Sort by release date has issues when a series is released all at once

[TheShryke 0]

There are several series that are released all in one go rather than on a schedule. This causes an issue when sorting by release date as the release date is the same for each episode. It seems to fall back on alphabetically sorting by title which is usually wrong.

Ideally we would be able to pick the fallback sort order, but season number/episode number should cover most situations.

Is there a way to do this? Or a viable work-around?

I could add a number to the start of every episode title but that seems like bad way to handle this. I could adjust the release date in the metadata. It seems like this field is always a date, does it support a time too? I could live with having episode one at 00:01, episode two at 00:02 etc.

[brothom 177]

48 minutes ago, TheShryke said:

I could add a number to the start of every episode title but that seems like bad way to handle this. I could adjust the release date in the metadata. It seems like this field is always a date, does it support a time too? I could live with having episode one at 00:01, episode two at 00:02 etc.

This would be up to the metadata provider you're using (TMDB, TVDB, etc).

I do however agree that items should be sorted by release data and thén by episode number as a fallback, in any and/or all other cases as well.

Edited January 18 by brothom

[TheShryke 0]

I've done a bit of experimenting. Looks like the release date field doesn't support times so that option can't be used. I've found adding a number to the start of the sort title field does work so I guess this is the best work around for now.

[Luke 42077]

The episode number should be the secondary sort

[TheShryke 0]

It doesn't seem to be. I checked by navigating to an effected show (I used The Punisher) and selecting add to playlist, then creating a new playlist. When I sort that playlist by release date they end up in alphabetical order because the episodes in the seasons have the same release date. I've confirmed that all the episodes have an episode number but it's not effecting the order.
I'm running v4.9.3.0 if that helps

[Luke 42077]

Where exactly are you sorting by release date?

[TheShryke 0]

In the playlist view. I navigate to home, then playlists, then the new playlist I just created 

[Luke 42077]

Right OK. In the context of a playlist, the secondary sort is the original playlist order.

[TheShryke 0]

Ah ok, well that pretty much defeats the point of sorting by release date then for me.

My aim is to have a load of shows and movies and play them in release order but not spend ages manually re-ordering the playlist.

Is there a better way to achieve this? Would a collection work?

[CBers 7450]

2 minutes ago, TheShryke said:

Ah ok, well that pretty much defeats the point of sorting by release date then for me.

My aim is to have a load of shows and movies and play them in release order but not spend ages manually re-ordering the playlist.

Is there a better way to achieve this? Would a collection work?

Would @pünktchenVirtualTV plugin help?
 

[TheShryke 0]

12 hours ago, CBers said:

Would @pünktchenVirtualTV plugin help?
 

Sadly not, this has the same sort behavior as using a playlist.

17 hours ago, Luke said:

Right OK. In the context of a playlist, the secondary sort is the original playlist order.

I've also just tested and confirmed the same behavior if I add the series to a collection (instead of a playlist) and sort by release date.