Identifying TV shows from filenames

[Senteevs 0]

Hi.

 

I wrongly assumed that when I paid for the Android TV app, the server would suddenly start to recognize TV shows by their filename and group them together into seasons. Now I have an app that is a pain to use because it recognizes none of the TV Shows that are named in a typical torrent style e.g. Full.Frontal.with.Samantha.Bee.S03E28.1080p.TBS.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-monkee.mkv

Movies with such names are recognized without issue.

 

It boggles my mind that such an issue exists as Plex recognizes and groups everything just fine.

 

What settings so I have to change, to get this thing to work? I tried identifying one episode of a season in hopes that Emby would be smart enough to infer that files with similar names would be from the same show. Did not work. I'm not identifying hundreds of files manually when another app is able to do it without me doing anything.

And no, renaming the files is not an option.

[mastrmind11 722]

Hi.

 

I wrongly assumed that when I paid for the Android TV app, the server would suddenly start to recognize TV shows by their filename and group them together into seasons. Now I have an app that is a pain to use because it recognizes none of the TV Shows that are named in a typical torrent style e.g. Full.Frontal.with.Samantha.Bee.S03E28.1080p.TBS.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-monkee.mkv

Movies with such names are recognized without issue.

 

It boggles my mind that such an issue exists as Plex recognizes and groups everything just fine.

 

What settings so I have to change, to get this thing to work? I tried identifying one episode of a season in hopes that Emby would be smart enough to infer that files with similar names would be from the same show. Did not work. I'm not identifying hundreds of files manually when another app is able to do it without me doing anything.

And no, renaming the files is not an option.

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Wiki/wiki/TV-naming

[Senteevs 0]

Thanks for not reading, I guess.

[KMBanana 116]

Emby picks up and identifies "Full.Frontal.with.Samantha.Bee.S03E28.1080p.TBS.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-monkee.mkv" fine, but it needs to be in "<Your TV Library>\Full Frontal with Samantha Bee\" or better yet "<Your TV Library>\Full Frontal with Samantha Bee\Season 03". 

 

You can look into 3rd party tools to better support sorting your files like Sonarr or Filebot, or the Emby plugin "Auto Organize".  Not too familiar with these so not sure which best suits your needs, also not sure if Auto Organize requires Premiere.  

[ebr 16184]

Hi our TV structure support is documented (as linked above) and does currently require series folders.  We hope to support the mish-mash you have now in the future.

 

However, I'm interested in why you thought that purchasing the app would change the server functionality for this.  Is there a piece of documentation that lead you to believe this that we need to correct?

 

Thanks.

[Senteevs 0]

When offering to pay for the Android TV app to unlock it, it said something like "organize your library with cover art, metadata etc." So I thought since I'm on the trial version that metadata is a paid feature. Probably just read that incorrectly.

[Luke 42079]

Hi, metadata is a free feature. We will review that wording @@ebr. Thanks for the feedback.

[ebr 16184]

Here is what the screen actually says.  Note also that all of these features are talking about Emby Premiere - not the app purchase.  All the app purchase gives you is playback in this app.  A dialog stating that also comes up when you press the button to unlock the app.

 

[Senteevs 0]

"Enhance your images with CoverArt" is what got me. I misunderstood that.

[ebr 16184]

"Enhance your images with CoverArt" is what got me. I misunderstood that.

 

Okay, thanks.  Maybe I'll change that to "Dress up your images with the CoverArt plug-in".

[Coil 0]

Hello.

 

I'm trying Emby out trying to migrate from Plex and I stumbled upon this as well and it left me a bit surprised that this was the case.

 

It seems as if I identify everything manually it still works out in the library, it's just that the automatic identification is not working this way.

 

Regardless, it's a feature I really loved with Plex and something I would like to have in Emby as well.

 

Is there an issue on github that I can vote on or put a bounty on?

 

Cheers

[Luke 42079]

Can you go over some examples? Thanks.

[Coil 0]

Sure, I can elaborate on the directory structure, or lack thereof.

 

I have something like this:

 

\Media

\Movies

Movie1.mkv

Movie2.mkv

\Movie3

Movie3.mkv

subs.srt

\TvShows

show1.s02.e03.mkv

show2.s04.e04.mkv

\Show3

\show3-season1

show3.s03.e03.mkv

\show3.s04.e03

show3.s04.e03.mkv

show3.s02.e03.mkv

...

 

What I'm wishing for is to just try to identify the different videos into a tvshow or movie, not by folder. I don't mind the folder names providing hints but the feature where it's actually the media library software that is sorting my files and not me is really sweet.

I also have "subs" folder in my TvShows folder which is a legacy from Plex where it couldn't automatically find and dl subs and I had to put them somewhere. This folder, despite not containing any video or audio media is actually identified and added to my library as "Subsolo"  (https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/75810-subsolo). The only thing this folder contains is .srt files.

 

For Movies, the current identification system works quite well for since there seems to be a fallback on file name but for TvShows it doesn't really work out well for some reason.

 

Thanks

[Luke 42079]

The next release will do a better job of accommodating that movie folder structure. That TV structure is not supported, but we plan to improve our support for mish mashes in the future. Thanks.

[JamminR 0]

Hi. I too am looking to move away from Plex.

 

I have a few different apps that obtain content depending on which my family I share with feels is easier to use to request.

All the apps place into a single shared library folder.

Within that folder, depending on the source, sometimes it comes down as a folder of a single show, sometimes if comes down as a file, and unfortunately there are several instances of multiple shows and folders scattered throughout the single library folder.

This content is often deleted. If I decide to keep any show/season, then and only, months later (usually after a season break) then do I move to a 'nicer' TVShows folder with proper show/naming convention.

Until the TV series name appearance and matching is fixed 'upgraded' , I won't be able to use Emby for my primary purpose (tv watching), and even more importantly to Emby as a profit-seeking group perhaps, share with the other users I wish to bring over from Plex. (I have 20 shared total, but believe 5-10 would actually invest in Emby apps due to the activity level on my current setup)

 

Please raise the priority in any feature request lists you have. (I've not yet searched to find if you have any)

[alesjeric 0]

I've also tried to move away from Plex. However, Emby lacks the important feature of identifying TV shows from filenames. Most of the time, I use RSS to periodically download video files. Therefore I don't tend to directory structure at all and just dump them in folder named "TV Shows".

My main argument is that Emby should get every info from a file name to build the library and that the directory structure shouldn't be the top priority for identification of the show. Directory structure helps and should be considered, but file name should the priority.

For example. Standard file name of a torrent name gives us all information about the show that we need:

Quote

The.Stand.2020.S01E02.mkv

The.Stand - Name of the show
2020 - Year of release (if there are remakes or similar complex situation)
S01 - Season number
E02 - Episode number

Emby could and should recongize this show and get all metadata without puting the file in "TV Shows\The Stand\S01\The.Stand.2020.S01E02.mkv" structure. If we have file The.Stand.2020.S01E02.mkv in directory TV Shows (example E:\TV Shows\The.Stand.2020.S01E02.mkv), we can get all the info that we need from the file name. Smart libary building is the king when it comes to Media Server. Please take a look what could be done with this, so we can transition to Emby.

[Locutus64 125]

@Luke are you guys any closer to providing a solution for the above? I manage my roommates system and the way he has his movies and television is a true mess. I just want to go in under television and create a subfolder for each TV series and drop all episodes that he has in it without renaming them and without creating season subfolders, and know Emby with organize accordingly.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Locutus64

[GrimReaper 4740]

37 minutes ago, Locutus64 said:

@Luke are you guys any closer to providing a solution for the above? I manage my roommates system and the way he has his movies and television is a true mess. I just want to go in under television and create a subfolder for each TV series and drop all episodes that he has in it without renaming them and without creating season subfolders, and know Emby with organize accordingly.

While waiting for native solution, you might try passing his files through FileBot prior importing to Emby, which will likely have more success in recognizing filenames only and/or create series folders/season subfolders if inclined so and set by Renamer syntax. 

 

Edit: That said, as per:

Quote

I just want to go in under television and create a subfolder for each TV series and drop all episodes that he has in it without renaming them and without creating season subfolders, and know Emby with organize accordingly.

that (seasonfolder-less structure) is already supported - as long as there IS a TV series folder - assuming episodes are at least somewhat decently named, in one of the supported naming conventions:

Emby TV Naming : Emby

Edited February 26, 2022 by GrimReaper
Append

[Locutus64 125]

@GrimReaper I already use RenameMyTVSeries for my TV series and it's great cause unlike FileBot it can actually go in and fix the file name in the metadata so both the file name and the medadata name of the file matches.

I don't want to have to go through all TV and Movies on my roommates system and spend days doing it. I just simply want to create a folder say for Star Trek: Discovery and drop all the episodes he has into it with out going through the hassle of doing the season subfolders like I have. In this case it's more of a matter that he likes the folder structure he has, which is just the series folder and all episodes for it loosely in it.

 

https://www.tweaking4all.com/home-theatre/rename-my-tv-series-v2/

If you or anyone else wants to give it a run I'd scroll down and grab the latest beta. More features and stable and solid. If one is running Arch or a Arch based Distro it's available in the AUR.

14 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

if inclined so and set by Renamer syntax. 

 

if so inclined? Does that mean I don't have to create the season folders on his system if I don't want to?

[GrimReaper 4740]

1 minute ago, Locutus64 said:

Does that mean I don't have to create the season folders on his system if I don't want to?

Yep, as per above syntax, just drop 

{'Season '+s}/

from regex expression.

[Locutus64 125]

I will be renaming the individual episodes but my naming convention is as below with RNTVS:

%NFY S%SZE%EZ[E%EZ] %T [- %T]

Would equate to

Stargate SG-1 (1997) S02E07 Message in a bottle

Multi-episodes would equate to 

Stargat SG-1 (1997) S02E08E08 Message in a bottle - Family

 

[GrimReaper 4740]

Emby should have no issues with either of those (though I'm more of a fan of SxxEyy-Ezz for multi-episodes) not being in Season folder but placed in TV show folder only. 

[Happy2Play 9780]

Yes the current minimum requirement is a Series folder for all shows, you cannot just download a bunch of episodes and leave them in any folder and have Emby just read the filename and link them to proper Shows yet.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Happy2Play

[Luke 42079]

Yea we'd like to be able to eventually accommodate a single folder mish-mash, but we're not quite there yet.

[Locutus64 125]

22 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Emby should have no issues with either of those (though I'm more of a fan of SxxEyy-Ezz for multi-episodes) not being in Season folder but placed in TV show folder only. 

FileBot and RenameMyTVSeries are two different programs with two different naming conventions.

 

15 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

Yes the current minimum requirement is a Series folder for all shows, you cannot just download a bunch of episodes and leave them in any folder and have Emby just read the filename and link them to proper Shows yet.

Which is good, cause at minimum each show should be in it's own folder. 

On a side note just installed Emby for Gary and did just as was mentioned and put all all loose episodes for a series into their own series folders and Emby had no problem recognizing the mish-mashed names and listing them correctly under the individual seasons in Emby for that series. Nice, very nice in my book. 

 

14 hours ago, Luke said:

Yea we'd like to be able to eventually accommodate a single folder mish-mash, but we're not quite there yet.

In my book allowing for single folder mish-mash is not a good idea. Being able to eliminate the seasons and specials folders is one thing, but just dumping everything into one master tv folder is asking for it to be almost impossible to find some files. Examples:

911.404.mkv

911.s5e5.mkv

xyz.group.911.x4x5.mkv

 

You can see under that using the scene name 9-1-1 s04e05 would be after 9-1-1 s05e05. That is fine for a mish-mash series folder, but a nightmare for a single mish-mash folder for all episodes of all shows.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Locutus64