DVD order and multiple episodes (1 Viewer)

[andydixon]

Hi,

I have a number of kids' tv show that I'm having troubles with. I'll use the show "Dinosaur Train" as an example.

This show has two "stories" per episode as it screens on tv, but as per the rules on thetvdb.com each of these stories has to entered as a separate episode. So for instance in series 1 there were 40 episodes (2 stories each) that aired on tv, but in thetvdb they appear as 80 individual episodes. All my files are stored as the 40 "double" episodes. I would ideally like these to show up as 40 episodes in mptvseries. On the thetvdb.com forums I was told that the way to sort this out is to use the DVD order and setup the episodes in there. So for instance episodes 1 and 2 (of the 80 individual episodes) get labelled as 1.1 and 1.2 (and so on up to 40.1 and 40.2). I've set up this season in this way on thetvdb.com.

Now I was hoping that mytvseries would be able to use this info and import my 40 episodes using these settings in the DVD order, so that I would see 40 of these double episodes in the GUI, but so far I haven't been able to work out how to do it. Is there a trick to naming my files so I can get it to work? Or is this something that mptvseries just doesn't support?

Thanks a lot
Andy

 

[RoChess]

I'm used to airdate based imports and would just use "Dinosaur Train S01E01+02.avi" then as an example, which allows a single media file to be recognized as a multiple episode setup and both episodes will show. Frankly not sure how DVD order imports are handled at that level.

Can't find it at wiki FAQ either @ http://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/wiki/FAQ#Single_File_-_Double_Episode

I know during the import wizard you can select the DVD order for your series, but the extend that I know that as is when S01E05 aired order is made S01E04 on DVD or something like that. As per:

But your double episode issue with S01E01.1 as DVD-order numbering is most likely confusing the parsing expressions that are used by default.

http://thetvdb.com/index.php?tab=seasonall&id=116291&lid=7&order=dvd

Hopefully a developer or somebody who has experienced this scenario can jump in with a better answer.

 

[andydixon]

Thanks for the reply RoChess.

Actually it looks like it's kinda working. Within media portal I do now see the 40 episodes that I expect. The only thing that's not right is that for each of the 40 episodes the title only shows the first of the two stories and not both, but that's something I can live with (although it would be nice to see both stories if that's possible.)

Thanks
Andy

 

[RoChess]

If there are two episodes and you have a single file containing both, then you do get that situation you described, if something went wrong on the import with the detection of the dual-episode.

Say for example there is "Example Show" 1x01 and 1x02, and you import "Example Show 1x01 (and 1x02).avi", then this file will not work on the default dual-episode detection system, so you get a single entry for 1x01. However when you play that episode it of course still contains both so you end up playing both.

If it was named "Example Show S01E01+02.avi" (or any of the other supported syntax schemes), then it would import two entries for each episode that link to the same file. So if you then start "Example Show 1x02 inside MP-TVSeries, then it will still start with 1x01 as there is currently no method to automatically determine where 1x02 would start inside a single media file.

But normally a person would not start 1x02 and skip 1x01 and when you playback a file that contains both 1x01 and 1x02, then playing that single file will then automatically make MP-TVSeries flag both as watched as it knows the one file contains both episodes. Around 50% of playback it will then determine you finished watching 1st one and flag the start of watching 2nd (this also works for Follw.it and Trakt plugins then).

So what more then likely is happening for you is that MP-TVSeries is unable to determine that the file you are importing is actually 2 episodes.

That is also the part I got no clue on, because I've never dealt with that DVD order situation where you have 1x1.1 and 1x1.2 as episodes. Not sure if MP-TVSeries has support for that, and I know it would require modifications to the import parsing expressions to support that type of episode syntax. The best option I can think of is that perhaps the Import Wizard has support, so that when you import the series and you can manually verify that "File A" matched up with "Episode 1.1" that you then use CTRL key to select "Episode 1.1" and "Episode 1.2", but no idea if the Import Wizard supports such type of multi-select at that level (never had a need for it myself).

I don't have time right now, so I suggest you try a few things yourself via trial and error, but maybe later this week I can create some dummy files to see if I'm able to figure out a filename scheme that will work for you, or perhaps modify the default parsing import expression to make it work.