I have two versions of the original Star Trek series – the original aired versions on DVD, and the enhanced remastered versions on Blu Ray.
I would like to have each of these listed as a different show in Plex. But, I do not want to manually put all the episode info in.
If I unmatch a show all of the metadata is wiped, so that option doesn’t work. I do not want the two versions of each episode merged because this is not just SD/HD, but two different versions of each episode.
What is the best way to do this? I would like to match each version of the show but be able to edit the metadata of each one individually.
Let them both match automatically. Then ‘Split’ them at the show level.
Make sure to put the two shows into different ‘show’ folders
TV Shows /
Star Trek /
Season 01 /
Star Trek - s01e01 - The Man Trap.ext
...
Star Trek [remastered] /
Season 01 /
Star Trek - s01e01 - The Man Trap.ext
...
After you split the show, go and take a look at the mediainfo of an episode. It will show you the file name and the folder path, so you know which version you are in currently. Then change the title of the “remastered” show to include (Remastered) [or whatever you like].
Thanks to all for starting this conversation. I am having the same challenge, but I don’t understand the suggested solution. Right now the folders are set to:
Star Trek Original Series
Season 01
Star Trek - s01e01.the man trap.enhanced.mkv
Star Trek - s01e01.the man trap.original.mkv
Problem 1: When I access plex using another device with the media player, I am not presented a choice as to which version to watch. It just seems to pick one. For one episode it selects the enhanced, for another, the original. Is there a setting for this?
Problem 2: When access on the server via the plex app, it does let me choose a version, but selection is between two different bit rates, correlates to the versions of the show. This is cumbersome but would be easier for my users if it was easier to figure out which one to pick.
In a perfect world, I would like to use the two folder approach, which I think I don’t follow. When I do that, I lose the metadata for the folder that doesn’t have the name exactly right (i.e. Star Trek Original Series - Enhanced).
Star Trek Original Series
Season 01
Star Trek - s01e01.the man trap.original.mkv
Star Trek Original Series - Enhanced
Season 01
Star Trek - s01e01.the man trap.enhanced.mkv
Anyway, before long Plex just pushes them all together under one episode icon anyway. Here I am not given a ‘split’ option, so I seem to be back to the ‘play version’ above (Problem 2).
with your setup, you’ll get 1 show (1 main folder) and 2 versions per episode with no immediate way to distinguish them in Plex.
example:
Star Trek Original Series > Season 01 > Star Trek Original Series S01E01 Original.mkv
Star Trek Original Series > Season 01 > Star Trek Original Series S01E01 Enhanced.mkv
The solution proposed by @OttoKerner is to have 2 separate tv show folders – 1 for the original show and one for the remastered version. At first this will show as the same show in Plex (again with 2 versions per episode). However due to the separate main folders you will be able to split the show afterwards inside Plex.
example:
Star Trek Original Series > Season 01 > Star Trek Original Series S01E01 Original.mkv
Star Trek Original Series [enhanced] > Season 01 > Star Trek Original Series S01E01.mkv
Next Steps…
You can do this in the context menu of the show (... > Split Apart).
Once you performed this split, you will see 2 entries in your tv shows library.
When going into the Edit menu of one of those shows (or one of its seasons or episodes), click the Info tab… there you’ll see the file(s) linked to this item (for an episode… 1, for a season… all episode files of this season, for a show… all episode files of that show).
Based on the file names you can identify if this is the “original” or “enhanced” version of the show – change to the “General” tab and rename the show by adding a suffix indicating it’s the original or extended version of the show
Thanks for taking the time to explain. Outstanding!
One add I would make, clarity need due to my own assumptions/error, is that the second folder needs to be named in the exact format (i.e. brackets - [ XXXX]) that you used. I assumed I could just tack the word ‘enhanced’ to the folder name and that did not work. In that case it created 2 icons, one with matched metadata and one without, and for obvious reasons, no option to split.
Once I named the folder using brackets ( as you clearly described), it worked beautifully.
