Option/Method of Merging/Joining Duplicates within the Client/Server

[JrD 17]

I tired to word it as best as I could for the title, but what I mean is pretty simple.

Currently when you have the same movie or media in multiple format/resolutions such as 1080p, 4K, or SD, as far as I know, you have to go into the actual files and rearrange them into there own folder and rename them for the Emby Server to link them together, otherwise your going to have to duplicates when viewing them in the Media Gallery.

And as someone who likes to have both 4K and 1080p versions for most of my media, it can be pretty time consuming to look through all the files rearranging them and renaming them. Not to mention frustrating as there is no UI or clean way of identifying them without having to read long file names and looking through the same looking files/folders. Made even harder when its a large collection and more than half are in multiple formats, so its a lot to comb through searching and rearranging/renaming. It is what I have currently been doing, but I haven't even gotten through half of it as of now.

So I got to thinking of a way and I figured, why not have the server link them up within the info or metadata that it saves. It doesn't have to change the file name or relocate the files, just have a note that these are the same movie/media and they should be link together within the data that it creates and saves for the media. And create a simple and easy UI within the client that would cut the time and complexity of doing this task by a lot. Now it would be as easy as selecting the duplicates with clear artwork and identifiers and "merging" them! Without the hassle of going into the files and renaming or rearranging them.

I have created images and mock ups to better illustrate what I mean with the image attached below and with a description below

You see the duplicates that the Emby Server has {Image 1} because the media files, besides being the same media, are in different files due to differences in format or resolution and are treated as different movies/media. To fix this, you click into one of the duplicated media and select the extended options (the 3 dots) that would have a new option titled something like "Link", "Join", or "Merge" {Image 2} that once clicked this would open an overlay displaying your collection of movies {Image 3} from which you select the duplicate(s) with the easy titles and artwork to tell them apart. Then just confirm that these are the items you want to merge. You are then presented with the artwork and file name or path about the selected items that you would like to join, and how you would like to label the different versions/resolutions/file types {Image 4} The server wouldn't have to ask to identify them or change any info on them as they are duplicates and are already the same. Once Confirmed the server adds a "note" or saves it in the information or metadata that these two files are the same and now shows them as one with the option to select the version with the imputed label selected by the user as it currently does {Image 5}

I know you guys work hard and don't know if/how hard this would be to implement, as I don't code. But I truly believe this feature would be a time saver and one that I would highly appreciate if it could be added into a future update.

Thanks in Advance and for all the hard work you guys do!

 

[Happy2Play 8274]

You already have a manual option to group versions via the multi-select menu.

example for two random movies.

Or you have the community created plugin that will group them for you automatically also.

Automatic version grouping for movies - Page 13 - Plugins - Emby Community

 

[JrD 17]

Hey @Happy2Play I wasn’t aware of this, but thank you for letting me know. The only way I knew of before was just to rename and reorganize the actual files which took a long time. 

I have been doing that since you posted it, but I did notice that the label of the version can be simply the file name in most cases, is there any way to rename that or fix it so it may just say 4K instead of “2160p.AtmosTrueHD.DTS-X.10bitHDR” and so on?

[Luke 37049]

12 hours ago, JrD said:

Hey @Happy2Play I wasn’t aware of this, but thank you for letting me know. The only way I knew of before was just to rename and reorganize the actual files which took a long time. 

I have been doing that since you posted it, but I did notice that the label of the version can be simply the file name in most cases, is there any way to rename that or fix it so it may just say 4K instead of “2160p.AtmosTrueHD.DTS-X.10bitHDR” and so on?

With multi-version videos, the common characters are trimmed from the start of each file name, and what's after that is what you see. So you can use that to rename the file and get a better result.