Video Groups’ videos can be sorted in many ways. The sorting for the videos in the groups is managed in the Edit Metadata modal on the web admin.
Where in the web admin is this? I've been looking around and can't find it.
Find your video group in the web admin. Click Edit Metadata.
I think you're talking about DVR > Manage > Videos, right? Mine are just in a long list there, and I don't see groups. I presume by your answer there's a better way to organize them? It's not apparent to me. Thanks.
No, Library > Videos.
1 Like
It's a per Video Group option.
You can individually choose a sort name for each one of your Video Groups
You can choose how to sort recordings within that Video Group
(Think of Video Groups as TV Shows and Video Group recordings as episodes)
1 Like
Ah, thank you. I think what was throwing me off was I was following the "Plex convention" of having a video be in its own folder, which Pex recommends, among other reasons I guess, so you can also add the subtitle file and poster art to the folder along with the video. So my video page looked like somebody puked folders all over it, with each video having a folder. I'm trying to move away from Plex, so I've got a job ahead of me to pull all the various videos out of subfolders and, for example, put all concert videos into a "Concert videos" folder, instead of each one into its own subfolder under "Convert Videos", such as "Videos>Concert Videos>The Connells Atlanta 2021>file here" (which is how it is now).
1 Like
That had to be a LOT of work to get it that way!
The docs for Local Content are pretty clear on how to set up your folder structure, including for videos:
1 Like
Yea, you could say that. 
My wife is a figure skater, and one way I'm going to get her hooked on using Channels is with a virtual skating channel, filled with a ton of skating videos I found online. I put each one in its own folder. 
I found one drawback to this method, or perhaps something I'm overlooking. Previously, with each skating video in its own folder (with the folder matching the title of the file), my virtual channel would display the folder name in the guide, so it might say "2020 U.S. Championships." Now, with them all in folder called "Figure skating," every single guide entry just says "Figure skating." I haven't seen a way to enter individual videos that aren't movies or shows to a virtual channel, but maybe I'm missing it. It's coming back to me that in addition to Plex, that was why I went through and put each video into its own folder (which I just deleted, of course).
EDIT: Thinking out loud, would there be any drawback to moving the skating videos under my "Shows" folder, to try to get individual file names to show up?
When videos are imported, they adopt the title of the video group. Their recording title uses the file name.
So /Figure Skating/2013 National Championships.mp4
Would be titled in Channels:
Figure Skating
2013 National Championships
Here’s a pro tip. Channels flips these for Sport events. This way the title is showing the more descriptive title, like the teams playing, vs the league.
Washington Nationals vs Atlanta Braves
MLB
Set your videos’ genre to Sports event, and it will do the same for your videos.
Thanks! I think maybe it is an issue with truncating things depending on the client?
In the web admin, I get this nice title in the guide for my virtual channel:
In the iOS app, it shows up like this:
I haven't tried it on the Apple TV yet.
The guide only shows the title of shows, not their episode titles.
In the same vein, it only shows the title of the video group, not the video title.
If you employ the trick I mentioned, you’ll get what you want.
I'm going to have to look at this with a fresh head tomorrow. I must be doing something wrong. I went into the Figure Skating group, chose "Select All," then "Edit Metadata," then chose "Sports" under Genre, then hit Save. Checked a few individually to confirm it changed the genre. Went to Sources and refreshed my virtual channels. It's still just showing "Figure Skating" for each entry in the guide.
Try with Sports event, not Sports
and I think he meant Categories, not Genres
Correct. Category.
1 Like
Still no luck with this. (Feel free to break this into its own topic so as not to hijack this thread). Here is how it shows in the guide (with a sporting event just above it, that shows in the desired way):
Here is the metadata for one of the videos (they all show this, and I also tried removing the "Video" category; these are all under "Videos" in a subfolder called "Figure Skating"):
And here is the virtual channel:
I'm sure this is user error, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Do I need to manually go in and add an event title to each one (it was mentioned above that the channel should use the file name, though)?
Yeah, I'd suggest filling in the "Event Title."
Please also capitalize the "S" in "Figure Skating" 
1 Like
Thanks . . . I think that did it! I went through and changed a handful to add the event title to the metadata, and then scrolled through the guide, and some of them now have the title.
Feature request next — could we get the option to flip the title and group in the guide when a file is designated with a "concert" category? Or maybe a toggle in general? I have a virtual channel with concert videos for a rock band, and every concert shows up in the guide as "The Connells" (name of the folder/group) instead of, for example, "The Connells Live - The Cat's Cradle - 1998".
Yeah, I need to fix the s, too I actually have a ton of cleaning up and fine-tuning to do before I roll this out to the family, and possibly need to replace an older Apple TV on one of the TVs because of stuttering, but only on playback of recorded (not live) 1080p videos. I've been focusing on the infrastructure right now.