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Organizing Extras Request


Bigmack3000

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Bigmack3000

This is a smaller extras request that I haven't seen posted yet.  While it's being decided how extras are advanced, can we get a sorting order for the various extras folders? Right now, I can sort them into Interviews, Deleted Scenes, Specials, etc. However, once uploaded to Emby they just mash together alphabetically, leaving you with this:

 

Deleted Scene, Interview, Deleted Scene, Special, Featurette, Interview, Behind the Scenes, Featurette, Featurette, Deleted Scene, Special.

 

It would be great if each Extras folder had a numbered value.  That way the line in Emby looked more like:

 

Interview, Interview, Deleted Scene, Deleted Scene, Deleted Scene, Behind the Scenes, Featurette, Featurette, Featurette, Special, Special.

 

This would go a long way in making the Extras look much neater in their current state.  

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PenkethBoy

add a prefix to the "extras" filename so they sort in groups - which is what i do to keep them grouped together

Edited by PenkethBoy
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Bigmack3000

That's a nice manual option, that I'll use for certain deleted scenes or BTS if it's split into multiple segments.  But it'd be nice to have them auto sort and not waste some of the name space on "Interview" or "Featurette".

 

Even an option in the library settings that allows you to choose the order in which the files are sorted.

Edited by Bigmack3000
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PenkethBoy

you only need to use one or two letters

 

e.g. e- for extras f- for featurettes i- for interviews etc 

and/or you could use numbers instead - and vary that by item if thats needed

 

library option would not be enough as the next request would be by item - and overall its overkill - hence why they went alphabetical

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Bigmack3000

I think that's a pretty big leap in assumptions.  Sorting distinct categories alphabetically is not an equal step to sorting every file individually.

 

Basically, if we already have the option to sort extras into various folders then there should be a reason we do that.  That reason would be keeping the files in those folders together.

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Bigmack3000

You mean from the library level?  or individual files?  Because that's a vastly different amount of time and work to do.

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Bigmack3000

Even that is much more specific than my request.  I'm trying to keep mine as simple and broad as possible.  Just keep the files in each folder together in the Extras line of each movie.  

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Bigmack3000

Thanks.  I understand what you're saying to do. But I'm not going to do that to thousands of files.  And no one should really have to when we are already separating them into their own folders.  It just seems like keeping them sorted when loaded into Emby is the most efficient and clean option for every user.  

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  • 5 months later...

Bumping this rather than starting a new thread.

My expectation when I saw that Emby supported multiple folders for special features was that each supported folder name would have its own strip under the movie in the client app.

If you just did the main 'extras' folder, that's all you'd see, but if you took the time to break your special features down by type and put them in a corresponding folder, you'd see the results of that effort in the client app.

After I didn't see what I expected, I looked into it more, and it seems like the alternative folder names are just there to accommodate content generators with their own established folder structures.

But..I'd really like to see special features get that grouped presentation I originally envisioned.

 

And maybe someday, their own dedicated tab where you can watch special features by type across movies and other fancy playback options.

 

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3 minutes ago, roaku said:

Bumping this rather than starting a new thread.

My expectation when I saw that Emby supported multiple folders for special features was that each supported folder name would have its own strip under the movie in the client app.

If you just did the main 'extras' folder, that's all you'd see, but if you took the time to break your special features down by type and put them in a corresponding folder, you'd see the results of that effort in the client app.

After I didn't see what I expected, I looked into it more, and it seems like the alternative folder names are just there to accommodate content generators with their own established folder structures.

But..I'd really like to see special features get that grouped presentation I originally envisioned.

 

And maybe someday, their own dedicated tab where you can watch special features by type across movies and other fancy playback options.

 

Hi, it's always possible for the future. As of now, very few users have this amount of extras so it's just hard to prioritize this. Thanks for the feedback.

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1 minute ago, Luke said:

Hi, it's always possible for the future. As of now, very few users have this amount of extras so it's just hard to prioritize this. Thanks for the feedback.

Ok, fair enough.

Is this something that could be accomplished through the plugin architecture?

I'd be happy to take this on myself if it's possible.

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Bigmack3000
14 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, it's always possible for the future. As of now, very few users have this amount of extras so it's just hard to prioritize this. Thanks for the feedback.

Hey, I understand that it might be a smaller user base that uses extras, which is why my original request was just to have a sort order for the special features folders.  That way, even if they are all still in one line, it at least looks much more organized.  Do you think something smaller like this is possible?

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crusher11

I just want to be able to see my extras the same way I can see TV episodes. That way I can see more of the name of each instead of just a tiny snippet, as well as a description if one exists. 

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  • 2 months later...

I too would like to see the extras further sub-divided into displayed categories according to their folders.  If I had know previously that I could have the Extras section, I would have ripped those too along with the main features.  As it is, I will be selective and cherry-pick among my 3500 movies to add Extras.

While we're on the subject, Extras are usually included in various series.  I've tried to see if an Extras folder would do the same thing, but to no avail.  At present, any extras that I have ripped, appear at the beginning of the episodes.  It would be nice to sub-categorize those also.

 

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rbjtech

For TV series - you put them in Season 0 - and they are then treated the same as a normal episode assuming they match thetvdb 'specials' metadata - see

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159110-tv-naming

https://emby.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/44001904299

If you really needed to - then collections work perfectly well with 'Specials/Season 0' content.

For movies with 'Extras' then I just use the metadata sort order if I need to show in a particular way - My personal view is there is no need for any further breakdown here.  If you REALLY needed to do this - then you have the option to create new items per extra (ie they are not classed as Extras at all), and then link them all back to the original movie via Collection(s) again.  ie make your Featurettes one Collection and Outtakes another for example.

Edited by rbjtech
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Bigmack3000

I'll keep saying it, but the Specials solution is anything but perfect.  The longer a show runs, and the more extras it contains, the more unwieldy it becomes.  Something like MST3K has over 400 separate extras across its boxsets.  It just becomes a mess when it's all in one folder.  

A simple option that would actually fix TV extras, would be if Emby officially recognized folders with different names.  Then you put all deleted scenes in one folder, Interviews in another, etc.  Then to go further, Emby could include the "Special episode info" option for any folder:

435245809_ScreenShot2021-01-21at3_09_46PM.png.5e44c89dc44868795c077e2e3f1cb1c7.png

 

Then, if you choose to, you could further apply deleted scenes as needed into each season.  

This to me is a great compromise that allows the user to decide how detailed their organization process is.

759317152_ScreenShot2021-01-21at3_13_06PM.thumb.png.a2c70ddfefe8ab9f0d7cc793b17a0535.png

Plus, I think it looks nice as well.

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6 hours ago, rbjtech said:

For movies with 'Extras' then I just use the metadata sort order if I need to show in a particular way - My personal view is there is no need for any further breakdown here.  If you REALLY needed to do this - then you have the option to create new items per extra (ie they are not classed as Extras at all), and then link them all back to the original movie via Collection(s) again.  ie make your Featurettes one Collection and Outtakes another for example.

Or...the developers could circle back to the currently barebones extras functionality so those of us that use extras extensively can get some of the features we're requesting.

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15 minutes ago, Bigmack3000 said:

I'll keep saying it, but the Specials solution is anything but perfect.  The longer a show runs, and the more extras it contains, the more unwieldy it becomes.  Something like MST3K has over 400 separate extras across its boxsets.  It just becomes a mess when it's all in one folder.  

A simple option that would actually fix TV extras, would be if Emby officially recognized folders with different names.  Then you put all deleted scenes in one folder, Interviews in another, etc.  Then to go further, Emby could include the "Special episode info" option for any folder:

435245809_ScreenShot2021-01-21at3_09_46PM.png.5e44c89dc44868795c077e2e3f1cb1c7.png

 

Then, if you choose to, you could further apply deleted scenes as needed into each season.  

This to me is a great compromise that allows the user to decide how detailed their organization process is.

759317152_ScreenShot2021-01-21at3_13_06PM.thumb.png.a2c70ddfefe8ab9f0d7cc793b17a0535.png

Plus, I think it looks nice as well.

I've requested this for movies earlier in the thread. Might as well do TV too while they're at it. :)

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rbjtech
56 minutes ago, Bigmack3000 said:

I'll keep saying it, but the Specials solution is anything but perfect.  The longer a show runs, and the more extras it contains, the more unwieldy it becomes.  Something like MST3K has over 400 separate extras across its boxsets.  It just becomes a mess when it's all in one folder.  

A simple option that would actually fix TV extras, would be if Emby officially recognized folders with different names.  Then you put all deleted scenes in one folder, Interviews in another, etc.  Then to go further, Emby could include the "Special episode info" option for any folder:

 

tbh I'm a little confused.

You can use any folder name you like - and it is that folder name that is shown on the 'Seasons Page'.  It is the file name that dictates the episode / metadata.

In the example below - there are 96 Top Gear 'specials' - so I agree 100% that putting them all into a single 'Season 0' folder is unwieldy.  So put them into separate folders as you see fit - as long as you keep the S00Exx in alignment with TVDB - then it displays them in an organised fashion.  is this not what you want ?

For movies - then you cannot do this - but considering the number of featurettes/extras will typically be less than 10, I'm not sure why you would need to ?

topgear.PNG

edit -

MST3K - 562 Specials ! 🤣

https://thetvdb.com/series/mystery-science-theater-3000/seasons/official/0

I guess you could group manually and put them into folders by the tvdb id's above - that that is a task and a half !

 

Edited by rbjtech
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3 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

For movies - then you cannot do this - but considering the number of featurettes/extras will typically be less than 10, I'm not sure why you would need to ?

For one, DVDs and BluRays regularly have much more than 10 extras.

For two, the different types of extras have different semantic meaning and priority to me.

For example, I want to have deleted scenes available, but I'm much less likely to want to watch them at any given time than featurettes/making of documentaries. There are short films associated with movies, music videos, VFX breakdowns etc.

Some are full on historical docs in their own right and I want to be able to highlight and emphasize the exceptional extras from the run of the mill stuff.

Emby already interprets enough folder names as 'extras' for my curating needs. I just need it to honor those names on the front ends so I can quickly scroll to the *type* of extra I'm wanting to watch right now.

Right now, I prefix a bracket to the extra file name ([DOC],[INTERVIEW],[VFX],[SCORE],[DS] etc.), but it just doesn't help much and it's ugly. Extras functionality would benefit from further development.

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Bigmack3000
1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

tbh I'm a little confused.

You can use any folder name you like - and it is that folder name that is shown on the 'Seasons Page'.  It is the file name that dictates the episode / metadata.

In the example below - there are 96 Top Gear 'specials' - so I agree 100% that putting them all into a single 'Season 0' folder is unwieldy.  So put them into separate folders as you see fit - as long as you keep the S00Exx in alignment with TVDB - then it displays them in an organised fashion.  is this not what you want ?

For movies - then you cannot do this - but considering the number of featurettes/extras will typically be less than 10, I'm not sure why you would need to ?

topgear.PNG

edit -

MST3K - 562 Specials ! 🤣

https://thetvdb.com/series/mystery-science-theater-3000/seasons/official/0

I guess you could group manually and put them into folders by the tvdb id's above - that that is a task and a half !

 

Yes, this technically works and I do organize this way, as the picture showed, but it is not officially supported and the devs on here always mention it could stop working with any update.  For example, Extras used to show up as its oen folder but now it auto combines with Specials in Emby.

Another problem with this is the fact that deleted scenes, interviews, etc are very much not "Specials".  Shows, for example The Office UK, have actual special episodes that further the plot along but exist outside of a particular season.  These should not be mixed in with random featurettes.

 

Also, if Emby did support other folders, it would be great to then not have these count towards unwatched content.  As you can see, MST3K currently says i have over 550" episodes" to still watch.  Which is obviously super inflated by all of those so called specials.

 

There's just much better ways to have this system work that would not change anything for people that don't want to use it, but would make the program significantly better for those that do.

 

One last thing, technically tvdb should not have extras listed as Specials on their site, but everyone listed them anyway.  However, since tvdb might be replaced by another site soon, and if that new site does not have the same system, you're stuck with hundreds of files labeled "mst3k s00e234" without any idea what it is without playing it.

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