Jump to content

Torn between Plex and Emby how can I solve the one problem that made me go back to Plex?


mickeyholland

Recommended Posts

mickeyholland

The grouping of TV shows. In Plex I download a TV show, and without any file renaming it kid what show and episode it is. With Emby it just didn't do it at all for me. Every new show had its own folder in the app. Even if I put the new episode in the TV shows named folder, it would still be separate unless I cleaned up the name. Is this something that'll like be fixed soon? In Plex I love how it just knows.


The reason I ask is cause Plex just started Acting up and it appears the problem I'm having is one they've ignored for a good two years and won't even comment on.


I see people recommending renaming programs but is that something I'd have to do for every file after I download or do I set it up once and it handles it from there. Because having to go to the server and edit the file name after every download is a deal breaker for


Edited by Luke
Link to comment
Share on other sites

legallink

Download the files to a folder not part of a library and point the emby auto organize feature at that folder. It should rename and move the file for you automatically.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Long time Plex escapee that just moved over a few hours ago.

 

As a macOS user I recommend an app called Hazel. It matches files landing in a target folder that meet your defined criteria and renames them as specified. The last rule copies or moves them to a destination folder.

 

Media files are just one of the things it can do. For example all my downloaded monthly bank statements are recognized by each banks unique naming scheme and Hazel then renames it to something far easily identified and moves it to the appropriate folder. I wouldn't have a 4 TB library without it. Best $32 I've ever spent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5stringdeath

BTW, Plex does not "just know" it is dependent on a naming schema itself.  Yes it can be automated (using Sonarr et al) but that will be true for Emby as well.  All my libraries I used in Plex were scanned properly by Emby.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm by no means an expert in Hazel's use and I initially got it precisely for the question at hand; how to rename files that share similar characteristics to match predefined rules for file names in media servers like Emby and Plex.

 

In fact, the help section at noodlesoft, Hazel'a authors can be of much better help. I'm attaching two screen shots of one of the "rules" I created to rename a television show's file name to one that would fit the desired pattern. Hazel is in the Preferences Pane so the screen shots reflect this. It is constantly scanning assigned folders to watch for any new arrivals. My scheme is to automatically assign a color to a color to any file of type "movie" and then have Hazel move it to a subfolder named Incoming where the actual substitution rule executes

 

In the example shown I'm looking for a file that matches ALL of the following conditions, Name contains Counterpart, Date added is after Date Last Matched, and Kind is Movie.

 

https://goo.gl/RfxqFh is a 66KB screenshot of that rule that's ready to test and make active.

 

​If any of the files in folder Incoming match, then Hazel executes one of the next two rules that matches the pattern defined. I look for both 720p and 1080p because I sometimes added a 1080p instead of a 720p and as it result it sat in the Incoming folder with no action taken.

 

Next Hazel removes the red label and renames the file according to the pattern with is "Name S$$E$$ 720p or 1080p x265.mkv" .mkv is added automatically.

 

https://goo.gl/CeH4QE is a 197 KB screenshot showing how the variable "Episode" is defined and the other symbols that are used to define the pattern of the original file.

 

The final step is to take the newly renamed file and move or copy to a destination folder on any mounted volume.

 

I notice I've violated one of Hazel's author's rules that state that a rule should begin with a "search all sub-folders". It's probably because I use the "duplicate and rename" feature too much.

 

There are a lot of user submitted examples in their user help area similar to this that are far more advanced than mine.

 

I hope this helps describe its methodology a bit better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that is pretty neat, yes. Can you give an example of something that isn't matching correctly in Emby? I'm happy to look at that. Thanks !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll have to deliberately do some testing as I've only installed Emby for less than 24 hours and I have Hazel doing the renaming automatically plus I'm going to add another step now that I have a 2018 Mac mini 16/500GB 6 core i5 doing the Emby Server duties.

 

If I have a new x264 video file I'll have Hazel present the renamed file to ffmpeg for transcoding and then move the finished file to its assigned destination.

 

It's a far cry from my 2009 Core 2 Duo Mini that I gave up when it couldn't handle HEVC.

 

I'll post my remarks regarding the 2018 Mini and the whole 2018 model line's transcoding capabilities in another post for greater availability. There's not much real world results out there at this time for this use case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok thanks for the info. Keep in mind there is a regression in the 4.0 release related to parsing the year from movie titles, we'll be getting a small bug fix release out in the next day or so and this will be included. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

mrloughlin

can someone please help  .. 2 questions  (1)  can you access your home media movies and photos from a remote location- ie work?  (2)  one of the options when you play a video is DELETE.. if you click that , is it permanently deleted from the server..thx u

Link to comment
Share on other sites

adrianwi

I don't rename any of my TV shows and simply save them to the appropriate folder (show/season) and emby seems to deal with them pretty well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TylerV76

can someone please help  .. 2 questions  (1)  can you access your home media movies and photos from a remote location- ie work?  (2)  one of the options when you play a video is DELETE.. if you click that , is it permanently deleted from the server..thx u

 

 

1. Yes

2. Yes after a confirmation dialogue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

mrfragger

I'd suggest using the free version of Filebot (java app) FileBot_4.7.9-portable.tar.xz (27MB).  When you launch it you have to click filebot.jar file each time.

I've renamed about 28,000 files in a month with Filebot.  Yes it's a lot of work I'd guess about 20 hours of work in total.  Then once it's done it's easy to keep up.  If you want the latest version it's $6/year or $48 one time but for now I'm good with the free version.

 

Another ok one but takes a little bit longer to use due to having to manually search for the TV series name and align the seasons to the file names is RenameMyTVSeries-2.0.2-macOS-64bit (also a java app 23.9MB).  It's also free but doesn't do movie names.

 

Renaming media definitely helps Emby recognize tv shows and movies much more easily in my experience. 

Edited by mrfragger
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
Damien_

 

The grouping of TV shows. In Plex I download a TV show, and without any file renaming it kid what show and episode it is. With Emby it just didn't do it at all for me. Every new show had its own folder in the app. Even if I put the new episode in the TV shows named folder, it would still be separate unless I cleaned up the name. Is this something that'll like be fixed soon? In Plex I love how it just knows.

The reason I ask is cause Plex just started Acting up and it appears the problem I'm having is one they've ignored for a good two years and won't even comment on.

I see people recommending renaming programs but is that something I'd have to do for every file after I download or do I set it up once and it handles it from there. Because having to go to the server and edit the file name after every download is a deal breaker for

 

 

I'm a recent Emby user after many years on Plex, almost exclusively running on a mac mini. Something isn't right, if your shows are recognized in plex they should be recognized in Emby. In both systems you need to follow a basic folder and naming structure. Example: TV Shows/30 Rock/Season 1/ 30Rock.S01E04.mkv (or something to that effect). 

There are some easy ways to resolve this, most of us use some type of software to name our media. Automation programs like Sonarr do this, or software like filebot or tiny media  also do it well. Flexbot is another- really powerful and you can setup scripts so it automatically renames and even moves files (if you want) as soon as you drop them into a pre-determined folder. 

 

Point being is Plex doesn't have a secret sauce that recognizes media more effectively than emby. There's a variable missing from this equation. Im happy to dig into it more if it would be helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...