What Pattern Should I be Naming Episodes in?

[Discordian 0]

Currently I'm naming in this scheme:

 

"Series Name/Season #/E#.ext" -> "Cowboy Bebop/Season 1/E01.mkv"

 

This works on quite literally everything I've ever used (it's why they're named that way), but not on Emby. Emby accurately loads all my episodes in the correct order, but doesn't get the metadata.

 

I'm not sure why this wouldn't work, as it seems clear, Emby's even able to clearly show me episode numbers and orders (because of the semantic naming...), so why can't it get the metadata? But I digress...

 

Sometimes I borrow content from a friend, and it turns out I forgot I had this exact show (Cowboy Bebop), and I noticed Emby likes the convoluted names:

 

"Cowboy Bebop/Cowboy Bebop (1998) - S01E01 - Asteroid Blues (1080p BluRay x265 ImE).mkv"

 

The required information (E01) is in both names, printed the exact same way, mine is just missing the fluff. So what does Emby expect exactly?

 

 

I'm trying to switch from Plex. Plex simply isn't useful to me because I can't use it offline.

[Happy2Play 9780]

This should help.

 

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

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

TV Shows <- The TV library points here

_______ShowName (year)

____________Season 01

__________________ShowName (year) - s01e01 - Optional Name.ext

__________________ShowName (year) - s01e02 - Optional Name.ext

__________________and so on for the shows in season 01

____________Season 02 <- just like Season 01

____________Season 03 <- and so on for each season

 

____________Season 00 <- or “Specials”

__________________ShowName (year) - s00e01 - Optional name

__________________ShowName (year) - s00e02 - Optional name

__________________and so on for each special

 

Note 1: the eXX part of the specials must match EXACTLY what is found in TheTVDB

Note 2: The (year) may be omitted for shows that do not have more than one occurrence throughout the years.

 

There are many other structures and naming systems that work but this is the one I use and it just works.

For a mass rename I use FileBot with this format string  {n.replaceTrailingBrackets()} - {s00e00.lower()} - {t}

[Deathsquirrel 745]

There are several options but the basic minimum is:

 

\\SERVER\SHARE\Show Title\Season ##\Show Title S##E##.ext

 

For example:

 

SERVER\SHARE\How I Met Your Mother\Season 01\How I Met Your Mother S01E01.MKV

 

Even the show title in the file name is optional there but a directory tree of S##E##.MKV files gets confusing if you need to search outside Emby.

[seanbuff 1318]

@@Discordian formatting is very close, like 1 or 2 characters off

 

With his example of "E01.mkv" and according to the documentation:

• 02 Episode Name.ext
• 1x02.ext

These would have come close, but just missing the E on the first one, and the '<season number>x' on the second one
 

Perhaps in order to easily support newcomers and those moving over from other platforms, Emby could look at supporting just "E01.mkv" as a valid episode title? As long as it follows the parent structure above it?

[Discordian 0]

Thank you everyone for their responses! I'll be able to write a script to have all my shows setup correctly tonight now .

 

 

Perhaps in order to easily support newcomers and those moving over from other platforms, Emby could look at supporting just "E01.mkv" as a valid episode title? As long as it follows the parent structure above it?

 

I believe this solution would be ideal as Emby already seems to have all the information it needs. The extra show title and season information are redundant as they can already be grabbed from the previous directories .

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

Thank you everyone for their responses! I'll be able to write a script to have all my shows setup correctly tonight now .

 

 

 

I believe this solution would be ideal as Emby already seems to have all the information it needs. The extra show title and season information are redundant as they can already be grabbed from the previous directories .

While that does make sense to some extent I would hope that Emby does not allow it. Plex does not have that as a supported format as well but may recognize it. In Plex a format like that may work for a while but is prone to fail at some point.

 

It is not at all a problem to use the fully justified format of "ShowName - sXXeYY - EpisodeTitle.ext" rather that the ambiguous eXX.ext. While  Emby may have the info it needs it is best to give Emby more than it needs rather than less.

 

I just hope the Emby developers do not allow support of such ambiguous formats as it could cause problems in the already complex parsing routines.

 

It is easy to comply with the normal naming scheme and there are tools like FileBot that make the naming very easy.

[Discordian 0]

While that does make sense to some extent I would hope that Emby does not allow it. Plex does not have that as a supported format as well but may recognize it. In Plex a format like that may work for a while but is prone to fail at some point.

 

It is not at all a problem to use the fully justified format of "ShowName - sXXeYY - EpisodeTitle.ext" rather that the ambiguous eXX.ext. While  Emby may have the info it needs it is best to give Emby more than it needs rather than less.

 

I just hope the Emby developers do not allow support of such ambiguous formats as it could cause problems in the already complex parsing routines.

 

It is easy to comply with the normal naming scheme and there are tools like FileBot that make the naming very easy.

 

If there's no ambiguity, then what's the problem? I personally dislike the unnecessarily verbose names, always have. You say there's ambiguity, but you don't say why. It's only ambiguous if you break your own file database. I build databases, and I don't store the name twice.

 

It's clearly not ambiguous as I'll be batch renaming everything at once, like I do for everything. If it was ambiguous, I wouldn't be able to do that.

 

Edit: This naming scheme is made for clarity, and ease-of-scripting. For example, if you have files in this structure on a drive and plug it into a TV, it will always be sorted correctly, and not have long scrolling names. Additionally most software knows what it is, because it's ordered. Names too verbose break this structure.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Discordian

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

If there's no ambiguity, then what's the problem? I personally dislike the unnecessarily verbose names, always have. You say there's ambiguity, but you don't say why. It's only ambiguous if you break your own file database. I build databases, and I don't store the name twice.

 

It's clearly not ambiguous as I'll be batch renaming everything at once, like I do for everything. If it was ambiguous, I wouldn't be able to do that.

The file name that you want to use is itself ambiguous. It is only in the full context that it becomes less so. The extra characters in the filename hurts nothing and improves readability at the file level.

 

It other words it hurts nothing and improves readability at least a little.

 

There really is no reason for Emby to support such a very under used format and the potential for problems is pretty high.

 

I am all for nonconformity in most things but in cases like this it just makes more sense to conform to the norm so the developers can spend their valuable time on more important endeavors.

[Discordian 0]

The file name that you want to use is itself ambiguous. It is only in the full context that it becomes less so. The extra characters in the filename hurts nothing and improves readability at the file level.

 

It other words it hurts nothing and improves readability at least a little.

 

There really is no reason for Emby to support such a very under used format and the potential for problems is pretty high.

 

I am all for nonconformity in most things but in cases like this it just makes more sense to conform to the norm so the developers can spend their valuable time on more important endeavors.

 

I can concede the resulting file name is ambiguous on its own, however the files are meant to be kept in the structure I have them in, never leaving it. It's worked out this way for me over 10 years .

 

I find verbose names hurt readability for me. I know it's not common, but when I see all the extra words, it takes me longer to process what I'm looking at. Additionally on a lot of interfaces this causes the names to scroll, making it just simply take longer to know what you're looking at.

 

I think Emby should support it as you haven't cited a problem for Emby specifically, just personal user-organization.

 

It's not about not conforming, it's about having the easiest-to-use setup. Ease-of-use includes flexibility. My library is flexible as-in, and I'm failing to see a situation where my naming scheme could collide (though I'm open to the argument, nothing is perfect).

 

If anything, thank you for making me think about my naming scheme more. I've definitely been alerted to the fact I'm missing the year in a lot of places, and I need to sort that out.