TV show and season view in libraries set to home video or mixed content

[Luke 37246]

That is correct. Thanks happy2play.

[pwhodges 1538]

OK - thanks.  A rough timescale? or is it too soon to say?

[pwhodges 1538]

OK, I installed 3.6.0.82.  My view of my anime library didn't initially change (and BTW, I can't make the folder view the default).  So I deleted the library and recreated it.  First time, I forgot to remove TheMovieDB from the metadata search list, which had the effect of labelling my entire library as episodes of Mr Bean, as happened 18 months ago.  After correcting that, I find that not much has changed.

 

The basic behaviour is still that the first level of directory with video files in is displayed with all the contents of any subdirectories (even though the subdirectories are shown separately in the metadata editor); but now, instead of some directories having their contents displayed mixed up in pseudo directories like "Specials" or "Season 2", those directories are now no longer listed in the library at all (nor in the metadata editor).  I can see no structural difference in these directories or their contents, so I'm mystified.

 

All I want is to be shown the contents of each directory as I select it, and no more.  It seems that this is unacceptable behaviour, and that Emby is only prepared to show me my files the way it sees fit, and not how I want.  The content type is currently "TV Shows" - but in the older server this made no difference to the views I got. OTOH my music directory behaves OK, so perhaps I should label everything as music... (EDIT: no, actually it doesn't  now, though it did before - now some directories are as I named them, and others have been changed, and as in the anime, some subdirectories are simply not being shown to me at all)

 

Perhaps I'm using the wrong product.  I'm using Emby for its streaming, but honestly, I'd be happy with the front end just being like an Explorer window; having images and the like actually makes it harder to select what I want (more scrolling, and the images are often all the same as they come from the titles) compared to a list of files (which already contain the episode numbers and titles).

Edited January 2, 2019 by pwhodges

[Luke 37246]

Hi, have you noticed the new folders tabs?

[pwhodges 1538]

Yeah - that's the result I get on them (though as I remarked, I can't select the folder view as the default view) using my existing library structure.  Without the folder tab I just get several thousand episodes in a single list, which is beyond stupid, seeing how few show on each page because of the images!

 

I am currently trying making each of my top-level directories a separate library, and first appearances show similar behaviour, but less obstructive as there are less levels to go through.  For instance, a directory which previously was  placed in a virtual directory, and which (with the same structure) is no longer visible at all, has now appeared with the library starting at a lower level in the folder tree - but most of its files are still invisible (even though the count on the folder icon is correct!).  But I made two changes simultaneously, as I also removed all sources of metadata to see what difference that might make.  However, it's bed time now, so I'll try to make a more coherent report tomorrow.

[Luke 37246]

Thanks for the feedback. We plan to improve this to be able to more easily accommodate a mish-mash folder structure in the future. For now, our TV libraries do require some minimum structure. Thanks.

[pwhodges 1538]

OK, I suppose I give in, at least for videos.  Removing the extra directory level allowed Emby to set things up the way it expects once I gave it back access to TVDB (even though I've seen extra directory levels in some articles about setting up streaming servers).  This has made much of it usable for me, at least.  But the behaviour of the folder view is still tied in to Emby's interpretations rather than merely displaying the directory structure on the disk. 

 

I have yet to check thoroughly whether my music folders are still usable, though.  First impression is that they are not - because large parts of them are not stored by album at all (and so don't fit Emby's conventional view), and a lot more are my own recordings and so don't even have metadata out on the Internet, let alone a form that Emby would recognise.  Unfortunately, while changing the still non-standard parts of my video storage to fit Emby's expectations is doable over a couple of months, the audio stuff would require being newly ripped from scratch - several thousand CDs, many of which are packed away in storage.