Automatic version grouping for movies

[visproduction 266]

If you have two movies in a folder, where the first part of the file name before the ' - ' is the same, Emby will pick the version with the oldest dateadded date inside the .nfo file, to list first.

If you go in and edit the dateadded to make the version you want to appear first in the list, the date for the 1080P version was changed from 2024 to 2020 in the example below. The 1080P version will then appear first, in the pull down.

Ad Astra (2019) - 720P.nfo
'''   <dateadded>2024-11-10 08:27:25</dateadded>

Ad Astra (2019) - 1080P.nfo
...   <dateadded>2020-11-10 08:27:25</dateadded>

Hope that helps.

Edited January 27 by visproduction

[Ronstang 220]

@visproductionSweet!  I will try this and it is encouraging but when you are talking about 10K movies that is a little daunting but I only have a small subset of multi version so going one by one and doing this will only take a month.  

Actually since the nfo file should be the same except for the date added so it would be easier to just rename the given nfo files and swap them to get the order you want.

Now....what if both movies have the same date added?  I have several DVDs where I have a fullscreen and widescreen version that were added to emby at the same time and it picks the fullscreen which I definitely do not want as default.

Edited January 27 by Ronstang

[Ronstang 220]

Or wouldn't it be easier to just delete the nfo file of the ones you don't want to be default and let emby regenerate them?  Would that not make the added date today?  Are added dates time sensitive too so one added at 1 PM is older than one added at 3 PM?

[Ronstang 220]

@visproductionI tried your advice and it works!! Genius.  Why can't the emby DEVs tell us such stuff?  I asked about this a couple years ago when I added a bunch of DVDs that had multi versions due to widescreen and fullscreen and I wanted to pick the ones that were default and they told me emby did it automatically by quality. 

[Neminem 822]

@visproductionNice find, can't find that in the documentation.

I wonder if this is not intended and pron to fail with server updates.

@Luke is this supported and not in documentation, or something that will break down the line ?

[Happy2Play 9403]

4 hours ago, Neminem said:

@visproductionNice find, can't find that in the documentation.

I wonder if this is not intended and pron to fail with server updates.

@Luke is this supported and not in documentation, or something that will break down the line ?

To my knowledge the client choose the version per the drop-down as the order is not configurable.

But yes added data would/should change the primary version for Emby as it would be first into database.

Edited January 27 by Happy2Play

[Ronstang 220]

On 1/26/2025 at 4:09 PM, Noodlewasser said:

I could add an option to split the movies apart again, but it looks like the newer plugin already has this as well as some additional features, so you might want to try that instead.

The newer plugin does not have that feature that I can find.  I got this plugin to work and am working to redo my files and libraries so I don't have a catastrophe but if you could add the ability to split them back again that would be great because I never could get the other plugin to even work.

[Ugnaughts 53]

just just to see if this works with strm files yet or ever will?

[Luke 39864]

Automatically merging movies by Movie Db Id will be a built-in feature in the upcoming Emby Server 4.9 release. Thanks.