Local Content: Scan Sources Ignored

[Vraz]

@manowell

fwiw, I only sorted those files in "Season 3" subdirectories because I read a guide article somewhere here saying that was the way to do it. Now I'm guessing that they could all be in one directory.

Based on my experience, interim directories like "Season 3" are not required. I don't use them myself.

@manowell

I've been struggling with some series matches, when bringing in the first three seasons of Top Gear USA Channels insists on putting some episodes in Season 5, etc.

"Top Gear USA\Season 3\S3e03 - Cult Classics.mp4"

Believe the incorrect season may be due to using a single-digit SxExx. Have never seen Channels put into the wrong season with SxxExx (both double digits). From my experience, it does not even look at the episode names so am confused how it might place those in the wrong season.

Note you say Channels was putting the episodes in season 5, but their data has them in season 4 (not season 3/5). Was that a typo?

Gracenote shows 8 seasons where the rest of the world shows 6. That said, the six seasons from the rest of the world looks mighty odd. The cause is obvious when you look at the air dates:

Season 1 (everyone): 10 episodes from Nov 21, 2010 - Jan 23, 2010
Season 2a (everyone): 8 episodes from July 24, 2011 - Sep 18, 2011
Season 2b (wikipedia/others): 8 episodes from Feb 14, 2012 - Apr 3, 2021
Season 3 (Gracenote): Feb 14, 2012 - Apr 3, 2021

What non-Gracenote lists as 6 seasons includes seasons (like season 2) that had a five month gap in he middle. Gracenote splits those into discrete seasons whereas other sources keep them together. The wikipedia article includes the non-sensical comment " The season was aired from July 24, 2011 until April 3, 2012 on [History], airing on a weekly basis". (Airing on a weekly basis means something different to me.)

@manowell

From looking at this, Gracenote's data is simply missing for a bunch of the episodes, so that makes sense.

What episodes do you see missing? I did not find anything missing, just in different seasons because of how they handled the odd double-seasons.

[manowell]

@Vraz

What episodes do you see missing? I did not find anything missing, just in different seasons because of how they handled the odd double-seasons.

BBC, IMDB, Wikipedia, Amazon Prime, DVD sales, etc, all say there were six seasons. I can't find a single other source then Gracenote that says eight. Having wasted time researching this today: I concur. This is not a Channels issue at all, other than that Channels uses Gracenote. The ones I called "missing" were missing Gracenote titling because I removed the titles, then Gracenote couldn't tag that way. Then Channels stuck to the sXXeXX naming.

During my research today I became aware of (roughly) how many freaking spin-offs there have been and how some are not named consistently, especially the example at hand.

Maddox says up above, though:

It doesn’t even bring the episode title in when scanning. Just the episode snd season number for looking it up. So it’s not there to show.

It clearly does use the title or directory name at some point, though, or it wouldn't have been able to match the S3E9 "RVs" to what Gracenote says is S5E3.

Note you say Channels was putting the episodes in season 5, but their data has them in season 4 (not season 3/5). Was that a typo?

Don't think so. Gracenote called it season 5, and Channels tags it as such. All 72 episodes are there, just split up differently. I see how what I wrote was confusing, the episode I listed as an example was not one of the ones it put in Season five, the full data listing down below was one that did that.

Believe the incorrect season may be due to using a single-digit SxExx. Have never seen Channels put into the wrong season with SxxExx (both double digits). From my experience, it does not even look at the episode names so am confused how it might place those in the wrong season.

I retried it after I posted renaming S3e09 to s03e09, fully expansion, for the "RVs" ep, It still matched the same way.

I don't know this to be accurate, but it appears to me that Channels will try to do the looking with just sXX and eXX, but if it comes up blank will use title and other information from the path to do it's best. Or I've confused myself beyond redemption ----

[Vraz]

@manowell

I don't know this to be accurate, but it appears to me that Channels will try to do the looking with just sXX and eXX, but if it comes up blank will use title and other information from the path to do it's best. Or I've confused myself beyond redemption ----

I believe you are correct. In all my testing, don't think I ever passed SxxExx combinations that were missing from their season data. It sometimes mapped to the wrong episode (and thus my need to remap them correctly), but there was always some episode of that number. The Gracenote Top Gear US Season 3 is only 8 episodes. Since S03E09 has no mapping, Channels apparently falls back to a title search.

@manowell

I see how what I wrote was confusing, the episode I listed as an example was not one of the ones it put in Season five, the full data listing down below was one that did that.

Appreciate the clarification-- that makes sense.

@manowell

BBC, IMDB, Wikipedia, Amazon Prime, DVD sales, etc, all say there were six seasons. I can't find a single other source then Gracenote that says eight.

Agreed. Did lots of searching as well and only Gracenote lists eight. Granted, I still struggle with the concept of a "season" that includes a five month break in the middle. Am guessing Gracenote does some data normalization and the significant mid-season-break triggers a heuristic rule that divides the season. Thanks for the follow up and additional details.

[chDVRuser]

My 2 cents worth.

For "Series" that aren't serials, I see no need to watch them in airdate or production number order.
I don't care what "Season number and Episode number" somebody tags them with since not everyone agrees on what they are anyway, especially Gracenote vs. the rest of the world.

I just want Channels to import them with;
Show Name and artwork/poster
Episode Title
Episode Description
Episode OAD or Year if available

[Vraz]

@chDVRuser

My 2 cents worth.

Agree that ordering (within reason) is a minor issue. Understanding the difference between airdate and production is important to understand why mismatches occur. After all, production order was the expecting airing and airdate order was actual airing based on distribution needs-- neither is right/wrong-- just variations.

I get annoyed when episodes are misidentified (and when they contain 110% of the data required to identify them correctly). Art, description and everything else seems to follow from that. Have yet to see situations where an episode season/number/title is correct and other aspects are wrong. Confident it happens, but not experienced it for shows of interest to me (so far).

[manowell]

@Vraz

Agree that ordering (within reason) is a minor issue. Understanding the difference between airdate and production is important to understand why mismatches occur. After all, production order was the expecting airing and airdate order was actual airing based on distribution needs-- neither is right/wrong-- just variations.

Do you use a tag editor / file naming utility with online lookup? I've used several (mainly mp3 Tag and MusicBrainz) for audio files, this is the first time I've thought about corralling a growing video collection.

[Vraz]

@manowell

Do you use a tag editor / file naming utility with online lookup? I've used several (mainly mp3 Tag and MusicBrainz) for audio files, this is the first time I've thought about corralling a growing video collection.

Like you, I previously to used identification tools when ripping my CDs to MP3s. However, I only use digital audio with my iPhone these days and it identifies audio without any special effort.

My video identification needs are different from most. Bulk of my content is VOD (video on demand) that I force-feed Channels. My challenge is reconciling EPG data from Pluto, Xumo, Discovery, etc (my VOD sources) with Channels/Gracenote.

If you are comfortable doing it, you can query Channels directly for movie/series information via:

curl -s "http://channels-dvr-url:port/dvr/groups/0/matches?q=your-query"

This will return Gracenote data (JSON formatted) for movies/series (not episodes-- remove any episode details). Best strategy is passing the full name first and looking for an appropriate match. If you find one, use the exact movie/series title (as returned) along with the release year in parenthesis. The latter is critical.

Your Top Gear example illustrates this well. Was purely luck that a "Top Gear" query (without a year) returns Top Gear USA as the first hit. If your episodes were Top Gear UK-- game over.

Returns all Top Gear series in a random-to-me order:

curl -s "http://localhost:8089/dvr/groups/0/matches?q=top+gear"

Returns Top Gear USA as first hit:

curl -s "http://localhost:8089/dvr/groups/0/matches?q=top+gear+(2010)"

Returns Top Gear UK as first hit:

curl -s "http://localhost:8089/dvr/groups/0/matches?q=top+gear+(2002)"

The Channels import matching code takes the first hit. For "unique" movies/series (no foreign spinoffs or name reuse), it is reliable. Increasingly, with most folks in media production being devoid of new ideas and simply rehashing old content, content reuse is the norm and original release year is critical to identify the specific movie/series. For episodic content, once the series is correctly identified, another API can be used to query episodes for detailed matching via name, airdate, episode number, etc. However, none of that matters unless you can correctly identify the series first.

Not quite the answer you were looking for, but hope it helps.

[manowell]

@Vraz

Not quite the answer you were looking for, but hope it helps.

No, not for the current problem, which I think has now moved to the "I know I have all the episodes in order so who cares that Gracenote calls them something different that every over source I can find, so I don't care".

But, for future work I need to do I see the purpose of this, very valuable. I am comfortable with command line and scripting, just not very knowledgeable about what all can be called with it.

Thank you!