Question about Auto-Collections and TV

[JasonNalley 37]

I seem to recall when I had my Plex server that they somehow put TV into collections where it made sense.  For instance Dragon Ball Z, which has movies and TV got added to a collection together, and when you opened up the show, the movies showed at the bottom, when you opened up a movie, the remaining movies and show showed up at the bottom, and when you opened the collection, all of them would be in there under "Movies" and "TV" respectively.  I am wondering if that functionality already happens within Emby (it doesn't seem to, but maybe I'm missing a setting), and if not, any idea how we could accomplish this automatically instead of manually?

[GrimReaper 4742]

Not quite sure what you're asking here, as there is already a "Included in" section in any item Detail view, where your Collection would be listed and once selected, you could see all items. Do you want all of those to show on any item Detail screen? I've got some fairly large collections and wouldn't quite like seeing them there, I prefer current solution. Not to mention that an item can be a part of multiple Collections, which is elegantly solved in current manner. 

[JasonNalley 37]

12 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Not quite sure what you're asking here, as there is already a "Included in" section in any item Detail view, where your Collection would be listed and once selected, you could see all items. Do you want all of those to show on any item Detail screen? I've got some fairly large collections and wouldn't quite like seeing them there, I prefer current solution. Not to mention that an item can be a part of multiple Collections, which is elegantly solved in current manner. 

Heh, I'm not sure what you're asking, so let me try to clarify my initial question.

Currently, Auto-collections (as far as I can tell) only puts movies together, like Nightmare on Elm Street, Iron Man, Dragon Ball Z Movies (Not the tv show), etc.  

What I'm asking is, is there a way to automatically include the TV Shows into the collections (Not manually)?

For instance, Firefly (TV Show) and Serenity (Movie), or as above Dragon Ball Z and it's movies.  Currently I've had to manually add the Dragon Ball Z show to the Dragon Ball Z Movies collection, and have had to create a custom Collection for Firefly and Serenity (as examples).  This process is slightly cumbersome for larger media collections.

The other part of the question concerns the "Included in" section, instead of "Included in" and simply showing the collection poster, having a "Other items in collection" and showing the items themselves seems more elegant (in that it saves 1 level of click/selection).

Hopefully this is more clear?  Plex did this automatically somehow and didn't have just "Dragon Ball Z Movies Collection"  it did "Dragon Ball Z Collection" and automatically  added the movies AND the TV show, so I'm just wonder if there's a way we can do this automatically (a setting, a plugin, etc)

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by JasonNalley

[Painkiller88 250]

13 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

What I'm asking is, is there a way to automatically include the TV Shows into the collections (Not manually)?

No this is not how this Plugin works and i am glad about it because Movies and TV Shows are handled different.

Do you really wanna add the tv shows relating to some movies or spin offs to a movie collection?

i think a lot people don't wanna do this.

It is not implemented and not working like that, but maybe the developer will implement this as an optional button to enable one day, who knows.

[GrimReaper 4742]

AFAIK nope, as those auto-Collections are actually TMDB Movie Sets, hence no TV shows, any show you want to add to those has to be done manually. As you did for Dragon Ball Z, and as you had to do for Firefly where you had to manually create Collection since Serenity (2005) is part of no Collection. 

As for the second part, yeah, we disagree there, I have some 100+ items Collections and I don't quite want all those items listed in item Detail view, my vote goes to "Included in" with Collection(s)/Playlist(s) posters only. 

 

[GrimReaper 4742]

3 minutes ago, Painkiller8818 said:

No this is not how this Plugin works

It ain't a Plugin anymore, it's been made part of Emby core. 

[Painkiller88 250]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

It ain't a Plugin anymore, it's been made part of Emby core. 

ah yeah right this has been implemented, was a bit confused because auto boxset is still available as plugin and does the same

[JasonNalley 37]

9 minutes ago, Painkiller8818 said:

Do you really wanna add the tv shows relating to some movies or spin offs to a movie collection?

Well, just speaking from the Plex side of things, I never ran into a collection where I thought "Hmm, that doesn't belong there".  So, yes, I would like Serenity and Firefly together automatically, or All of "The Walking Dead" shows and spinoffs together automatically (Along with the movies that are due out soon).

 

7 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

AFAIK nope, as those auto-Collections are actually TMDB Movie Sets, hence no TV shows...

That's what I suspected when I looked at what was created, I wonder how Plex handled it, the more I think about it (it's been years since I've used plex)  Plex does have its own Metadata database I think, so it's possible the collections they're pulling are user-curated and cross-section.

Edited October 11, 2021 by JasonNalley

[GrimReaper 4742]

Just now, JasonNalley said:

Plex does have its own Metadata database I think, so it's possibly the collections they're pulling are user-curated and cross-section.

Yep, Plex uses own scrapers. 

[GrimReaper 4742]

2 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

Well, just speaking from the Plex side of things, I never ran into a collection where I thought "Hmm, that doesn't belong there".  So, yes, I would like Serenity and Firefly together automatically, or All of "The Walking Dead" shows and spinoffs together automatically (Along with the movies that are due out soon).

Likewise, but it's a bit of manual labor - not that much, tho. 

[JasonNalley 37]

Just now, GrimReaper said:

Yep, Plex uses own scrapers. 

Well, not just its own scrapers, but they have their own database too I believe, it's not publicly facing like TMDB and TVDB, but if you look at the agents, PlexDB is one of the agents (along with TMDB, TVDB, IMDB, etc).  So I think they actually have their own full database that may contain lots of user-curated data.

[JasonNalley 37]

2 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

not that much, tho. 

I think my 2 biggest issues are

1) Add to Collections doesn't have an A-Z on the side of it to quickly locate a Collection (at least not in webview, specifically when doing "Add to collection").
2) The amount of clicks it takes to affect change (especially image changes), which makes sense since it's a media server and not a media organizer, but it's a pain point for sure

If my media library was smaller, it wouldn't be so bad, but with over 6,000 movies and over 1,500 tv shows, and the fact that collection information is lost whenever you want to start fresh (switch to new OS) it gets to be a pain point that seems like a mountain in front of you on big changes... 

[GrimReaper 4742]

19 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

Well, not just its own scrapers, but they have their own database too I believe, it's not publicly facing like TMDB and TVDB, but if you look at the agents, PlexDB is one of the agents (along with TMDB, TVDB, IMDB, etc).  So I think they actually have their own full database that may contain lots of user-curated data.

That's what I was referring to, Plex Movies and Plex TV Series. Not necessarily user-curated (although likely part of it is, benefit of collecting user data, I suppose), but internal-only anyways. 

Edit: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200241558-agents/

Edited October 11, 2021 by GrimReaper
Link

[GrimReaper 4742]

2 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

1) Add to Collections doesn't have an A-Z on the side of it to quickly locate a Collection (at least not in webview, specifically when doing "Add to collection").

Press A-Z on the keyboard, that'll take you there a bit faster.

3 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

2) The amount of clicks it takes to affect change (especially image changes), which makes sense since it's a media server and not a media organizer, but it's a pain point for sure

You answered yourself there, web UI is limited, after all. You can always opt for 3-rd party dedicated Metadata manager (I do). 

4 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

and the fact that collection information is lost whenever you want to start fresh (switch to new OS) it gets to be a pain point that seems like a mountain in front of you on big changes...

Nope, if you save NFOs with your media, it should not be lost, it would be retained within as one of the tags.

[JasonNalley 37]

1 minute ago, GrimReaper said:

Press A-Z on the keyboard, that'll take you there a bit faster.

:facepalm: How did I not know this already? lol I never even thought to try...

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

You answered yourself there, web UI is limited, after all. You can always opt for 3-rd party dedicated Metadata manager (I do). 

Got any recommendations?

3 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Nope, if you save NFOs with your media, it should not be lost, it would be retained within as one of the tags.

Hmm, so, I do, but when I moved my Movies library back one folder from /Media/Movies to just /Movies/ it rescanned everything, all the posters were re-downloaded and replaced, etc.  So I feared that when I do my OS change (been holding off specifically because of this) that it would do the same... 

[GrimReaper 4742]

7 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

Got any recommendations?

I've been known as heavy TMM proponent, that's my Swiss-knife for, like, everything. 

7 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

Hmm, so, I do, but when I moved my Movies library back one folder from /Media/Movies to just /Movies/ it rescanned everything, all the posters were re-downloaded and replaced, etc.  So I feared that when I do my OS change (been holding off specifically because of this) that it would do the same... 

If you store your NFOs and artwork with your media and have NFO reader enabled in Library settings - those will be primarily used. There's several topics about it around the forums, you can even disable other meta-scrapers (or internet connection alltogether) on initial scan, hence ensuring only those will be read/imported, and that will significantly shorten time needed.

Edited October 11, 2021 by GrimReaper
Typo

[Painkiller88 250]

7 minutes ago, JasonNalley said:

:facepalm: How did I not know this already? lol I never even thought to try...

Got any recommendations?

Hmm, so, I do, but when I moved my Movies library back one folder from /Media/Movies to just /Movies/ it rescanned everything, all the posters were re-downloaded and replaced, etc.  So I feared that when I do my OS change (been holding off specifically because of this) that it would do the same... 

I can also recommend to use the "Server Configuration Backup" Plugin. it will back up the users and all settings.

I also moved to another Server (same OS) but it worked for me. If you are afraid you can additionally save the "Collections" Folder manually and copy back to the new system but i think the collections were kept when i switched.

[GrimReaper 4742]

4 minutes ago, Painkiller8818 said:

I can also recommend to use the "Server Configuration Backup" Plugin. it will back up the users and all settings.

Sure, but keep in mind that it will backup only library definitions (so any change in paths makes it moot), likely more so for different OS, it does not backup any metadata/artwork. It will retain other settings, tho. 

Edited October 11, 2021 by GrimReaper
Typo