Naming video files/Movies

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Adding videos to the library/Contents

Home icon grey.png   ▶ General topics ▶ Videos ▶ Management ▶ Naming files ▶ Movies

Adding videos to the library/Naming files

Naming conventions

In order to be scanned correctly, movie file names should only have the title and the year (optional) followed by the file extension. Media source flags can also be added via file names to indicate source/quality of the movie (see link for more info).

To improve matching add the year within parenthesis to the end of the file or foldername, depending on your scanning method and folder structure (before the extension, if filename), this naming standard seems to yield the best results.

Note: If the wrong movie is picked up even if foldername or filename is correct, the movie can have an earlier original title. This often happens to movies made in 1950's and after.

Stop hand.png It has been found that a flat file structure for movies is not conducive to playback initialization performance, a sub-folder stricture is recommended.


See here for additional information.

\Movies\Pulp Fiction (1994).avi
\Movies\Reservoir Dogs (1992).avi
\Movies\The Usual Suspects (1995).avi
\Movies\Avatar (2009)-cd1.mkv
\Movies\Avatar (2009)-cd2.mkv
\Movies\Avatar (2009)\somefilename.mkv
\Movies\The Usual Suspects (1995)\somefilename.avi
\Movies\The Usual Suspects (1995)\somefilename-cd1.avi
\Movies\The Usual Suspects (1995)\somefilename-cd2.avi
\Movies\Avatar (2009)\Avatar (2009)-cd1.mkv
\Movies\Avatar (2009)\Avatar (2009)-cd2.mkv

And for DVD-Video movies stored in file-mode on the harddrive or SMB NFS:

\Movies\Alien (1979)\VIDEO_TS.IFO
\Movies\Léon (1994)\VIDEO_TS.IFO
\Movies\Scarface (1983)\VIDEO_TS.IFO
Alternatively:
 \Movies\Alien (1979)\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO
 \Movies\Léon (1994)\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO
 \Movies\Scarface (1983)\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO

Note: If using VIDEO_TS folder structure you must enable "recursive" lookup when adding the source directory.

File stacking