How to import sort metadata

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Hi folks,

I'm trying out Emby for the first time today and it looks really good so far. I have only one thing I haven't been able to sort out which is how to get Emby to use the sort title metadata field. From a bit of searching it looks Emby is using ffprobe to get that information, is that still true?

 

Environment: docker with emby/embyserver:4.4.2.0.

 

I mounted a folder with a single file to /mnt/share2. I accessed the container to see if ffprobe would correctly see the metadata and it does:

/mnt/share2 # ffprobe ./The.Circle.mp4 
ffprobe version 4.3.0-emby_2020_02_24 Copyright (c) 2007-2019 the FFmpeg developers and softworkz for Emby LLC
  built with gcc 8.3.0 (crosstool-NG 1.24.0)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from './The.Circle.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    title           : The Circle
    date            : 2017
    encoder         : Lavf58.20.100
    sort_name       : TheCircle01
  Duration: 01:49:47.14, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2449 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1280x534 [SAR 1:1 DAR 640:267], 1997 kb/s, Level 31, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: ac3 (ac-3 / 0x332D6361), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 448 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
    Side data:
      audio service type: main
    Stream #0:2(eng): Data: bin_data (text / 0x74786574)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SubtitleHandler

I re-created the library with no metadata downloaders on and 'prefer embedded titles' just to see if that would help but no luck.

 

For giggles I renamed the file to noname.mp4, re-created the library again and Emby did not use the metadata for the title either.

 

What am I missing?

 

Thank you

 

 

[Luke 36997]

Hi, no, the sort title by default is automatically generated based on the title. What are you ultimately trying to accomplish?

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Hi Luke,

 

We have movies for a franchise that I want to group and order together. For example the Lord of the Rings movies with just the title are ordered 1, 3, 2. More extreme of an example is the Unbreakable series. Glass (3), Split (2), Unbreakable (1)

 

Thanks

[Luke 36997]

Ok i would simply edit the sort titles for the ones that you want, or just create collections for those groups of movies.

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Hi Luke,

 

Thanks for the quick replies. Appreciated!

 

That is a lot of movies to manually update (hundreds). I have had to rebuild this stuff a few times which is why I started using metadata. Anyway, from poking around it looks like there are a few options:

 

1. Use the API.

2. Turn on NFO and sync to that.

3. Write a metadata plugin. I poked around GH and it looks like there is an interface for this (ILocalMetadataProvider). Will this take precedence is the question.  

4. Use the DB directly.

 

I think my preference is #3.

 

Thanks,

[Luke 36997]

 

3. Write a metadata plugin. I poked around GH and it looks like there is an interface for this (ILocalMetadataProvider). Will this take precedence is the question.  

 

Yea you can try, although it might be tricky if the metadata provider is only providing the SortName value and nothing else. We don't currently have any examples of local metadata providers that only provide partial metadata so this is something we haven't worked though before.