Very confused with folder structure recommended

General Discussions
1

Please be patient with me, as I age I am finding things harder to grasp, even though I have enjoyed playing around with computers and tech since the early 80s. Thanks!I

I used to run Media Browser before Microsoft killed off MediaCenter. I am now running Win10, no plans to go to Win11 for a while, and am going to try out Plex. I have a lot of movies ripped as ISO and a lot of TV episodes ripped as MKV or MP4 or whatever. My issue is with how you all recommend the folder and file structure be setup for best use and easiest Plex control.

My desire is to be able to have Genres as the main folders, such as Anime, Action, Chick Flix, etc. Inside those Genres, I would like the Movie/Show Title, such as Battlestar Galactica. Inside that, I would like each movie and the TV series to be shown, but not all zillion episodes of the TV series, but a main folder for it and then pick from there. That way it is easy to find the movies without wading through tons of TV shows and yet not have to go to a separate area for TV shows about Battlestar Galactica, if that makes sense.

Currently, my folder structure is as follows for episodes that are on BluRays:

P:\Sci-Fi\Battlestar Galactica\Razor\Razor.iso
P:\Sci-Fi\Battlestar Galactica\2003\Season 1\1-1\BSG_S1_D1.iso

Currently, my folder structure is as follows for episodes that are individual files:
P:\Sci-Fi\Foundation\Season 1\EP1\Foundation (2021) - 1x01 - The Emperor’s Peace.mkv

I also have another drive with many other genres on it. I have a license for Filebot ($6 was worth the risk, given what you all have said about it) and it used it to change the names of the foundation episodes easily enough. I do not mind doing the manual labor of moving things around however you want them to appear. Time consuming, but I work from home and am now happily single again so I have plenty of time to burn. I have a program called File Fisher, which is both free and makes is very easy to move just a specific file type (such as MKV) from one folder to another.

Please help me set this up right so I do not run into issues later that could be solved by simply doing it right the first time. I read a lot of docs and forum posts and, frankly, am suffering from information overload. Even just copying and pasting from the Windows Explorer bar (which is what I did, above) on how to setup things would be amazingly welcome.

Thank you all!

2

Welcome to Plex.

A few considerations…

Disc images / ISO files

Plex won’t deal with your disc images (e.g. ISO files). The common approach within Plex is to add other media from your discs as Local Extras to the main movie. This should give you a more linear user experience.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201426506-why-are-iso-video-ts-and-other-disk-image-formats-not-supported/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/

Genre Organization

The “idea” in Plex is to use the user front end to navigate your media. Plex will e.g. add genre information from its online sources and let you filter / navigate your library by those parameters (genres, collections, actors, directors…). It’s possible to navigate your library “by folders” but that’s quite limited.

For movies it’s easy to keep those folders – e.g. to find your media in Explorer.
For TV show based content, Plex is quite adamant to find your media in accordance with their naming schema… otherwise it might not be able to match it (or not show it at all).

As an example:

If you want to keep your genre based folder structure for TV Shows, make sure to add each genre folder individually to your Plex library (each library can have multiple top-level folders assigned as long as the media is properly organized inside those top-level folders!) – those folders linked to a library can also be spread over different drives.

P:\
  Sci-Fi    <- Folder linked to your Plex TV Show library
    Foundation (2021)
      Season 01
        Foundation (2021) - s01e01 - The Emperor's Peace.mkv
        Foundation (2021) - s01e02.mkv   <- Plex isn't using the episode title from the file name... so this can easily be dropped/ignored
        ...
        Foundation (2021) - s01e10 - The Leap.mkv

The same applies to Battlestar Galactica. Keep in mind that Plex is defaulting to The Movie Database when it comes to episode ordering – and their episode ordering is quite different from that you can find on IMDb or TheTVDb. That makes it more of a project to get the order right (or find the order you like).

Here’s a thread where this mismatch has been discussed in more detail. To be fair… this is more of an exception

1 Like
3

Awewsome info, thanks! I will read it closely and ask any further questions. I use PowerDVD to play the ISOs (with other products to ensure they can load and play properly), and do plan on using Plex as simply the pretty front end to make it easy for my wonderful girlfriend to choose movies she wants without having to get me involved. Easy is the key, I do not mind a ton of work to make it that way, she is worth it.

I noticed that anime tends to not show up in the TMDb, but they show up nicely in the anime db selection inside Filebot. I am using that selection to at least make things more the same, and will edit the files as Plex needs. Once and done is good enough, no matter how tedious the once is. :slight_smile:

For example, with Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Filebot renamed then as such (and I have included my new folder structure, just to make sure I got it right):

N:\Anime\Ghost in the Shell\4 - Stand Alone Complex\Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - 01 - Section 9.mkv
N:\Anime\Ghost in the Shell\4 - Stand Alone Complex\Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - 02 - Testation.mkv

Would Plex be happy with this?

4

Your only options for Anime are either TheMovieDB or TheTVDB.
You cannot use the AnimeDB for Plex (at least not without installing 3rd-party metadata agents which might stop working at some point in the future).

Do deeper research about alternate/international titles of your anime. In my experience they all appear in one of the above mentioned metadata services. It is just a matter to find them.

No, your above naming structure is not compatible with Plex.

grafik
grafik1111Ă—527 74.2 KB

1 Like
5

Ah, ok. So a lot of manual editing to make it proper for plex. No issue there, I can script most of it and do the small edits slowly over time.

Before I go and do all that, will plex do what I am looking for, provide a front end for ISO, DVD Folders, and MKVs? All with pretty pictures for my girlfriend to click and it loads the movie using an external program (specifically PowerDVD)? Like what Media Browser used to do?

6

Filebot, not manual. Just pick TheTVDB.

1 Like
7

As explained in the above links, Plex will not work with DVD folders nor with ISOs.

1 Like
8

Not even pass the info along? Ok, thanks for that info, then Plex will not work for me.

Thank you all for the help though!

9

Do you know if it’s intentional that libraries default to TMDB for tv shows? I’ve been using TVDB for my shows, but they’ve been created a year or so ago, and I don’t remember if I changed them to TVDB on creation, or if TVDB used to be the default.

Edit: Just checked, and my anime library has been set to TMDB. huh.

10

From what I understand, the Plex TV Series agent defaults to The Movie Database for episode ordering information. The metadata as such is sourced from a number of different sources and can be a mix of information from TMDb and TVDb.

It seems their backend considers a number of criteria to determine information from which source is used for different shows. IIRC this can even differ for the same show across different languages.
I guess this is mostly verifying completeness of certain information groups per source (given Plex will have a hard time to automatically qualify if an episode description is “better” on TMDb or TVDb).

11

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.