MCEBuddy Custom File Renaming

Channels DVR Server
#1

Greetings - New User. Tried to match an existing topic. Failed to find one recent enough.

Migrated from HDHR-DVR to Channels DVR a few minutes ago. Setup was easy. Working fine - almost.

I am using Custom File Renaming as such:
%ismovie%<MCEB-Movies\%showname% (%airyear%),MCEB-TV\%showname%\Season %season%##\%showname% - S%season%##E%episode%## - %episodename%>

This worked flawlessly in the HDHR-DVR environment for separating Movies (TCM) from TV Shows (any). I have 2 destination libraries in Plex to receive the files, one for Movies and one for TV Shows. Channels DVR failed to work with MCEBuddy and a test recording of:
"Midnight Lace (1960) 2018-12-16-0402"
wasn't recognized as a Movie and was put into a TV Show library and structure, which of course failed miserably.

A bit about the environment:
I have 3 separate task profiles in MCEBuddy:

  1. H264 TV Shows ("Shows" content selector in MCEBuddy) with Comskip for the bulk of all recording. Files are processed, commercials removed and remuxed (with smart encoding only) into an MKV file, properly named and structured TV Show for Plex - very occasional failure when a match just can't be made. Expected. No Problem.

  2. MPEG-2 TV Shows (MCEBuddy "Format" selector) without Comskip (100% PBS - nothing to cut). Files converted to H264, named and structured in a TV Show Library for Plex with a nearly perfect match rate. A quick manual trim (VideoReDo) of the head and tail for permanent additions. No Problem.

  3. H264 Moves without Comskip (MCEBuddy "Movies" selector) for the TCM movies (all I care about), named as 'Movies (YEAR)', remuxed to MKV and put in their entirety into the Movie Library acting as the landing pad for everything from DVR. A quick manual edit of the head and tail and manual placement of permanent additions in the appropriate genre library. No Problem.

I could possibly overhaul the tasks above to get what I need done, but it was all working fine - until a few minutes ago. That custom renaming string has never let me down.

Identification to separate TV Shows and Movies with the string above has been working fine for years. I'm at a loss as to what made it fail. The file name shouldn't have thrown it and I can't detect anything in the metadata (that I can read with MediaInfo) that would cause a problem.

Being a new user and only having run this test through quickly I may not have enough info. I am scheduling recordings furiously, so we'll see what happens with full recordings - and with a little more experience under my belt.

At this point just looking to see of another user has a similar issue - or if Support has something to add I have (probably) missed.

Thanks

ACraigo

#2

Update:

I believe the user has averted the crisis by having breakfast, upgrading my MCEBuddy to 'Release 9' (noticed it went live a while ago) and creating a new storage location (and letting the Channels App write the sub-directory).

I created 2 New MCEBuddy Monitor Locations - Movies and TV Folders, of course, and told my 3 existing Conversion Tasks to look in the appropriate Locations for their material... and so far, so good.

Continuing to monitor the situation, but don't you guys love it when somebody answers their own question?

lol

ACraigo

1 Like
#3

Just one little hitch - all the movies look like:
She Done Him Wrong (1933) (2018)
In the Good Old Summertime (1949) (2018)

She Done Him Wrong (1933) 2018-12-16-1240
If there were [Brackets] around that last bit it would probably be fine:
She Done Him Wrong (1933) [2018-12-16-1240]

The HDHR-DVR guys have [Brackets] around that stuff and it only fails occasionally 'cause they have no (YEAR) field. If you guys had the (YEAR) field AND the [Brackets] that would be something to behold.

(Plex and MCEBuddy ignore stuff in [Brackets])

:wink:

1 Like
#4

... and... at least it's consistent:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) 2018-12-17-1000
becomes:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) (2018)
but if I drag:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) [2018-12-17-1000]
to MCEBuddy I get:
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

#5

Wish Emby and MrMC did the same...so if Channels does add the brackets...it would solve some of my matching inconsistencies. PITA having to manually update.

As there are so many Plex and MCEBuddy users, this appears to be a value added feature request.

#6

I would think so.

As unfriendly as HDHR's DVR App is to use, their file names would be great with those brackets around all the odd stuff - if they had a (YEAR) field. Plex is using the 'double (Year)' and odd TV Show file names - for now - and that's pretty typical for Plex. The next update could change something (often does) and nothing but a pristine file name will work. I learned a long time ago to use pristine file names in order to have the highest success rate.

One day soon these 'Channels' file names are going to start failing.

#7

... and, as expected, today these fail to match (there's a bunch of them):

What on Earth S04E18 2018-02-27 Forbidden City of Inca Gold 2019-03-29-0859.mts

With a file name like that - it's no wonder.

#8

You can use the mcebuddy hack so filename parsing is not required.

#9

All that sorta negates all my custom file renaming and custom task profiles - in an effort to keep from naming the files a little better?

I may try to see if I can make that hack work for me, but PTV runs out near the end of the month. After that I won't need much of anything - there won't be anything to record.

The PBS transmitter I am able to receive only works part-time and recently it's up for 10 seconds before going down for a week. Not much I can do about that.

Just a reference and a suggestion - any time you've got 9 dashes and two dates in a file name two programs (MCEBuddy and Plex) are trying to match... disappointment is right around the corner. This is how the TVDB api expects TV Shows to be named:
What on Earth S04E18 Forbidden City of Inca Gold.ext
or at least:
What on Earth S04E18.ext

This is how Plex expects TV Shows to be named:
What on Earth - S04E18 - Forbidden City of Inca Gold.ext
or at least:
What on Earth - S04E18.ext
If you want to confuse Plex (it's pretty easy), just start throwing in dashes, that'll do it.

If you want everybody to be happy, put everything that shouldn't be in a file name in [Brackets]:
What on Earth S04E18 [2018-02-27] Forbidden City of Inca Gold [2019-03-29-0859].ext

When MCEBuddy or Plex tries to deal with a Movie File from Channels - they get two (YEAR) fields:
The Big Sleep (1946) (2019).ext
That is just wrong on so many levels.

As annoying as Silicon Dust and the world's worst DVR UI is - they at least get TV Show file names right, but fail miserably with Movies files as they can't get a (YEAR) field in any of them.

But.... I did just find out FileBot will rename anything correctly. It didn't even cough loudly - so that's what I'll be using to correct stuff for the next few weeks.