Best way to manually identify TV show episodes

[Taylor7500 1]

In short, while the auto scraper works fine for most files, there are a few fringe cases (mostly in TV shows) where Emby outright refuses to see and categorise a file in that directory. I'm wondering what the best way to manually identify and categorise them is.

I know it's the obvious answer which will be recommended, but I have no intentions of renaming and restructuring my entire library - as useful as Emby is, I will only be using it a significant minority of the time and the format which Emby wants will make at least one of my shows significantly harder to navigate elsewhere.

I've tried the folder view but for TV shows it doesn't really work and ends up defaulting to the regular view, in effect.

In short, what is the best way to make Emby see and correctly identify those files? Even if I have to manually go over each one.

[Abobader 3464]

Hello Taylor7500,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[GrimReaper 4740]

4 minutes ago, Taylor7500 said:

In short, what is the best way to make Emby see and correctly identify those files? Even if I have to manually go over each one.

Three-dot menu on any episode > Edit Metadata, manually assign Season number and Episode number, Refresh metadata. 

And yes, it's a lot of manual labor if you ain't inclined to conform to accepted naming convention

 

[Taylor7500 1]

Could work except the files literally don't appear in Emby. It can even pull random special features from subfolders within the folder that the files are in, but not the files themselves.

[Carlo 4561]

That sounds like the files are so out of wack naming wise that Emby doesn't even know what to do with them.

The only thing I can think of for a case like this is to create an NFO with prepopulated information in it about the file.
That to me would be a lot more more than renaming the files so they get picked up correctly.

[GrimReaper 4740]

Without seeing the actual example, it's really hard to speculate, it's guesswork only. It's possible TV show parser simply puts them somewhere you ain't expecting. Maybe if you shared few screenshots we might be able to recommend some alternate avenue in your library setup? 

[Taylor7500 1]

Couple of cases: 

1) The IT Crowd. The series are affectionately named Version 1.0 through version 5.0. So my folder structure is The IT Crowd/Version X/N - [Episode Title].mkv Emby can see series 1 and the series 5 special but both needed to be manually identified as The IT Crowd and even then it just gives series and episode number with no metadata. It can't see series 2-4 at all.

2) Classic Doctor Who. I keep all Who, old and new, spinoffs, and everything else in one folder. To get to, for example, the Keeper of Traken episode 4 the structure is Doctor Who/Classic/4 - The Fourth Doctor/40 - The Keeper of Traken/Episode 4.mkv. In the case with special features, they are usually in a subdirectory of the story directory so 40 - The Keeper of Traken/Extra/[Special Features Files]. For whatever reason, Emby can see and pull up all my special features files but the actual episodes of old Who aren't there at all, not even as unassigned and littered about. It's like they're completely invisible. And due to the way that Old Who is structured (and the fact that the vast majority of the time I'll be accessing my data through just windows explorer) needing to memorize which stories are in which series and having them in series blocks really would make them harder to navigate.

 

Any advice on the best way to deal with this is appreciated. Even something as simple as being able to play a file found through a file-and-directory view would work - just as it stands now there's data on there which seems completely invisible to Emby.

[GrimReaper 4740]

9 minutes ago, Taylor7500 said:

Even something as simple as being able to play a file found through a file-and-directory view would work

With filefolder structure like that, most obvious solution I could think of is pull those shows out of your parent TV shows folder and make new library for them, of Home Videos & Photos type. You won't be able to scrape them, but at least you'll be able to browse/play. Aside some heavy restructuring/renaming, I don't see a way for them to be recognized regularly. 

Edit: Or put them all under respective \Extras subfolder, but I really have no idea in what order they would show up/be listed. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by GrimReaper
Append

[muzicman0 84]

could you use something like Tiny Media Manager to create the NFO's?  Or are they not recognized in something like that as well?

[Taylor7500 1]

Thanks.

Ive not used home movies as a format before. Will it just be raw files and folders, rather than attempting to scrape and add metadata to them? Just trying to figure out how it all works.

Also for the sake of my own sanity, can you think of a reason why it can see parts of the IT Crowd but not all of it when all files are under the same structure?

[GrimReaper 4740]

Just now, Taylor7500 said:

Ive not used home movies as a format before. Will it just be raw files and folders, rather than attempting to scrape and add metadata to them?

Yep. 

 

Just now, Taylor7500 said:

Also for the sake of my own sanity, can you think of a reason why it can see parts of the IT Crowd but not all of it when all files are under the same structure?

Guess it's down to TV show parser logic. 

[Taylor7500 1]

2 minutes ago, muzicman0 said:

could you use something like Tiny Media Manager to create the NFO's?  Or are they not recognized in something like that as well?

Thanks for the pointer. I assume I'd need NFO files in every folder that Emby can't deal with in order to show it the way? Or can you cobble together a one-file-for-everything solution? Apologies if it's a dumb question but I don't know how they work. 

[Taylor7500 1]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

Yep. 

Thanks, guess that's the solution for now then. Since you recommended I pull the problem directories out of my TV Shows directory, would I be right in assuming that you can't tell Emby to ignore a particular folder for one library but not another?

[GrimReaper 4740]

Just now, Taylor7500 said:

Thanks for the pointer. I assume I'd need NFO files in every folder that Emby can't deal with in order to show it the way? Or can you cobble together a one-file-for-everything solution? Apologies if it's a dumb question but I don't know how they work. 

You need an NFO for every single episode. IMHO I seriously doubt TMM would be able to identify those. You might try, though. 

[muzicman0 84]

honestly not 100% sure how it works either, but I think if there is a nfo file for each episode, then when Emby sees the file it will it will import the meta data within the nfo.  Tiny Media Manager will create those NFO files for you for each episode, assuming it can identify the show correctly.  In my experience, TMM is very flexible.

[GrimReaper 4740]

Just now, Taylor7500 said:

Thanks, guess that's the solution for now then. Since you recommended I pull the problem directories out of my TV Shows directory, would I be right in assuming that you can't tell Emby to ignore a particular folder for one library but not another?

No, you set it in your library paths, depending on your needs/folder structure. Just make sure that NO nested folders are part of some other library, i.e. they must all be same-level. 

[Taylor7500 1]

Well folks, thanks for the advice. I think for now at least I'll put them all under home movies and if I get a hankering to manually identify the lot of them I'll give TMM a go. 

[Taylor7500 1]

So here's an odd bit - Emby seems to be keeping the (erroneous) metadata even as categorised as Home Movies. 

 

Is there a way to wipe out the metadata or to have it be ignored in the Home Movies library?

[GrimReaper 4740]

9 minutes ago, Taylor7500 said:

So here's an odd bit - Emby seems to be keeping the (erroneous) metadata even as categorised as Home Movies. 

 

Is there a way to wipe out the metadata or to have it be ignored in the Home Movies library?

If you dont save NFOs with your media (library option), then remove those shows, run Scan media library task in order for them to be removed from db, then put them back, scan again. 

If you have NFOs written - delete them. 

Edit: As a sidenote, in your Home Screen settings, make Folders tab default landing page for your Home Videos library, I reckon that would be more useful presentation. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by GrimReaper
Append

[Luke 42078]

5 hours ago, Taylor7500 said:

Thanks.

Ive not used home movies as a format before. Will it just be raw files and folders, rather than attempting to scrape and add metadata to them? Just trying to figure out how it all works.

Also for the sake of my own sanity, can you think of a reason why it can see parts of the IT Crowd but not all of it when all files are under the same structure?

If you click into each episode you might find that some got merged together as being the same episode. You'll notice a version drop down selection if this is the case.

This can be solved by using supported tv naming conventions.