TV shows merged and/or not importing correctly

[BillybobBilly 18]

I have a few shows with similar names and Emby is absorbing them into one single show.

One example is Alice in Wonderland from 1984 and Alice in Wonderland from 1985

The show has the same name but different release year. At first I thought maybe it was an issue having the same name so I added extra text at the end of the name to give it a unique identifier but this has not corrected the issue after rescanning and refreshing metadata.

Additionally I have the Japanese and USA versions of Sailor Moon and they are combined into one show in the same way as Alice in Wonderland.

I've retitled the shows to Sailor Moon Japan and Sailor Moon USA (all information in the NFO is changed to these names as are the file names of all files and folders the files are sorted in. They are two separate sets of folders/shows outside of Emby and in a different program. 

Anyone have any advice about getting this sort of thing to work correctly? I am thinking maybe Emby is trying to identify the titles even though I've done all that from outside Emby (Emby is pretty bad at this IMO so I just do it all manually) then combining them because the names are similar and/or not hitting on exact matches when Emby does whatever it does.

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, Emby has a one year tolerance when looking up things by name so once in a while you will see something like this.

There is an easy solution posted in this KB article
https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159102-movie-naming

Scroll down to the section: ID Tags in Folder & File Names

[Luke 42080]

HI there, you could also use the Identify feature to correct the ones that were not correct.

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[BillybobBilly 18]

On 5/22/2021 at 11:35 AM, Luke said:

HI there, you could also use the Identify feature to correct the ones that were not correct.

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

It does not help. Sorry.

The only workaround I've found to this issue is to imply turn off Emby's default metadata retrieval altogether. It is much easier to manage metadata in software that actually gives users control of what they're doing than use the inbuilt metadata services within Emby. Once I disabled Emby's metadata retrieval I was able to retain full control of my library and how it is sorted. The issue I described above was 100% related to Emby's metadata tool incorrectly converting metadata that had been manually corrected on my end. 

The metadata providers such as TVDB do not always have accurate information, and the admins over on that site are real pieces of work that don't listen to the community. I've had to manually correct multiple series because of this and Emby seems incapable of processing the changes adequately. Shutting off the metadata retrieval and using TinyMediaManager has made this 1,000% better.

[Luke 42080]

Hi there, can we please look at a specific example? How are your files named and organized?

[BillybobBilly 18]

Just now, Luke said:

Hi there, can we please look at a specific example? How are your files named and organized?

A for-instance is Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon was released with regional differences making the order and total number of episodes different between the original Japan release and USA release.

The files I have were originally organized

TV show folder>Show (year)>Season>Episode

Files named appropriately (show (year) S01E01 name of episode)

Because TVDB does not have an entry for US/Japan on this release Emby doesn't know what to do with the files and imported them as one folder. I've rescanned, changed folder names, changed metadata information (Sailor Moon - Japan. Sailor Moon - USA) and Emby still can't figure it out.

Turning off metadata retrieval fixed this.

I had this issue on a few other shows with the same name but different release years. 

Also different versions of shows would come up with similar issues that required lots of adjustment.

The Office (USA) for example. I have a full run of the extended edition as well as regular edition. For a long time Emby just combined these into one show and the inbuilt metadata retrieval kept messing with what I had set up manually. Disabling it fixed this problem.

I've been correcting metadata for a long time and Emby is the only program I use that has issues with its tools. The metadata is all filled out yet Emby combines things inconsistent with the metadata that I've created and the file structure that is in place.

Kodi, for example, incorporates the metadata perfectly. Because it doesn't try retrieving data if it finds a valid NFO. I think Emby tries to fill in missing data on the NFO and in doing so ends up messing things up.

The in-built tool is fine for people who don't manually correct every one of their files but it is really not very smart.
Mostly because the sources are not very good. TVDB is about the best source and it is still ridiculously dirty (mostly because the admins are horrible).

 

I apologize if this comes across as rude. I know you're passionate about the project. But I've been trying to work with the in-built system for months now and it is really frustrating that the solution was to simply turn it off...

[Luke 42080]

Can we please look at the exact folder and file names? thanks.

[Luke 42080]

OK nevermind, sorry, it's not on TVDB.

Quote

I think Emby tries to fill in missing data on the NFO and in doing so ends up messing things up.

Yes you are correct, as in our experience that's what most seem to want.

[BillybobBilly 18]

48 minutes ago, Luke said:

Can we please look at the exact folder and file names? thanks.

F:\Video Collection\Cartoons & Anime\Sailor Moon - Japan (1992)\Season 1\Sailor Moon - Japan - S01E01 - The Crybaby Usagi's Beautiful Transformation

 

F:\Video Collection\Cartoons & Anime\Sailor Moon - USA (1995)\Season 1\Sailor Moon - USA - S01E01 - A Moon Star is Born

 

Metadata for sort title, show title etc. all matches the naming here. My renaming is built exactly based on metadata so the two match. Minus the year. I do not include the year in the filename itself because it is a waste of space

[BillybobBilly 18]

52 minutes ago, Luke said:

OK nevermind, sorry, it's not on TVDB.

This is my point

[Luke 42080]

Yea I think you hit the nail on the head earlier. Emby wants to find internet metadata to merge into your pre-existing metadata, and tvdb returns the wrong show because it doesn't have your show at all. So that leaves you with no choice but to disable the internet metadata. Does that sound right?

[BillybobBilly 18]

21 hours ago, Luke said:

Yea I think you hit the nail on the head earlier. Emby wants to find internet metadata to merge into your pre-existing metadata, and tvdb returns the wrong show because it doesn't have your show at all. So that leaves you with no choice but to disable the internet metadata. Does that sound right?

Yeah that is correct.

[Luke 42080]

Thanks for the feedback. I think we would have to provide options over when to consider an nfo complete and not try and merge in internet metadata.

[vdrover 62]

Is it possible to disable the meta dat usage on a per-show basis?

[pwhodges 2012]

Not in that way - but you can lock your manually applied metadata to prevent it being changed.

Paul