Handy Importer Tip (1 Viewer)

[jsimmons]

I installed this plugin yesterday and after struggling for a couple of hours with making the importer give me a no errors on the test import, I had an epiphany. The epiphany is listed first below, but I've added a few other tips for other first timers (like me):

0) The key is to use the same format for ALL of your TV series folders. For instance, I had a mix of folder styles, like so:

<series>\Season XX\YY - <title>.<ext>
<series>\YY <title>.<ext> (Band OF Brothers, FireFly, etc)
<series>\Season XX\YY <title>.<ext>

The way I made it work was to make them all the same:

<series>\Season XX\YY <title>.<ext>

...and then add my own "simple parse expression (and disabling all of the other ones).

This meant that I had to add some folders, moves some files, and edit a LOT of filenames, but it made importing work the first time out.

1) I tried to use a string replacement of ". " to " ", but it didn't always work, so I stripped the periods out of a handful of filenames.

2) Make sure that your series folder name is EXACTLY what the series is called. For instance, if you have the X-Files, make sure your series folder name is "X-Files" (notice the hyphen in the name). The importer didn't recognize "X Files". The same goes for other series like NewsRadio (instead of "News Radio"), Monty Python's Flying Circus (instead of "Monte Pythons...").

I was able to import 600 TV shows without any problem once I straightened out the issues identified by the importer.

Overall, it works pretty well (with the one niggly thing I cited in a previous message). Well done to the guys that came up with this.

 

[Zinu]

I have ordered my films/movies since the first moment I got my server, and it's worth it. On strange formatted show names, just use an app like Bulk Rename Utility and you're done with it

 

[drealit]

I have completely redone my entire catalog with the handy dandy fantastically amazing app called TV Rename. It's another database driven program that utilizes TheTVDB.com for content but it ensures everything is perfectly in order. I use mine to monitor my torrent directories, it will identify new files that are downloaded and queue up the changes. I click rename/move and it renames the file and moves it over to my server. MyTVSeries finds the new file with no problems whatsoever and adds it to my catalog.

It also lets me know what episodes I'm still missing not to mention when the next air date is etc.

 

[RoChess]

It's all about uniformity, I got my TV Shows all in the following format:

<Series>\<Series> - Season <Season>\<Series> #<Season>.<Episode> - <Title>.<Ext> (Title is optional)​

Examples:

\24\24 - Season 8\24 #8.08.avi
\Nurse Jackie\Nurse Jackie - Season 1\Nurse Jackie #1.12 - Health Care And Cinema.avi​

But the #<Season>.<Episode> naming scheme is not standard, so I was forced to either rename a gazillion files, adjust the regular expression, or use string replacements. At that time I sucked at RegExp, so I solved it with the easy string replacement system (I wasn't looking forward to renaming the files).

Adding 20 replacements lines to turn #1. into S01E, up to #20. into S20E (wife loves Survivor), solved all my problems, and allowed the default regular expressions to make a perfect match. I know RegExp well enough now to just change the default expression, and with Survivor currently in 20th season that will be happening soon

The problem with mixing multiple naming schemes is that it is easy for one of the existing regular expressions to make a match before the right expression does. That's why if you rely on say 3 simple expression rules to match your setup, you are wise to disable all the other expressions, because they could generate a false positive. But even the 3 simple rules amongst themselves can generate a false positive, depending how funky your files are named.

Developers are hard at work to improve the entire import and matching process, and if you know how to compile from source (SVN) you can already have a look at all the hard work.

There are a lot of 3rd party rename tools available to rename after you have obtained the files, but you might also want to have a closer look at the program you used to obtain with. SABnzbd+ for example has build in rename functionality, but you have to enable/configure it.

 

[CKB]

I use a program to rename the files for me : tvrename.com - Automatically rename and organise your TV shows, and more.

It tells me what episodes I'm missing too !