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Folder required for each TV show?


scf

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This is all on MacOS; the server is running MacOS 10.13.6.

I have a bunch of one-off TV shows; single-episode events. Some are listed in TheTVDB and some are not.

It seems that I need to enclose each show in its own folder for it to be visible in a library. Shows that are not in a folder I can find by manually searching for them, and they show up as an episode, but they don't show up in my TV show library.

Is that expected behavior?

Stay well!
@cayars

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  • 2 weeks later...
sross44

This was asked a few days ago but thought I may be able to help. When I originally put together my Emby setup, I set it up on my Mac Mini (have since moved it all to windows just because the computer is more powerful). Anyway, regardless of the server platform, it should be visible if you do have the individual shows listed in folders. Have you tried one to see what the behavior is? 

@cayars

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On 8/24/2020 at 5:44 PM, scf said:

This is all on MacOS; the server is running MacOS 10.13.6.

I have a bunch of one-off TV shows; single-episode events. Some are listed in TheTVDB and some are not.

It seems that I need to enclose each show in its own folder for it to be visible in a library. Shows that are not in a folder I can find by manually searching for them, and they show up as an episode, but they don't show up in my TV show library.

Is that expected behavior?

Stay well!
@cayars

Hi,

Sometimes you can get things to work but most of the time if you don't following the layout and naming guidelines for files you won't have a great experience.

Emby really does want tv show to be in a folder specific to the show name even if it's just a single episode.

Here is our knowledge base article on Proper TV Show naming that Emby will always work with.

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

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sross44
On 24/08/2020 at 17:44, scf said:

This is all on MacOS; the server is running MacOS 10.13.6.

I have a bunch of one-off TV shows; single-episode events. Some are listed in TheTVDB and some are not.

It seems that I need to enclose each show in its own folder for it to be visible in a library. Shows that are not in a folder I can find by manually searching for them, and they show up as an episode, but they don't show up in my TV show library.

Is that expected behavior?

Stay well!
@cayars

Are you still running in to the same issue? Just curious if you’ve tried putting them in folders to see what happens. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Apologies for not replying sooner. I've looked at the naming requirements and am adjusting; we'll see how that goes. Thanks!

Edited by scf
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Well, some change. Having a directory named 'A' under a directory named 'TV' creates a show called 'A', which is not desirable. From prior trials, renaming 'A' to 'TV A' will work. On the other hand, a directory name 'TV O' under a directory named 'TV' will wind up tagged as a show called "TV Offal", which is not at all what's wanted. And, having a directory named 'O' has the same result as 'A'--a show called 'O'

It feels like Emby needs a unique prefix for directories that are not shows. What's happening now is creating unpredictable results.

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Happy2Play
7 minutes ago, scf said:

Well, some change. Having a directory named 'A' under a directory named 'TV' creates a show called 'A', which is not desirable. From prior trials, renaming 'A' to 'TV A' will work. On the other hand, a directory name 'TV O' under a directory named 'TV' will wind up tagged as a show called "TV Offal", which is not at all what's wanted. And, having a directory named 'O' has the same result as 'A'--a show called 'O'

It feels like Emby needs a unique prefix for directories that are not shows. What's happening now is creating unpredictable results.

Without the full context of what exists within each folder level all we can do is guess.  But yes it is easy for Emby to think a subfolder is a Series when it is not.

nested.thumb.jpg.f7caca49ca7629df8afa88c244f0c8a8.jpg

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Sure, but that's why you need a specific prefix on directory names to steer the guess. It could be fixed ("Emby " followed by some contextually-significant name), or user-defined ("MyTV"). That would be the clue to the server that that's an organizational directory, not the name of a piece of content. That *should* work for any OS; you might need an adjustment for some--no spaces in names for some, for example.

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Happy2Play
24 minutes ago, scf said:

Sure, but that's why you need a specific prefix on directory names to steer the guess. It could be fixed ("Emby " followed by some contextually-significant name), or user-defined ("MyTV"). That would be the clue to the server that that's an organizational directory, not the name of a piece of content. That *should* work for any OS; you might need an adjustment for some--no spaces in names for some, for example.

From a series stand point Emby uses Seriename, followed by season folder, SxxEyy naming or Seriename, SxxEyy naming.  Those are the only ways Emby will present TV Shows content type.

But you may need to go over a specific example.

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Sorry, let me be more explicit with an example.

Let's say that the word "Emby" is recognized as a special prefix, which means to the server when doing a library scan that the administrator guarantees to the server that that directory name is not the name of a show. Directories starting with "Emby" can be nested, but once the prefix is abandoned in higher subdirectory, it cannot be taken up again.

So, where now we have

  • TopDir/
    • Movies/
      • A/
        • (Movies starting with A )
      • B/
        • (Movies starting with B )
      • (etc)
    • TV/
      • A/
        • (TV shows starting with A )
      • B/
        • (TV shows starting with B )
      • Football/
        • Steelers/
          • (Games with the Steelers)
        • Rams/
          • (Games with the Rams)
      • (etc)

(etc).

we could instead have

  • Emby TopDir/
    • Emby Movies/
      • Emby A/
        • (Movies starting with A )
      • Emby B/
        • (Movies starting with B )
      • (etc)
    • Emby TV/
      • Emby A/
        • (TV shows starting with A )
      • Emby B/
        • (TV shows starting with B )
      • Emby Football/
        • Emby Steelers/
          • (Games with the Steelers)
        • Emby Rams/
          • (Games with the Rams)
      • (etc)

In this case the fact that the keyword "Emby" appears as a prefix in a directory name tells the server that anything else in the directory name (e.g. "TopDir", "Movies", "Football") is not the name of a series or something else that needs to be searched for in the cloud-based metadata sites like TheTVDB. The rest of the directory name could have meaning to the server; for example, using "Movie" might be a clue that content of the subdirectories is movies, so that the user doesn't have to manually select which directories are movies and which are TV shows, etc. That meaning could be fixed by Emby, or defined by the user. The keyword could be fixed by Emby or defined by the user. If used well and the server were set up to support this, the user might be able to point the server at a top level directory that contains, either directly or through symbolic links all of the subdirectories in the user's content, and the server would be able to work out what is where just by the suffixes after the keyword ("Movie", "TV", etc.)

I included the "Football" subdirectory to show how a further subdirectory can be added; there is no limit on the depth of nested keyword directories, and no restriction on what level the keyword needs to stop in adjacent nestings; the nesting can be shallow or deep in adjacent directories. The only restriction is that you can't use the keyword again, at least not as the keyword, once a show name has been used as a directory name. For example:

  • Emby TV/
    • Emby S/
      • Star Trek/ <== lack of the keyword indicates that "Star Trek" is a show name that should be searched for in the cloud metadata libraries (e.g. TheTVDB).
        • Emby Trek/   <== this is illegal, because the preceding level ("Star Trek") had abandoned the keyword to indicate a show name.

 

This would definitively prevent Emby from misinterpreting a directory name as being the name of a show or not, which is what is happening now. Anything with the keyword would be deemed not to be a show name, and every directory without the keyword that is in the level immediately below the lowest keyword-named level would be a show. No more guessing.

 

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Emby can handle the "A","B","C" under Movies but under the "T" folder you would want a folder per movie "Top Gun (1986)" with all media for top gun in that folder.
My setup is exactly this way due to the number of movies I've got. 

TV Shows are more touchy.  I personally do this on disc.

/TV Shows/Ended/Show Name (Year)
/TV Shows/Ongoing/Show Name (Year)

I do this just to make it easy for me to manage.  I leave a show in the "Ongoing" folder until it's done filming and I have EVERY episode then I'll move it to the "Ended" folders and rescan.  On my system when a show is in "Ended" it NEVER needs more attention from me as it's complete.  Anything in "Ongoing" is for me an on going series that needs more episodes to complete (finished or still to be aired).

BUT (important) I mount this differently.  TV Shows I've found aren't happy with an extra directory like "A",""B","C" in them so in my TV Shows Library I have 2 mounts which are:

/TV Shows/Ended/
/TV Shows/Ongoing/

Now when Emby scan these folder it only sees "Show Name (Year)", the season folders and the episodes but to Emby it looks like ShowName (year)/Season x/Episode S01E01.ext

This is what my TV Shows look like:

image.thumb.png.951a213a3ef079cd2822cf4a6b2e7126.png

That's over 1600 different shows

This is what Movies look like:

image.thumb.png.ea509f18ad8dcf0627f7a57a611c24f5.png

Over 15.5K movies.

This style of folder layout agrees with Emby and will not cause you issues setup correctly.

I have many other libraries setup for things like 3D Movies, 4K Movies, Screeners, Recordings, Sports, Home Movies, Camera, etc

So if you Modify your folder structure a bit especially for TV Shows you can make life much easier on yourself.

Let me know what questions you might have.

Carlo

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The directory structure I have is inherited from a Twonky server setup that worked well for years, but didn't support metadata to the same extent.

It seems odd that the way to manage large numbers of show is to lump them all under a fewer number of directories, so that it's even harder to manually maintain the directories. Deep and narrow vs. shallow and flat. I could move all the shows up one level, and get rid of the alphabetized separation between groups of shows.

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You don't really want to do that with shows.  Ideally you want this:

\Movies\Movie Name (Year)
\TV Shows\Show Name (Year)

In my example I keep ongoing and completed TV shows in different areas of disk so I just have two mount points for Shows but it's the same.

For Movies it can get difficult to scroll through thousand of movies on disc so some of us use the first letter as an intermediate folder ONLY to make disc work easier.  No need to do this.

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming
https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159110-tv-naming

Follow those guides and you won't have an issue.

 

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The examples you sent show using subdirectories under the top-level directories:

\TV
     \A-M
        \Glee (2009)
           \Season 1
              Glee S01E01.mp4
     \N-Z
        \Seinfeld (1989)
           \Season 1
              Seinfeld S01E01.mp4 

The examples don't mention that only some subdirectory names are supported and others are not. Are you suggesting that "A-M" and "N-Z" are supported, but other namings are not? Hundreds of TV shows (titles, not episodes) spread across multiple large drives (JBOD, not NAS). It's great that your "Ended" and "Ongoing" schemes work, but why should those two arbitrary names that aren't discussed in the documentation work, and others not work?

Emby is a commercially-available product, right, and not just for hobbyists? This sort of "it works this undocumented way, but not this other way" is what I'd expect from a hobbyist app and not from a commercial product. Regular users like accurate documentation and predictability.

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If I have on disc:
C:\Library\TV Shows\Ended
C:\Library\TV Shows\Ongoing

DO NOT mount this:
C:\Library\TV Shows

do that and Emby see's "Ended" and "Ongoing"

instead use two mounts for the library:
C:\Library\TV Shows\Ended
C:\Library\TV Shows\Ongoing

Emby doesn't see the "Ended" or "Ongoing" this way.  Emby only sees the folders under both of the MOUNT POINTS which would be TV Show Name (Year)

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