It seems to be something that should be fairly high up on the priority and ease to implement list…

I’m sure that the vast majority of those that voted would even consider signing up for Plex Plus if you made the call to paywall this functionality given how many folks over so many years have been crying out for it…

At the very least, if there is a reason that it can’t /won’t be done - it’d be a good to make that known. Even some generic corporate language like:

due to product direction and strategy, this is not important functionality for the future of the product

would be better than radio silence…

93

I think it’s more “How does it get implemented?” than “can we do it?”

Some want it so that they don’t have to do anything like number things. There’s a reason why 3rd Party is the solution for that, because using Absolute Series Scanner is a trade-off, & not something that MOST users want.

As far as the other workaround, those of us who use it, once you create the bookmarklet on your bookmark bar renaming the season is as easy as any other edit in the web interface, you just have to know that it’s there.

When making a change like this it’s not so cut & dry, because that change will definitely mess things up for some users, Plex is almost always going to choose in favor of not hurting existing users over implementing a new thing. & they should, it’s a bad idea to piss off your regulars to appeal to new customers. Because those new customers at least half the time will stay, adapt, & learn to work with what’s already there, those that wouldn’t, 90% would never pay, & maybe 70% of those that would IF they stuck around, would find some other reason to not

94

I’m with you here - it’s a big call to go in one direction or the other when you run the risk of annoying existing customers. My day job is dealing with exactly this kind of stuff - balancing product direction against existing customer base. And one of my personal pet peeves about Microsoft of late is exactly this - small changes that make life miserable.

Keeping it to the 3rd parties is a good call - this lets the community build it in a collective way and keeps plex away from the wrath of a user base that doesn’t want this / need this / already works round it.

I think the only point where I see the disconnect between Plex and the ask is the fact it can be done already in some UI’s but not in others through one of hte 3rd party agents out there.

I feel like a lot of the voices above and the votes could be silenced by continuing to make it 3rd party functionality and just enabling all UIs to support this - or maybe just the “important ones” - web, desktop [mac/windows], Smart TV (just kinda guessing here as to usuage stats…).

The 3rd party devs have done some great work in building out an agent to be configurable as to where the Extras are shown - and in the handful of UI’s that support it, it works just as you’d hope.

In a few other UIs, playing around with the JS code allows you to manually do it (at least until another update rolls around).

At the end of the day though - this is a Plex call. I can’t claim to know all of the priorities going on at Plex HQ, and the thousands of things that the team is no doubt buired with. But as a little user that’s looking at a Plex Pass to replace all of the media subscriptions that I’m forking out for - this seems like something that could be solved with not a great deal of effort, and without impacting those that don’t want it (becuase it’s already kind of there).

95

But it can’t. That was my point. Some of the users here were specifically wanting to be able to throw unlabeled files in folders labeled things like “Extras”. Plex already uses the folder “Extras” as an ignore folder, for anything you have that you don’t want to be in the library, like, say, a DVD has an mp3 ringtone that you want to keep in the same folder, but I ou don’t want plex trying to add it to the library, you just want the file to sit with the DVD it came with. Other folders would change how the Scanner (not the agent) has to work, that’s a fundamental change. The Series Scanner ignores folder names. If they changed that I personally would have to go in & do a lot of restructuring because I have some shows in folders grouped by “Sagas” but the files ard labeled with the official Plex season/episode convention, Show Name S07E101 - Whatever here that gets ignored by plex
Another problem that I’d be fine with but would cause problems for many is that the Special folders in Movies (Featurettes Shorts etc) will put whatever the name of the file is as the title, or without the folder in a movie whatever the file in will be it’s title with a -DeletedScenes at the end of the file that tells it to categorize it in that group. Apparently most people don’t rip & name their own stuff, & they rely on the fact that whatever torrent or underground site they downloaded it from put “S04E14” in the name so they can ignore the rest. All THOSE people would have to spend a LOT of time renaming a lot of files. & those people are the ones WITH a lot of files. Implementing an “Edit Season Name” would be nice, & would just be an added field in the edit screen. That’s something that could be done, but that’s not what is being asked for. The folder workaround with the other scanner has PLENTY of negatives that you compromise for. So many that I use the default Plex scanner by default & ONLY use the other scanner when I’m trying to get around a problem, like my “Shorts” library. The 3rd Party Agents & Scanners are completely unrelated to the UI, whatever UI, it’s the same, the only thing that isn’t universal is the Rename Season because it relies on a bookmarklet so it can only be done in the Web interface in a browser (& not really on a Mobile one). There’s not a “allow the UIs to support it” issue. These things are all Server related things.
The biggest thing is the lack of incremental episodes, that’s the only thing here that is actually supported in other places like Kodi & from my understanding Embry as well. But that’s a separate issue & has had suggestions for before & Plex has outright said “No” to. I liked the idea of possibly adding a Season Specials folder, that would have an option to select “Play After” in the Web interface, but as far as I know that was only JUST thought of by myself a few days ago, & IF it comes about will take time. I’m sure there are probably some problems it might cause, but I had to think of ways it wouldn’t cause any problems that I could see when I thought of it. THAT’S the hard part

96

My preference would be to just have it work exactly like the movie extras feature with the extra enhancement of being supported at the series level and the season level. That would at least get all the information manually accessible in the interface.

After that they can start finding ways to create advanced features that exceed what that movie libraries do.

97

My preference would be to just have it work exactly like the movie extras feature with the extra enhancement of being supported at the series level and the season level. That would at least get all the information manually accessible in the interface.

But the problem with that is that doing that won’t work without a complete rewrite of the Series Scanner. The Movie Scanner is inferior to the Series Scanner in a number of ways. Ways that are important to most people. If that were to happen then The Series Specials would all loose their Metadata. Plus it would essentially require Plex to scan with 2 scanners every time it scans a folder. If you want a folder that you just throw unnumbered files in like you do with movie extras use Absolute Series Scanner instead. You’ll find it has other issues, but it satisfies that for you. But most people aren’t going to want that, so there’s no way it’ll be incorporated

98

Why that?
I don’t think people are asking for local extras to replace a show’s specials. If you check on TheTVDb they’re actually quite adamant that DVD/Blu-Ray extras are “forbidden” as specials (not that there’s tons of exceptions that keep popping up every time one of their mods has cleaned them up).

Let’s have an example…
Doctor Who (modern) has tons of specials – that’s usually full episodes that aired outside the regular airings (usually X-Mas or Easter specials). Some of the DVDs also contain featurettes or deleted scenes for seasons (or episodes).
This feature request is about having a place for those extras. I don’t want to scroll all to the top but some very early suggestions were to mimic the exact same model we have for movies for TV Shows – except for TV Shows they might apply on the show, season or even the episode level.

There’s no watering down of the current scanner/agents.
This is about an on-top feature.

I’m not sure where the “unnumbered unstructured files” in those recent posts come from.
I do have a huge folder of tv-show extras that I have yet to add to Plex… they’re all nicely structured and just waiting to be added (I admit… I was too lazy to load all of them manually or to bother with the 3rd party agent)

1 Like
99

The DVD extras are completely local and based on file names. None of the metadata from the internet would need to be messed with.

100

If you have a new way of doing things it has to replace the old. Right now there is a structure for Specials: They go in a Specials folder, a Season 0 folder, or are numbered S00E## most of the specials are already there, so that’s a problem to begin with, but that’s not even what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is that the Scanner, not the “Agent”, is what determines where things go. You’ll notice that if you edit the Metadata you can’t move an episode to a different season, or a different order, or anything like that. So having the Scanner choose to automatically put anything it finds in a Folder called Featurettes in a separate “Special” folder is a fundamental change.

It’s not just about a “Place” for them.
If you just want a “Place” for them Number them S00E301 & S00E302 then they are in the Specials for the show & you can manually tag them
Or number them S201E01 & have Season 201 as “Behind The Scenes” & Season 304 as “Outtakes” or whatever, in whatever order you want them watched in.
Or if you want them at the end of the season Number them as S05E101
There’s plenty of places, just not a unified one. It’s a non-standard thing that most people won’t use.

This is what I was talking about. Earlier in the discussion when the idea of numbering them, a basic requirement for everything in a TV Show, it was adamantly stated that part of the request is so that they don’t have to be numbered, just put in a folder. The “Structure” used for movies takes anything within a Movie Name (YEAR) folder & anything in the root folder is a different Play Version unless it has a “-DeletedScenes” or whatever at the end. If there are folders it takes anything in a Deleted Scenes folder & puts it in the specials, which is literally just a long scrolling list at the bottom of the movie, with the Deleted Scenes notation underneath it. It uses no numbering & includes everything except for the -Shorts tag & uses those as the name. You have no say in the order they appear in, they are just there. If you have any ( ) it refuses to think it’s a special & tries to add it as a different movie, if you rename a Special Feature you have to Remove, Dance, & re-add the Movie to get it to remove the old one & add the new one, You have no way to edit the title in Plex.

The Series Scanner does not add names. It just doesn’t, It gets the Season, Episode Number, & Show if it doesn’t have clear instructions from the folder structure. That’s it. There ARE 3rd Party Scanners that do, & they have LOTS of problems. They have their uses, but it’s a lot of work to migrate to a different one. Lots of things just aren’t the same, you have to be more cautious with how you name things, Folder’s become more problematic, you can nest series within a Folder Category like you can in Movies (A Feature I like, I have all the Indiana Jones movies in an “Indiana Jones” folder & all the “DCU” movies in a “DC” folder but you can’t do that with Shows in the Plex Series Scanner) But If a folder isn’t labeled “Season 1” it thinks it’s a new show so you’ll have “Season 2 - The Second Plate” as a series. & lots of other issues.

I’m not talking about the Metadata Agent I’m talking about the Series Scanner, the thing that looks in each folder, says “This is a show” or “this is a movie” if it’s a movie the Series Scanner skips it, if it’s a show the Series Scanner looks in it & then looks at each file, it searches for a “Season” marker S04 or Season 4 or the like, if it doesn’t find one on the file it looks at the folder, if it’s in Season 4 folder it determines it belongs in the Season 4 of this show. It then looks for an “Episode” marker E12 or x12 Episode 12 & marks it as “Episode 12 of Season 4”
End Task
That’s it.
The Scanner does no more.

As I mentioned there ARE other scanners that DO look at the title, but they are riddled with other problems, many from the fact that they are NOT as particular in their query.
I’ve actually had this discussion before & Plex will NEVER have it’s scanner do more because lots of users download their files from torrents which apparently have specifics in their naming to name things with Season & Episode numbers, but usually include a lot of other stuff squeezed into the file name like the uploader’s username & some kind of string that makes it easier for them to find the uploader’s other torrents. This is also why embedded Metadata isn’t supported well, because they load the Metadata with spam & links to virus & Phishing pages. So people like me who like to MetaX my rips so they are fully tagged when I imported them into iTunes can’t use them.
So if Plex were to incorporate the name into the extras, aside from making a lot more work for the Series Scanner & making it more likely to have problems with such as broad query, ALL those users who already have stuff according to the old structure would find stuff named weird names, with adds, & potentially with malicious links.

101

I consider you’re arguing from a perspective of “how it’s done today”.
For me, a feature suggestion is about how a feature is expected to work in a future scenario and from end-user perspective. I’m fully aware there’s technical dependencies – and I appreciate you trying to bring them forward. However it feels we’re really talking bout very different aspects here.

The discussion above is about how this feature could work or how it should be made-available to end users. Your points might well matter for the Plex Developer who at some point gets the job of implementing this – but he won’t implement this based on “this is how it’s done today” but based on a design for that future solution.

TL;DR… from my perspective your points are fair and valid but off topic

As for your argument that this might collide what users might or might not have in their media folders – we’re talking about the same sub-structures or additions required for extras with movies (e.g. having a -extra_type suffix or extra_type/ subfolder). If users already spend the effort to name their files in that exact structure, they’ll probably consider it an improvement if Plex will finally scan and catalog them correctly as extras of that particular extra_type.

To give you a real-world example… I’m currently storing my tv-show extras in a separate folder. When Plex is implementing local extras for TV Shows, I intend to add those extras to my regular tv-show folder.
Naming is e.g. like this:

TV Shows
  2 Broke Girls
    Season 01
      Deleted Scenes
        Alternative Gags.mkv
    Season 02
      Behind the Scenes
        Gag Reel.mkv
      Deleted Scenes
        Deleted Scene 203B.mkv     <- that's how the deleted scenes were named on that DVD
        Deleted Scene 204B.mkv
        Deleted Scene 207H.mkv
        Deleted Scene 216 (Cold Open).mkv
        Deleted Scene 217D.mkv
        Deleted Scene 219 (Cold Open).mkv
    ...
    Season 05
      2 Broke Girls - s05e01-deleted     <- currently there's not even a concept for episode folders... so this might be a workaround
        Alternate Opening.mkv
        Alternate Ending.mkv
    Season 06
      2 Broke Girls - s06e06-deleted.mkv
      2 Broke Girls - s06e07-deleted.mkv
      2 Broke Girls - s06e08-deleted.mkv

  24
    Season 01
      Scenes
        Alternate Ending.mkv

  Friends
    Other
      Music Video "I'll Be There For You" (The Rembrandts).mkv

  ...

Yes… Plex would either ignore them or mess up my shows if I added those today. The point is, it’d be nice to allow the addition/cataloging of those extras alongside my tv-show content same as it works for a movie (and again: perfectly clear it’s technically more complicated to do that for tv-shows/seasons/episodes that just movies).

102

You have to think about whether something is possible if you are trying to get someone who has to build it to do it.

  • A ridiculous example, but I think it relays my point
    • You say to God “I want to be able to drink water through my finger”
      God laughs & says “Sorry that’s not possible”
      You say “But it’s simple, I can stick my finger in a cup & drink water while still talking. That way my throat won’t get dry, there’s so much more I can get done”
      God says "Sorry, that’s just not possible
      You end up right where you started.
    • You say to God "I want to be able to drink water in a more convenient way, I know this might not work, but here’s what I was thinking. My nose connects to my throat just like my mouth does, but only goes to my lungs, not my throat. Now, what if I had a really long nose that I could stick in the water to drink, & I’d have to have a way to switch where it goes to from my lungs to my stomach.
      God says "You know I like where you’re going, but if your nose wasn’t connected to your lungs you’d have no way to suck in that water. But what I can do is give you that long nose, you can suck up water into it, & I’ll leave a sphincter before your lungs so that you can close it off before the water gets to your lungs. You can’t drink from it, but if I give you some more muscles you can then point it at your mouth & give yourself a drink. I know it’s not exactly what you asked for, but I hope it’s good enough because that’s as close as I can get you to it.

The 1st example would require completely restructuring the way an animal is built, because your fingers have no connection to your stomach, & making a connection would cause problems. You wouldn’t be able to grip things as easily, you would potentially open yourself up to a lot of infections, etc, etc. But the 1st requester wasn’t thinking, they were just wanting. & when you ask for something so far from possible “God” doesn’t have the time to even consider it.
The 2nd requester was asking for more or less the same thing, but looked & saw that there were problems, so tried to find a way to make them work. Some of them may not be able to get around, that’s just how it is. But since the request was more doable it was something that could be worked on.

No, Feature Suggestions are about how we can improve what is now to make it work better. Your thinking is like the people in the 30s who thought we’d be all flying around in jet packs & flying cars by the year 2000. Those people contributed very little to improving things. they weren’t thinking, they were just fantasizing & wishing. Things have advanced a lot since the 30s, but not in fantastical ways, in ways that improved upon the systems that were available, then improved upon those, then improved upon those. There were a lot of steps that had to be gone through to get from 1930 to 2020, & each of them required the previous steps. What you’re asking for it to completely rewrite the Series Scanner & have it work in a completely different way than it does now. You might as well ask for a Feature request of having Plex automatically make you popcorn when you start a movie & magically bring it to you from the kitchen.

Having the Series Scanner read the file & look for tags might happen. chances are very slim because it would cause problems to more than it would make happy, but even if it did, you’ll never get them to read the file name & automatically put it in. Because MOST people aren’t like you & I who make our libraries clean Most people have files titled Two.broke.girls_S02E13.Gag.Reel.Express.421.HD.H265.Heres.my.patreon.name.MasterOfDeletedScenes.XOXO.3.ds4sma3gr7.mp4 so it has a HUGE problem that if it’s looking for the string “DeletedScenes” it could find it in the title of the episode, or in the Username of the torrent person, so those Tags have to be something very specific that has no chance of accidentally ending up in a file name by accident. Which is asking for the Moon. But the bigger problem is that the Series Scanner relies Entirely on the numbering. You must have things numbered for the Series Scanner to acknowledge them. Asking for something that doesn’t is literally asking for them to completely rewrite the Scanner from the ground up, ignoring what the majority needs & wants to cater to a small subset who just wants to do things their own way. & in all reality If they did make it exactly the way you want, You’ll change your mind & want it a different way. If you adamantly refuse to follow the Structure outline as it is currently laid out, why would they expect that you’ll follow it when they change it?