TV Shows - requirements of old filename for Filebot to re-name

[musthaveAbeer]

Hi,
trying to set up a Plex server (total novice) for in-house viewing only.

FileBot is the (almost always) recommended way to rename TV shows to the Plex format, and in the videos I've watched, is very impressive indeed.

To me, this video explains a lot of how FileBot works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SECkLBW9lBM

My question relates to the original file name - is there a specific format it should be in, for FileBot to correctly find a match?
e.g. many of my tv series are in this format (the _ is an old habit from when windows filenames couldn't have spaces)

Code: Select all

Perry_Mason/S1/S1_01_Restless_Redhead.mp4

and (I believe) for Plex it will/should end up as
Perry Mason (1957)/Season 01/Perry Mason (1957) - s01e01 - The Case of the Restless Redhead.mp4

it seems I'll have to manually rename:

Code: Select all

Perry_Mason --> Perry Mason (1957)
S1 --> Season 01

(that's the easy part!)

according to the video above, I point FileBot to (& 'Load') Perry Mason (1957), then FileBot will list every episode from the 9 seasons in the left panel.

when 'matching', will FileBot read episode 01 from "S1_01_Restless_Redhead.mp4"?
or will FileBot just match to the first episode listed at TVDB, then continue for the others (271 episodes)? If so, would comparing file size of both old and new be the best way to confirm matches are correct?

In searching, I found a couple of results involving some type of scripting (beyond me), so, hopefully, FileBot will be able to match my unedited filenames, or have a simple solution for the match.

thanks for any help.

[rednoah]

The How do I organize files for Plex? video tutorial should be all you need, though I would generally recommend watching all the Getting Started video tutorials as well for good measure:



FileBot can take any file path / file name as input. You do not need to pre-rename files so you can then rename the files with FileBot. That's just extra steps. You will always want to just drop files into FileBot and then match them up. Usually, it'll just work. In the worst case, additional steps can make it work.



If you have trouble with any particular set of files or encounter any mismatches. Please paste file paths as text so that we can see what you can see and give you advice on how to best deal with the task at hand.



In this particular case I had to use SHIFT-CLICK <database> see (see Q: How do I fix misidentified files?) to force manual input for some reason. We'll see if we can improve on that in future revisions.





If the files you have already contain the episode title, then I would simply skim through the list to ensure the the episode title in Original Files matches the episode title in New Names for each row.

[musthaveAbeer]

Great - thank you.

That output filename looks the goods, and does seem simple (when you know how)

I'll take some time to view/review everything you've posted, to fully understand how it all works.

I really do look forward to watching FileBot work its magic.

Thanks again - much appreciated