Naming video files/TV shows

Create Video Libraries

1. The Basics

2. Source Folder

3. Movie Setup

4a. TV Show Setup

4b. Seasons Setup

4c. Episodes Setup

5. Music Videos Setup

6. Add Source & Scrape

7. Scraping Problems

Video library

Create Video Library

TV shows

Introduction

There are two components to TV Shows that need to be accurate for a successful scrape:

1. Correct naming of the TV Show
2. Correct numbering of the Episodes

Note: This page details the TV Show folder. Season folders and episodes are discussed in the following pages.

Naming

The naming of your TV Show folder is critical to ensure the scrapers can correctly identify the TV Show and its episodes.

TV Show name (Year) - This is the correct naming format for both the movie files and movie folders.

Note: If you are unsure of the name or year check it at the scraper site - either TheMovieDB website or TheTVDB website depending on which scraper you have set.

Filename identifiers

Scrapers can optionally lookup via filename identifiers since Matrix (v21) if the scraper supports it. As of v21, TheMovieDB Python, TMDB TV Shows, and TV Maze scrapers support ID's in the folder or filename.

Filename identifiers are short tags added to the name of a file that directly provide metadata IDs to Kodi. This method streamlines the scraping process by giving Kodi explicit references to look for in its database. If an identifier could not be looked up using a filename identifier, Kodi falls back to the normal scraping process using title and year.

To take advantage of this feature, include the identifier within the filename and/or the folder (depending on the setting Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title in the Set Content screen) using one of the following supported formats:

• Movie Name (Year) [sourceid=xxxx]
• Movie Name (Year) [sourceid-xxxx]
• Movie Name (Year) [source=xxxx]
• Movie Name (Year) [source-xxxx]
• Movie Name (Year) {sourceid=xxxx}
• Movie Name (Year) {sourceid-xxxx}
• Movie Name (Year) {source=xxxx}
• Movie Name (Year) {source-xxxx}

Where:

sourceid / source - the appropriate site identifier of the ID (see Note below)

xxxx - the ID from the site

An example of a properly formatted filename would be:

/Blade Runner (2017) {tmdb=335984}/Blade Runner (2017) {tmdb=335984}.mkv

Note: Not all scraper sites accept all ID's. It is recommended that the sites own ID is used rather than a 3rd party site (eg imdb). 3rd party ID's at scraper sites rely on users to enter that data. It is not uncommon to have these ID's missing.

TheMovieDB for Movies and TV Shows - Use TMDB's own tmdb ID but the scapers will also accepted imdb and tvdb if that data is available at the site.

TV Maze - only acceptes tvmaze ID's

TVDB - As at the release of v21 Omega, the scraper requires updating by TheTVDB

TV Show Folders

	Each TV Show requires its own folder in the Source folder The TV Show folders are saved inside the Source folder Adding the (Year) makes scraping more accurate and differentiates between original and remake versions. When using TVDB scraper for Country of Origin TV Shows, the (Year) is replaced with the country code. eg Hells Kitchen (UK), Hells Kitchen (US), Hells Kitchen (AU) etc. Check TheTVDB site to confrim. The title and (year) displayed at the scraper site is how you should name your show. Note: If you are unsure of the name or year, then check which scraper you are using and visit the appropriate site for correct naming: TheMovieDB - (the default scraper) TVDB TV Maze

Split folders

Split folders are TV Shows that have episodes split between two or more folders located in different Sources.

This may occur when a long running show is progressively saved on one drive but, over time, the drive has been filled with other content, forcing you to save new episodes on another drive.

To ensure these split TV Shows are correctly scraped as the same show, you must ensure that the TV Show folder names are identical. A slight variance could see a different show scraped for the second folder. If using NFO Files, then copy the NFO file from one location into the other split folders.

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