Feature Request: Bluray Episode Ordering

[DWreck1995]

Since Bluray media can have different episode ordering than DVD, it would be a useful feature. I had to go recheck and fix episodes for The Office (US) because I noticed in Season 3 they have a different order that's only for the bluray release.

[rednoah]

Can you provide one of the original file names that didn't work well for future reference?

[DWreck1995]

Can you provide one of the original file names that didn't work well for future reference?

Sure thing. The Office (US) S03E12 "Traveling Salesmen/The Return" Bluray order. The Airdate and DVD order have "Traveling Salesman" as E12 and "The Return" as E13.

I also discovered that FileBot won't pull the DVD order from TVDB for season 4 either, even though it's set to use DVD order in preferences. It seems to be pulling the airdate order still.

[rednoah]

TheTVDB historically only supports Airdate SxE / DVD SxE / Absolute. Even though they've recently added support for arbitrary episode orders, those are not accessible via the TheTVDB API v2 that FileBot is currently using.



If you're organizing files for Plex / Kodi / any software that uses TheTVDB to identify your files, then you will need to translate everything to Airdate SxE. FAQ #2 has thoughts on how to go about it. If your files have only episode titles, then Match by Episode Title might work.


e.g.

1. Match by Title and format using {order.airdate.plex.name}
(NOTE: you can skip Step 1 entirely and fix everything manually in Step 2 if you don't have many episodes that need fixing)


2. Manually fix Multi-Episode Match via Double-Click ➔ Edit Match


3. Done

[kim]

...but themoviedb does support it now

The Office (2005)
https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/2316-the- ... 003d4f10d7

API:
https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/tv- ... up-details

https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/tv/ ... ode-groups

[rednoah]

FileBot does support TheMovieDB episode groups 2=Absolute and 3=DVD but not the other 5 standard types. As far as I can tell, none of them match TheTheTVDB :: The Office (US) :: BluRay Order, where Traveling Salesmen + The Return is listed as a single episode, and so all the numbers are off by 1 from there.

[DWreck1995]

Thanks for informing me of this. I do use Plex, and technically it supports DVD ordering. The option can be found when editing a series under the advanced tab. Whether it works or not has been hit and miss though. Sometimes I find it easier to edit the metadata in Plex rather then to manually split episodes. I was hoping the Bluray episode ordering could be implemented to save me some time with at filename portion at least. But if their API doesn't have it then I suppose you can't do anything about that.

Do you know why FileBot isn't correctly pulling the DVD order for The Office though?

[rednoah]

Thanks for informing me of this. I do use Plex, and technically it supports DVD ordering. The option can be found when editing a series under the advanced tab. Whether it works or not has been hit and miss though.

If your use case is Plex, then renaming episodes according to the TheTVDB custom BluRay Order, is not a solution. It won't fix the underlying problem. The only reliable way of organizing things for Plex is to standardize everything with standard SxE numbers before throwing them into Plex. You don't necessarily want FileBot to match your files. You want FileBot make your files match what Plex expects to see (i.e. standard SxE numbers) which can be quite different from what you have (i.e. BluRay SxE numbers) and may require some manual matching.

Do you know why FileBot isn't correctly pulling the DVD order for The Office though?

Plex, same as FileBot, supports Airdate SxE / DVD SxE / Absolute Order, because TheTVDB did not support any other orders until last year. Additionally, Plex and FileBot use the same API, so Plex sees what FileBot sees. Neither Plex nor FileBot see what you see on the website. Anything that is unique / special to the new data model is effectively invisible to TheTVDB API v2 clients such as FileBot and Plex, because TheTVDB servers are simply not sending back information that isn't part of the old data model. If DVD numbers have been entered into the old data model as property for each episode, then FileBot / Plex will see them. If DVD numbers have been added into the new data model as unique episode objects that are unique to the DVD order, then FileBot / Plex won't see them.


Please read Why does TheTVDB DVD Order not work correctly in FileBot and Plex? for details.


TL;DR If you use TheTVDB as scraper in Plex, then you must use Airdate Order. If you want to use DVD Order, then you must use TheMovieDB::TV as scraper.

[DWreck1995]

Thanks for informing me of this. I do use Plex, and technically it supports DVD ordering. The option can be found when editing a series under the advanced tab. Whether it works or not has been hit and miss though.

If your use case is Plex, then renaming episodes according to the TheTVDB custom BluRay Order, is not a solution. It won't fix the underlying problem. The only reliable way of organizing things for Plex is to standardize everything with standard SxE numbers before throwing them into Plex. You don't necessarily want FileBot to match your files. You want FileBot make your files match what Plex expects to see (i.e. standard SxE numbers) which can be quite different from what you have (i.e. BluRay SxE numbers) and may require some manual matching.

Do you know why FileBot isn't correctly pulling the DVD order for The Office though?

Plex, same as FileBot, supports Airdate SxE / DVD SxE / Absolute Order, because TheTVDB did not support any other orders until last year. Additionally, Plex and FileBot use the same API, so Plex sees what FileBot sees. Neither Plex nor FileBot see what you see on the website. Anything that is unique / special to the new data model is effectively invisible to TheTVDB API v2 clients such as FileBot and Plex, because TheTVDB servers are simply not sending back information that isn't part of the old data model. If DVD numbers have been entered into the old data model as property for each episode, then FileBot / Plex will see them. If DVD numbers have been added into the new data model as unique episode objects that are unique to the DVD order, then FileBot / Plex won't see them.


Please read Why does TheTVDB DVD Order not work correctly in FileBot and Plex? for details.


TL;DR If you use TheTVDB as scraper in Plex, then you must use Airdate Order. If you want to use DVD Order, then you must use TheMovieDB::TV as scraper.

Thanks for the explanation. I suppose the reason why Plex is so hit and miss with the DVD order is the same reason FileBot is then, that darned API... I guess Airdate is the only surefire way to do it then.

What I said about editing Plex metadata instead of splitting episodes still applies though. When I go the splitting route, it takes me awhile to get the credits into the first episode, and the intro into the second episode. Probably because I don't have any good tool to do it with lol. So, sometimes I just edit the Plex metadata to reflect the DVD or Bluray order instead, which for me, can be easier than splitting episodes for Airdate order. In those cases it would be nice to have the proper DVD or Bluray order in FileBot. If the API is ever updated to include the information necessary to do DVD or Bluray ordering properly, I think it would still be a nice addition.

[rednoah]

So, sometimes I just edit the Plex metadata to reflect the DVD or Bluray order instead, which for me, can be easier than splitting episodes for Airdate order.

You don't need to split files. You can take your Traveling Salesmen + The Return file and name it S03E12-E13. Both FileBot and Plex support multi-episode naming. FileBot can create multi-episode naming for you, a few seconds of manual selection and you're good, as shown in the screenshots above.

[DWreck1995]

So, sometimes I just edit the Plex metadata to reflect the DVD or Bluray order instead, which for me, can be easier than splitting episodes for Airdate order.

You don't need to split files. You can take your Traveling Salesmen + The Return file and name it S03E12-E13. Both FileBot and Plex support multi-episode naming. FileBot can create multi-episode naming for you, a few seconds of manual selection and you're good, as shown in the screenshots above.

Yes, you're right. However, then Plex does this weird thing where it starts the second episode from the beginning of the first episode. I always presumed that was because it technically doesn't know when the second episode is supposed to start so it just plays from the beginning of the file, or something like that. Unless I've just been doing it wrong?

[rednoah]

However, then Plex does this weird thing where it starts the second episode from the beginning of the first episode. I always presumed that was because it technically doesn't know when the second episode is supposed to start so it just plays from the beginning of the file, or something like that. Unless I've just been doing it wrong?

That's more of a Plex question:
https://forums.plex.tv/

But Plex indeed can't know when the "second part" of the episode starts and ends. I would assume that you'll want to watch both episodes in one sitting anyway and after that Plex will mark both as watched. Plex could just jump forward to 50% if you select the second part, but I'm not sure if there's a setting for that.

[rednoah]

Episode Order Preferences