Completed Request - Remove Series Pooling

[PurposelyCryptic 31]

I was really just asking a question to try and collect additional information. While adding a setting is OK, it would be even better to just have it work out of the box, so if the server can predict the situations where it shouldn't group them, then I would like to pursue that. If this turns out to not be possible then obviously we'll adjust but right now that is why I'm asking these questions.

 

Luke, while I both appreciate and respect your ambitious ideal of having the server become so intrinsically adaptable as to predict with perfect accuracy as to whether the user wants certain series grouped or not, I think this may be a White Whale. There will always be people whose organizational pattern, while completely clear and logical to them, will be utterly arcane and undecipherable to any other human being, let alone a machine.

 

And while yes, some could potentially adapt their collection to work with the system, at that point you're making life harder for users for the sake of a system meant to make life easier. And for some of us, we're currently left with no alternative but to pull a large portion of our collection out of Emby. It may only apply to a small percentage of users, but the fact that that is still a significant number of people shows just how popular Emby has become.

 

I still think that, barring significant unseen barriers to implementation, having the option to switch pooling off on a Library/Series level is the best way to go; you could set a toggle in the Advanced Options that hides these options unless activated, so it would be completely invisible to the majority of users, unless they are actively looking for it. Or you could make a plug-in whose sole purpose is to expose these options (and potentially other, similar ones in the future). These are just my ideas, but I know your knowledge in these areas far exceeds my own.

 

If you'e still absolutely set on keeping Pooling 100% on auto-pilot, I can think of two options which would likely at least solve my personal problems (Although they could potentially create problems for others, butterflies and earthquakes, etc.):

 

• 1. Only pool series folders if their folder-names are identical (Including text in square-brackets).
  • i.e., "C:\TV\Star Trek\" and "D:\TV\Star Trek\" get pooled, but "C:\TV\Star Trek [sD TV-recorded]\" and "D:\TV\Star Trek [HD Bluray Rips]\" won't.
  • An actual example from my library, "M:\Media\Anime\Claymore [Eclipse] [DVD, 480p]\" and "N:\Media\Anime\Claymore [RUELL-Raws] [bD, 720p]\" would thus not get pooled.
• 2. Don't pool folders if they contain the same or overlapping episodes
  • i.e., given the folder "M:\Media\Anime\Claymore [Eclipse] [DVD, 480p]\Season 1\" contains 'Claymore - s01e01 [Eclipse] [DVD,480p, Ogg].mkv', and the folder "N:\Media\Anime\Claymore [RUELL-Raws] [bD, 720p]\Season 1\" contains 'Claymore - s01e01 [RUELL-Raws] [bD, 720p, FLAC].mkv', the two would not be pooled.
  • But if  "M:\Media\Anime\Claymore [Eclipse] [DVD, 480p]\Season 1\" contained only  'Claymore - s01e01 [Eclipse] [DVD,480p, Ogg].mkv', and "N:\Media\Anime\Claymore [RUELL-Raws] [bD, 720p]\Season 1\" contained only 'Claymore - s01e02 [RUELL-Raws] [bD, 720p, FLAC].mkv', they would still get pooled, so even those with completely disorganized libraries with shows split across drives in the middle of a season would still get everything pooled.
    • ​from my perspective, this would be essentially purely beneficial, as it would pool except for when doing so would result in duplicate episodes in a series entry, which I can't see anyone wanting pooling to do (cue the people that want that).
    • I'm just not sure how implementable this would be given how the system currently seems to work, as it would require the presence/absence of episodes to be indexed on the series level and updated every time changes occur on the episode level, which, to my admittedly database-under-educated mind, seems like it would potentially mean a lot of work, create a lot of chaos/PoF's, and add a lot of processing overhead 

Anyway, those were the two ideas I was able to come up with that seemed like they could address the issues currently present without making pooling optional; One simpler but more likely to potentially cause issues for heavy users of pooling (depending on their folder-naming habits), and one unlikely to cause problems for users but potentially being a nightmare to implement. Hopefully this was of some use at least, I just don't have enough knowledge or expertise regarding the back-end workings of Emby to come up with anything outside of vague high-level concepts devoid of actual details as to implementation.

[dcook 265]

I think EMBY server should be a basic and rock solid core product, and all these new features should be plugins so we can pick an choose if we want to install them or not.  

 

There is no need to force all this crap on us that we don't need.

[tatumana 105]

We are definitely listening but things are not always as simple as they may seem from the user standpoint.

 

Plus, we have to prioritize items and this feature request, while I'm sure very important to you, has only garnered 2 votes.

Your vote system is not clear and simple. Click on the tinny "Like this" button is not logic. A larger and visible button like "I SUPPORT !" or "VOTE FOR THIS" or "I WANT IT TOO" will be more efficiency.

Edited November 2, 2016 by tatumana

[Happy2Play 8292]

So wouldn't creating a Poll be more logical, then a "like it" button that is linked to the users reputation?

 

@@Abobader Is there a reason making a Poll not available in Feature Requests?  It appears to be somewhat random available across the categories.

[masp 0]

Just to add my 2 cents, I think I've hit this problem with a TV show of which I have 2 copies: a folder containing regular-length episodes (as originally broadcast) and another (with a different name) containing extended-length episodes (sort of a director's cut).  These were actually also broadcast (later), but separately, under the alternate name.  However, emby is pooling them, so I end up with one show, and one season, and then 2 copies of each episode (with no visual indicator to tell them apart), whereas what I want is two separate shows.  I'm actually impressed that emby is figuring out they're related despite the (similar but) different folder names, but I wish I could tell it to stop!

 

Update: actually I'd be ok with a single show and a single series, but then also a single episode listing, and then a choice of "original" or "extended" to make on selecting a given episode to view (although I'm not sure how emby would figure out how to label them), but I'd have thought (naively) that the simple approach of treating each as a separate show (eg. via the distinct folder names) would be easiest to implement.

 

Update #2: out of curiosity I had a look in the metadata manager, and I see that for those seasons for which I have both original and extended episodes, the folder path seems to be randomly one or the other; but inside the season, I see both episodes (one for each folder path).  Emby is correctly inferring the show via thetvdb (partial regex match on the name?  metadata within the file itself?).  So the current implementation (of nesting episodes from both folders within a single "season") seems a bit confusing even for emby (based on the random choice to list either one or the other folder path at the season level in the metadata manager).

Edited December 6, 2016 by masp

[Luke 37086]

Hi @@masp, thank you for the feedback. For the next release of Emby Server I am adding a per-library setting that will allow you to disable the series grouping feature.

[masp 0]

Awesome: thanks again!!!

[masp 0]

Actually it occurs to me that it would also be nice, as an alternative, to be able to nest all the way to the episode level; ie. for a given episode, given my media folder structure:

 

  show_variant_a -> season_1 -> episode_1

  show_variant_b -> season_1 -> episode_1

 

after cataloging, instead of presenting me with:

 

  show -> season_1 -> {episode_1_a, episode_1_b}

 

emby would show me:

 

  show -> season_1 -> episode_1 -> {variant_a, variant_b}

 

(where the choice of which variant would only appear in response to me selecting an episode to watch).  It sounds like a subtle distinction, but in the latter case I would now be looking at a single instance of each episode, and then when I clicked/selected one to watch, I'd be presented with an interstitial prompting me to choose which variant I wanted.  That would eliminate the clutter of multiple copies of episodes sitting side-by-side in the UI, while preserving the ability to choose the variant.  Since (in my case) I do have 2 copies of each episode, it makes sense to present the episode once (in the UI) and then drill down to specify the variant.  (Perhaps there could be a small flag attached to the episode indicating the existence of the multiple variants, so the drill-down wouldn't come as a surprise.)  Just a thought

[Luke 37086]

That's the ultimate plan

[masp 0]

Excellent!

[PurposelyCryptic 31]

Hi @@masp, thank you for the feedback. For the next release of Emby Server I am adding a per-library setting that will allow you to disable the series grouping feature.

 

Just updated my server and noticed the option, thank you so much for implementing this! 

 

I know this likely wasn't a big deal for most folks, but, for me at least, this means I can finally get my library back in order, and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. I know everyone else who had been pushing for this probably feels the same way, but seriously, thanks. This is like an early X-mas for me!

[emmcd 6]

I apologize in advance and I feel like a dunce, where is the setting option for series to be ungrouped in the library?  I'm sure if it was a snake it would have bit me, but I've looked in metadata manager in the library specific folder and I've looked in the server manager libraries area and couldn't find it.  Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

[Latchmor 584]

I apologize in advance and I feel like a dunce, where is the setting option for series to be ungrouped in the library?  I'm sure if it was a snake it would have bit me, but I've looked in metadata manager in the library specific folder and I've looked in the server manager libraries area and couldn't find it.  Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

 

See Post #31

 

[emmcd 6]

Well...it seems I have a slightly different problem.  I can't access those settings because they don't exist when I click on a library .  Does anyone have any ideas why when i click on a library it instead looks like below (I'm running beta version 3.1.6034.22791)

 

[emmcd 6]

Something must have gotten corrupted.  An uninstall/reinstall seems to have resolved the problem and I get the screenshot that latchmor posted now.  Thanks!

[Luke 37086]

You were stuck on a very old dev release, that's why. Thanks for the info.

[Abobader 2947]

So wouldn't creating a Poll be more logical, then a "like it" button that is linked to the users reputation?

 

@@Abobader Is there a reason making a Poll not available in Feature Requests?  It appears to be somewhat random available across the categories.

 

 

Good day buddy,

 

Sorry I miss this, it done now.

 

My best

[byusinger84 1]

Thank you for doing this!!! I have censored versions of some of my shows as some users have requested that. This makes it so I can keep them separated. Thank you!!!