How to properly name your media files for DMS

[Hunter1955]

An update. I tried many ways to get the 10 episodes of "Band of Brothers" and the 4 episodes of "The Stand" to work without the season indicator, I could not.
I had to use the same TV show file naming listed above even tho there is no season affiliated with these shows.
One thing did happen that was strange. on the MS 3/4 of the episodes showed a description of "disc 1.1 or disc 2.2
I eliminated the disc # from the meta file and they are now listed as episode 1 or 2 or 3...etc

[MattT1961]

So, I'm really getting there. I name all my files properly and almost all of them are picked up correctly. This makes me happy (still on 1010, probably never moving off it). Anyway .. the one problem I have is with multiple disks for a single movie. For example: I have very old Doctor Who episodes. Some of them are two disk releases, such as Doctor Who and the Remembrance of the Daleks. I've tried Doctor.Who.The.Remembrance.Of.The.Daleks_pt1 and _pt2. I've tried _disk1 and _disk2, but in no case does it get picked up. What am I missing here?

[Hunter1955]

So, I'm really getting there. I name all my files properly and almost all of them are picked up correctly. This makes me happy (still on 1010, probably never moving off it). Anyway .. the one problem I have is with multiple disks for a single movie. For example: I have very old Doctor Who episodes. Some of them are two disk releases, such as Doctor Who and the Remembrance of the Daleks. I've tried Doctor.Who.The.Remembrance.Of.The.Daleks_pt1 and _pt2. I've tried _disk1 and _disk2, but in no case does it get picked up. What am I missing here?

It doesn't seem to do well with a full disk copy. At least it hasn't for me. That's why I went to single episodes off the full copy and it's been working well for me.
I set them up just the way the instructions say early in this string. Under TVShows directory. such as /TV Shows/Preacher/Season 01/Preacher - s01e01.iso
Then I fix the meta data file so it has a tv show listing like the one below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<meta>
<discid>17235298547224885239</discid>
<tvshow>
<title>Preacher: Season 1</title>
<year>2016</year>
<season>1</season>
<episode>1</episode>
<disc></disc>
</tvshow>
</meta>

[tbrown25]

MattT,
Your not missing anything. The MS does not handle movies released on multiple disk very well. Both parts wind up with identical names and posters.
I have heard (but not tried myself) that one solution is to combine the 2 disks into 1 file using the merge function in DVDFAB. I believe you will have to create your own menu for that to work.
I have another solution to this, but it requires editing of the local SQLite Database that 1010 uses. If you have never done this before, I don't recommend it as it is easy to screw up that DB.If you are, I can post it for you.

[DaveH50]

OK, can somebody give me a specific example on how to properly name a movie with VOB files? So far, it looks like the DMS scraper is only finding movies that have an ISO file in them (either the DVDFab.miniso file from a BD copy, or an actual ISO file copied in that format).

[PabloT]

What about personal home videos? I don't want DMS to try to match them and I want to build the meta data myself. I used to be able to do that directly on the Movie server, but now that UI is not supported and I have to go through dms.dvdfab.cn and I don't see how this is possible.

Still looking for a solution to this here. I've looked into editing the NFO file, but I think that is just for scraping, so the changes didn't seem to make any difference. Being able to edit the images would be the best approach.

[SaturnV]

A belated answer to PabloT's question "What about personal home videos? I don't want DMS to try to match them".

There is an easy answer - point the DMS to look in (or beneath) \DVDFAB and put your personal videos in a different folder, not below DVDFab.
The Movie Server will not look in \Family Videos in the example below if you've told it to only look under \DVDFab in Library setup.

For example

\DVDFab\Movies
\DVDFab\TV Shows
\Family Videos

[jnardone]

I'm struggling to properly name a collection of TV shows that are from DVD set. Specifically, I'm looking to name and scrape a 4 DVD set released in 2011 named "Johny Carson - Late Night Legend."

[TRJ]

I am new here - and really having trouble just getting my first few attempts for TV shows to display in a way I expect it to. I have tried to follow the information given explicitly here regarding TV shows. The description cites that multi-episode files will show up individually in DMS when viewing your library, but playing any of hte represented episodes will play the full file. However no matter what I have done, even with labeling for 4 episodes on the ISO, only the first Episode is showing. As an example, I have made an ISO of CSI Miami Season 1 Disc 1 and Disc 2 (4 episodes per disc). I followed the labeling examples shown here, but every time it appears to only show the first episode shown in the file name, instead of the various ones. So instead of showing 8 episodes, it only shows 2 (first one from each disc) in the posters. The description here suggests it should show the various episodes cited in your file name, but that when you play the file it will play the whole file (since it's an ISO it will play the whole disk if you select Menu Mode and only the first file if main movie is selected). Any reason I am only getting the first episode to show? I have other questions / issues as well but figure I'd start with this one. I'm expecting to either have a poster that would show each episode or a disc that has episode numbers X, Y, Z, etc. Note I'm interested in keeping ISO so all menus and extras are paired appropriately on the discs. Any help would be appreciated.

[TRJ]

To continue with my previous concerns, in attempt to shorten the concern, if you label the files following:

TV Shows/ShowName/Season XX/ShowName - sXXeYY-eZZ.ext

Isn't this suppose to show several episodes in the posters, but since its one file, the menu/movie play feature will only play either the whole file or main file?

My problem is I only show one episode showing when using the above format.

[tbrown25]

TRJ:
Yes, that is how it is supposed to work.

Hard to say what the problem is, but if you transferred the file using DVDFAB software, you may have an .nfo file that is not correct. .nfo files will override the file name convention.You could open the nfo file with a plain text editor, like notepad, and see if it only has one episode defined.

DVDFAB creates the nfo file using the metadata information it has for that disk. It could be data uploaded by another user, or the data that you manually put in using the "SEARCH" function in DVDFAB. Note, if you are manually using the search function, even after getting the right poster defined for the disk, you have to define the individual episodes as well.

Personally, I don't make use of the nfo files. I have found that the current scraper in the MS works quite well if you use the file naming convention. So I usually delete the nfo file, make sure the movie file is properly named, and then re-scan the drive.

You could try that, but if you do, be sure to go into the web browser interface first and delete the current incorrect entry. If you rename the ISO file before doing the delete, the iso will remain on the MS. You can then rename it back using the correct naming convention, delete the nfo, and re-scan the drive.

[Down2Earth]

TRJ:
Yes, that is how it is supposed to work.

Note, if you are manually using the search function, even after getting the right poster defined for the disk, you have to define the individual episodes as well.

Yes.....the above information and all that was implied is correct...…BUT.....It does not sound like TRJ is splitting episodes though. Complex in reply it sounds like he wants to keep and copy the disk in full menu but want different posters for each episode. Think DVDfab is working (it sounds like that's what is being used), the naming format is not the same as how you rip it to the sever. Found splitting episodes as an .iso does not work that functional. But if you want the full disk and menus from the disk its the way to go but you will have the same meta poster for each disk episode/series/season unless you change it otherwise like tbrown25 noted.

On another note if you want each episode to have it's own poster per episode you will need to split your episodes up per season and episodes. No way around doing that and name them each just like you noted you were doing above. Signals posted how to split episodes and it is pretty clear on how to do it, the link is here: Thread #4 on that page below......

https://forum.dvdfab.cn/forum/software-support-english/dvdfab-x64/376617-split-a-film

For TV shows I don't rip them as .iso unless I do want to rip them as full menu. For TV shows I mostly rip them using DVDfab 'Ripper' mode and as MKV for each episodes, DVdfab does generate the correct .nfo for MKV shows also if they are named in correct format.

This thread denotes using Filebot as one of the programs for naming convention but Filebot went to being paid as it was once freeware, not anymore, so I switched over to using Rename My TV Series 2, it's free and the program is freaky magic, saved me hours of naming my TV series. Only downfall is, it does not support .iso files for renaming TV episodes......guess maybe another reason why I rip them as MKV's it's easier.

Site is here:

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

Hope this helps in addition with tbrown25 post.

[tbrown25]

Perhaps I misunderstood something, but yes, I thought he was copying the entire disk (multi-episode) to a single iso file.

I have not done this in awhile. Like DowntoEarth, I split off each episode as a separate MKV file- however, under the last few firmware releases when I transferred an entire disk as an iso that contained multiple episodes, and named it per the convention, the system would create individual video-clips for each episode.

For instance, a 4 episode tv show disk, transferred to the MS using the CLONE option in DVDFAB and named using the "SXXEXX-EYY" convention, would give me a single poster for the tv show, a poster for the season, and 4 video clip stills, one for each episode. The 4 stills all pointed to the same file.

Older firmware releases did behave differently. As I recall, you got a single video-still clip named Episode XX-YY. representing the disk.

But, like I said, I have not done an ISO transfer like that in awhile. Maybe the MS has changed back to the old scheme again...

[TRJ]

Thanks for the ideas - and keep them coming please.
Yes - I'm using DVD fab.
Yes I'm copying the entire disk with 4 episodes into a single iso file using clone....
I just received my media server and started working on it last week, using the most current firmware it provides, but also upgrading to the newest beta as well (2.0.1.3)

All attempts so far only show the "video-clip" for the first episode. While having 4 clips still (one per episode) would be the most desirable desirable, I could even live with it if it only showed a single clip/cover and allowed me to label as Disc 1, Episodes 1-4, etc and other meta-data was editable. The 4 clips would be preferable, and at least you confirm that the way it has worked before.

So in summary, from an entire disk as an iso that contained multiple episodes, it is giving me a single poster for the tv show, a poster for the season, and 1 video clip still, one for the first episode mentioned so far

I verified at least one of the 2 discs I was trying had an nfo file that contained some info regarding 4 episodes. I've tried the naming conventions. However I only seem to get one "clip" showing one episode and am not able to adjust the labeling of this clip, or the info above for it.

Now I've notices with the first 2 discs from CSI Miami,
the first disk contains Pilot and episodes 101, 104, 102.
The second disk contains episodes 103, 105, 106, 107

I've tried some labeling formats such as matching exactly, or even for the second disc just tried S01E04-E07 just trying to get more than a single episode showing in the "clips", but to no avail.

Note that the database seems to match them on a scheme of simply skipping the pilot and just counts sequentially moving forward instead of the series number - which begs the concern that in theory we should be able to adjust the numbers too if we want to watch accurately in order based on the way they were written. However these issues are less of a concern, as I can't even get 4 episodes showing and also figure if I can at least get 4 episodes displaying, that I can adjust the numbers as need be to compensate.

I'll be playing with more this weekend, and will probably try a different series that doesn't have the episodes out of order too. I'll post later....

[signals]

If you are using Clone, the only way to access it as individual episodes is with the menu on the original disc, which is included in Clone output. You can use Customize copy mode and rename each title using the naming conventions listed elsewhere here in a sticky.

You can also use Ripper to convert the episodes to individual video files if desired, but use Th he naming conventions as above.