United States of America
I've previously had problems getting TV-Series to recognize shows with an airdate instead of season/episode numbers (such as The Daily Show or Colbert Report), but I've managed to cobble together a temporary workaround to at least get the episodes to appear in the TV Series list.
Disclaimer - this isn't a final solution by any means. It's sloppy, and will definitely mislabel episodes. That said, at least you can see unwatched episodes as they appear. I'm fairly new to TV-Series, so there is probably a better option to be found (and I'm open to hearing one). But my searches on this forum didn't yield an answer, so I thought I'd post my discovery for anyone else having similar issues.
Onto the fix. I download my episodes via torrent, so the filename is usually something like:
The.Colbert.Report.01.29.2009.DSR.XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
And the datestamp order can be flaky, sometime appearing in a European style:
The.Colbert.Report.2008.01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Sometimes I'll see other unreliable data in the filenames, so it's best to put your episodes into a folder with a nicer name. You can use "The Colbert Report" or "Colbert Report, The" (I used the latter).
Next, we need to add some String Replacements. For all of these, checkmark "Run Before Matching", and replace with <empty>. Replace the following:
The periods between words (and at the end) are not a typo. The filename is littered with periods, but we can't remove them all, or we'll have no distinction from month or day. So for now, just remove the title & the year, including their respective periods.
I only added the years 2008 and 2009 for now, but you can add as many as you like. Be careful though, if a legitimate show has a year as part of its title, you could accidentally cause them to fail.
This should leave us with the following filenames to attempt to match:
\Colbert Report, The\01.29.DSR.XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
\Colbert Report, The\01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Ugly, but usable. Next, we need to add a new Parsing Expression. Add a new SIMPLE expression, and use the following:
This should resolve to:
Series: Colbert Report, The
Season: 01
Episode: 29
Title: DSR
Extension: XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
While the raw file will now display in the TV-Series list, that Season/Episode combo may or may not be found on an online search. If the episode IS found, it is almost certainly the wrong info, since Season 1 Episode 29 exists, but aired on December 12, 2005 with guest Harry Smith. Clearly, this is not the same episode. The info will be badly off, but at least you can access the files though the TV-Series interface, and track new episodes from your watched flags, etc... Hopefully someone will think up a better solution that actually locates and downloads the proper information from air date.
Lastly, if you notice that this new expression starts generating some false positives for other shows, here is a way to prevent that. The simplest method is to create another subdirectory under your show directory and name it something specific to this solution. For example, I created a directory called "Dailies":
\Colbert Report, The\Dailies\The.Colbert.Report.2008.01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Then change your Parsing Expression to accommodate this directory:
Now this expression will only succeed on episodes located inside a "Dailies" directory. This doesn't offer any protection against the String Replacement however, but will stop other shows from being falsely identified by this very loose expression.
That's it! If anyone has any suggestions (or alternate methods) please share!
Disclaimer - this isn't a final solution by any means. It's sloppy, and will definitely mislabel episodes. That said, at least you can see unwatched episodes as they appear. I'm fairly new to TV-Series, so there is probably a better option to be found (and I'm open to hearing one). But my searches on this forum didn't yield an answer, so I thought I'd post my discovery for anyone else having similar issues.
Onto the fix. I download my episodes via torrent, so the filename is usually something like:
The.Colbert.Report.01.29.2009.DSR.XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
And the datestamp order can be flaky, sometime appearing in a European style:
The.Colbert.Report.2008.01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Sometimes I'll see other unreliable data in the filenames, so it's best to put your episodes into a folder with a nicer name. You can use "The Colbert Report" or "Colbert Report, The" (I used the latter).
Next, we need to add some String Replacements. For all of these, checkmark "Run Before Matching", and replace with <empty>. Replace the following:
- The.Colbert.Report.
- 2008.
- 2009.
The periods between words (and at the end) are not a typo. The filename is littered with periods, but we can't remove them all, or we'll have no distinction from month or day. So for now, just remove the title & the year, including their respective periods.
I only added the years 2008 and 2009 for now, but you can add as many as you like. Be careful though, if a legitimate show has a year as part of its title, you could accidentally cause them to fail.
This should leave us with the following filenames to attempt to match:
\Colbert Report, The\01.29.DSR.XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
\Colbert Report, The\01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Ugly, but usable. Next, we need to add a new Parsing Expression. Add a new SIMPLE expression, and use the following:
Code:
<series>\<season>.<episode>.<title>.<ext>This should resolve to:
Series: Colbert Report, The
Season: 01
Episode: 29
Title: DSR
Extension: XviD-SYS.[VTV].avi
While the raw file will now display in the TV-Series list, that Season/Episode combo may or may not be found on an online search. If the episode IS found, it is almost certainly the wrong info, since Season 1 Episode 29 exists, but aired on December 12, 2005 with guest Harry Smith. Clearly, this is not the same episode. The info will be badly off, but at least you can access the files though the TV-Series interface, and track new episodes from your watched flags, etc... Hopefully someone will think up a better solution that actually locates and downloads the proper information from air date.
Lastly, if you notice that this new expression starts generating some false positives for other shows, here is a way to prevent that. The simplest method is to create another subdirectory under your show directory and name it something specific to this solution. For example, I created a directory called "Dailies":
\Colbert Report, The\Dailies\The.Colbert.Report.2008.01.28.DSR.XviD-ETACH.[VTV].avi
Then change your Parsing Expression to accommodate this directory:
Code:
<series>\Dailies\<season>.<episode>.<title>.<ext>Now this expression will only succeed on episodes located inside a "Dailies" directory. This doesn't offer any protection against the String Replacement however, but will stop other shows from being falsely identified by this very loose expression.
That's it! If anyone has any suggestions (or alternate methods) please share!
