Manually creating a boxset (or how to deal with the Animatrix)

[psubsee2002 7]

For my boxsets, I used to have everything organized the old MB2 way, with boxset folders and movies within the folders.  

 

For example:

\Movies\Matrix Collection\The Animatrix (2003)\A Detective Story (2003)\A Detective Story.mkv
\Movies\Matrix Collection\The Animatrix (2003)\Final Flight of the Osiris (2003)\Final Flight of the Osiris.mkv
.
.
.
\Movies\Matrix Collection\The Matrix (1999)\The Matrix.mkv
\Movies\Matrix Collection\The Matrix Reloaded (2003)\The Matrix Reloaded.mkv
\Movies\Matrix Collection\The Matrix Revolutions (2003)\The Matrix Revolutions.mkv

This served my purposes, but obviously didn't work as well with MB3/Emby since the Movie view had all of the movies without the collection folders.  This morning, I decided to remove all of the boxset folders, and use the "group into collections" feature to better organize my Movies folder (I was tired of looking at 12 consecutive Land Before Time movies when scrolling through my movie view).  So far the results are exactly what I wanted to see but I have a couple of new problems.

 

My main issue is more of a general problem - can you create custom collections of movies that don't necessarily have the same TMDB collection id (or any collection id)?  I don't really see anything in the metadata manager to accomplish this, but I assume it is possible.  

 

For example, how do you organize the Animatrix when you have all 9 stories as individual media files?  TMDB treats this as a single anthology movie, but they do have the individual stories as separate movie entries as well.  The problem is TMDB doesn't include the individual stories it as part of a collection anymore, either as a standalone "Animatrix" collection or a part of the Matrix collection, so I just have 9 random movies spread out across my movie collections in no particular order.  Ideally, I'd like to have an Animatrix boxset as a nested boxset within the Matrix collection, but I will settle for standalone Animatrix collection.

 

I know I can create an "Animatrix [boxset]" folder and put the individual movies in there.  That will create an entry in the collection view for the Animatrix movies, but they still show up in my "Movie" view as individual movies.  I cannot figure a way to group them in the movie view as well, and I haven't figured out how to nest it inside of the Matrix collection either.

 

A secondary issue (somewhat related) is adding a movie to an existing collection.  For example, TMDB doesn't include the new "Minions" movie as part of the Despicable Me collection, and is inconsistent with the various shorts and mini-movies that are part of that franchise (some are part of the collection, some aren't).  If I manually edited the TMDB collection id in the metadata manager so they were included in the Despicable Me collection, would it group everything together?  And would it get overwritten the next time it refreshes the meta data (I don't see an option to lock the id fields).

[Vidman 590]

The auto boxset plugin uses the tmdb collection id to do its magic. But once a collection has been automatically via the plugin or manually created via the web interface it has nothing to do with that info ...you and add and delete items as you please

(How ever if you remove an item from an autoboxset that still has a tmdb collection id it will probably get added back in if the plugin does a rescan )

Edited April 6, 2016 by Vidman

[psubsee2002 7]

I had previously tried the autobox set plugin as I thought it would solve my problems without redoing all of my existing folder structure, but it didn't, so I uninstalled it.  I'm not using it anymore.  I'm just letting Emby do the collection grouping on its own without the aid of a plugin.

[Vidman 590]

Emby does not create collections on its own

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[ebr 15618]

I had previously tried the autobox set plugin as I thought it would solve my problems without redoing all of my existing folder structure, but it didn't, so I uninstalled it.  I'm not using it anymore.  I'm just letting Emby do the collection grouping on its own without the aid of a plugin.

 

Emby does not create collections on its own

 

Correct.  It is still working for you because the collections were created when you did have the Auto Box Sets plug-in installed.

 

You can create any collections you want in a number of ways from the web interface.  Simply select "Add to Collection" from one of the context menus.

[Jack Burton 94]

You can just create a new collection and add your movies into it (like ebr said, "Add to Colleciton"). The tmdb id's won't matter. For example, I use autobox plugin, which works great and I really recommend it. I'm also a big comic nerd, so I wanted collections for the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Made a new collection and added movies that tmdb doesn't consider to be related at all. Made one for Phase 1 and Phase 2 and it works great. You can then add your own artwork, etc (I've found some good stuff for those collections if anyone's interested).

 

Btw, the collection seems to keep the ordering of the movies based on the order you add them, not by date (which is great, since Thor 1 came out before Cap 1 in the same year, but most organizers go alphabetically, which puts Cap first. End nerd rant.). Also, I should add at one point when reworking my server the movies from my Marvel collections moved back into their own collections. Thought I lost everything but when I went to add one to collection, the collections I made were still there, with artwork. They just got ripped apart.

 

I'm not sure if it'll help clean up your movies view though. I found recently the movies have found their way into their own collections. I still have my MCU Phase I and Phase II collections, but there's also an Iron Man collection, Cap collection, etc. But I guess if your Animatrix movies aren't in a collection natively, I would think this would work great for you.

 

 

 

I know I can create an "Animatrix [boxset]" folder and put the individual movies in there.  That will create an entry in the collection view for the Animatrix movies, but they still show up in my "Movie" view as individual movies.  I cannot figure a way to group them in the movie view as well, and I haven't figured out how to nest it inside of the Matrix collection either.

1) Just create a new collection in Emby itself. I don't even use sub folders anymore. I ripped out all my folder "collections" and let Emby do the work. (I've got a bunch of drives so it's easier now having every movie in a folder instead of potentially in sub folders)

2) As far as I know, there's no option yet for nested collections

Edited April 6, 2016 by Jack Burton

[psubsee2002 7]

Correct.  It is still working for you because the collections were created when you did have the Auto Box Sets plug-in installed.

 

You can create any collections you want in a number of ways from the web interface.  Simply select "Add to Collection" from one of the context menus.

 

So this might be part of my problem and confusion.

 

What exactly does the "group movies into collections" do then?

 

 

Do you need to have the movies grouped into collections first before this will work?  If I didn't have auto-boxset previously installed to create the collections, the setting wouldn't do anything at all?

Edited April 6, 2016 by psubsee2002

[Happy2Play 9405]

Collection/[boxset] MB2 method is somewhat in the past.  Preferred method is flat folder system with tmdbcollectionid and the plugin.  Because it creates a virtual collection folder and stores the metadata in Emby-Server\data\collections with metadata and images.   The old way still works as you have seen but grouping is not honored with that method.

 

You can make nested folder work, but it requires removing [boxset] in name and all metadata from boxset folder and allowing the plugin to generate your collections.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Happy2Play

[Vidman 590]

So this might be part of my problem and confusion.

 

What exactly does the "group movies into collections" do then?

 

 

Do you need to have the movies grouped into collections first before this will work? If I didn't have auto-boxset previously installed to create the collections, the setting wouldn't do anything at all?

When you have created collections and viewing your list of movies, that option will show all the items in collections under that collection rather than all items individually.... It does not create collections however, you must create them manually or use the auto boxset plugin which will create collections automatically from items with tmdb collection IDs. I hope I've explained that clearly enough for you to understand Edited April 7, 2016 by Vidman

[Luke 39870]

At this point the [boxset] folders are legacy and only a folder structure. By all means you are free to use them, but they do not get all of the same features as collections designed in the interface.

[psubsee2002 7]

When you have created collections and viewing your list of movies, that option will show all the items in collections under that collection rather than all items individually.... It does not create collections however, you must create them manually or use the auto boxset plugin which will create collections automatically from items with tmdb collection IDs. I hope I've explained that clearly enough for you to understand

 

You explained it perfectly, that was a significant portion of my confusion.  I was under the (mistaken) impression that the option did something behind the scenes.  I thought I had read that in a previous post on managing collections, but I must have misread what the post said.

[JohnnyM 40]

You weren't alone. I had the same impression.

[maximilianh75 19]

What about the movie DB list, can I Use it in collection ID to group it??

[Broc0liRab3 5]

i couldnt find any more info on this. but if i create a collection. it goes into the "library" called "collections". what my question is how do i get the collections boxset to show up in my "movies" library?

[Luke 39870]

i couldnt find any more info on this. but if i create a collection. it goes into the "library" called "collections". what my question is how do i get the collections boxset to show up in my "movies" library?

 

@@Jssdock, it also displays there within a Collections tab under your Movies library. What Emby app are you using?

[Broc0liRab3 5]

@@Jssdock, it also displays there within a Collections tab under your Movies library. What Emby app are you using?

so what your saying is i should see a collection i made under a "my media>movies>"diehard collection"?

 

because any collection i made i have to go to a seperate library to see them.

 

i am using the newest emby theater on windows

[Happy2Play 9405]

so what your saying is i should see a collection i made under a "my media>movies>"diehard collection"?

 

because any collection i made i have to go to a seperate library to see them.

 

i am using the newest emby theater on windows

 

If you want "Group items into collections" on the library you need to enable that option per library.  Enter a library and click the three dot menu next to "Filter".

[Broc0liRab3 5]

 

If you want "Group items into collections" on the library you need to enable that option per library.  Enter a library and click the three dot menu next to "Filter".

where exactly is that option "group items into collections"?

 

[Happy2Play 9405]

where exactly is that option "group items into collections"?

 

 

Per library on the settings menu (three dots).

 

 

[Broc0liRab3 5]

thank you

[Luke 39870]

What could we have done to make this easier to find?