Naming video files/TV shows

Since build 8044, date: 2007-03-08, XBMC has had the ability to lookup and present information on TV Shows in the Video Library.

TV show support in XBMC

TV show support is through new scrapers and requires a connection to the internet. The information gathered is stored locally in the Video Library so that it is available when you are offline. The scrapers scan your TV shows and retrieve the information about them from sites like TV.com and TheTVDB.com. Note! you can refresh the main TV show information without rescanning all episode information by selecting refresh from the information screen and say no to the 'refresh information for all episodes' question.

TV show filenaming conventions

The TV show lookup relies on the following naming conventions in order to work as intended. Directory Structure & File Names The directory structure and filenames for tvshows have to be matched by the regular expressions set in tvshowmatching. The defaults will match the following structures/filenames: foo_[s01]_[e01] foo.1x09* foo.s01.e01, foo.s01_e01 foo.103* Defaults for two-parters will match: foo_[s01]_[e01-02] foo.s01.e01-02 foo.1x09 1x10 As of rev 10494, handling for multi-part episodes (twopart episodes, multiple episodes on DVD images, etc) is supported. The first matched tvshowmatching regexp and "[-EeXx]+([0-9]+)" will be repeatedly applied against a filename until no more seasons or episodes are found. This allows for filenames such as: foo_s01e01e02e03_s02e01e02, foo104-05-06-201-02, foo1x07x08x09

TV Show Specials

Special episodes are currently supported with TheTVDB.com scraper. In order for the XBMC scraper regular expressions to recognize them, they should be part of season 0. (Specials naming order can be observed in the Specials Season of the relevant TV show at TheTVDB.com).

Example

Blackadder's Christmas Carol should have a filename that matches season 0 episode 2 (e.g. contain s00e02).

Troubleshooting TV Shows lookup

The scraper picks the wrong TV Show

Try adding the year within parenthes to the end of the TV Show folder-name, (this might be need for some TV Shows such as "Doctor Who and "Knight Rider" which has multiple entries on a TV metadata database). See the exampel bellow:

\TV Shows\Doctor Who (1963)\Season 1\Doctor Who - S01E01.avi
\TV Shows\Doctor Who (2005)\Season 1\Doctor Who - S01E01.avi
\TV Shows\Knight Rider (1982)\Season 1\Knight Rider - S01E01.avi
\TV Shows\Knight Rider 2008\Season 1\Knight Rider - S01E01.avi

Custom Directory Structure & File Names

You can make your own naming conventions / rules by adding or editing regular expressions in the advancedsettings.xml file, with the tvshowmatching tag. When enumerating episodes for a series, XBMC only cares about the season and episode, so when designing regexps you should only be concerned with these things.

Here are several common naming schemes and corresponding regexps and examples.

\Season #\## (Season# is at very end of directory name, and filename starts with episode name, neither have to be a specific number of digits) : <xml> <tvshowmatching>

   <regexp>Season[\._ ]([0-9]+)[\\/]([0-9]+)[^\\/]*</regexp>

</tvshowmatching> </xml> Example : \Battlestar Galactica\Season 3\01 - Occupation.avi (Season 3, Episode 1)

### ([season#][episode#] with nothing in between all in filename, assumes episode number is always 2 digits) : <xml> <tvshowmatching>

   <regexp>([0-9]+)([0-9][0-9])[^\\/]*</regexp>

</tvshowmatching> </xml> Example : \24\Season 6\601 - 6:00am to 7:00am.avi (Season 6, Episode 1)
Example 2 : \Lost\Season 1\Lost - 101.avi (Season 1, Episode 1)
Example 3 : \24\601 - 6:00am to 7:00am.avi (Season 6, Episode 1)

##x## ([season#]x[episode#] all in filename : <xml> <tvshowmatching> <regexp>([0-9]+)x([0-9]+)[^\\/]*</regexp> </tvshowmatching> </xml> Example : \Scrubs\Season 1\1x01.Pilot.avi (Season 1, Episode 1)

If you use leading 0's (for example, \Scrubs\01x01 - Pilot.avi instead of 1x1), and are having difficulty getting the TV Show scraper to work, try

##x## ([season#]x[episode#] all in filename : <xml> <tvshowmatching> <regexp>[0]*([0-9]+)x[0]*([0-9]+)[^\\/]*</regexp> </tvshowmatching> </xml> Example : \Scrubs\Season 1\01x01.Pilot.avi (Season 1, Episode 1) which simply strips leading 0's from the result.

s##e## (s[season#]e[episode#] at beginning of filename) <xml> <tvshowmatching> <regexp>[\\/]s([0-9]+)e([0-9]+)</regexp> </tvshowmatching> </xml> Example videos\mytv-comedy\Scrubs\season 1\s01e01 - Pilot (hdtv.xvid).avi

Season ## - Episode ## (Season [season#] - Episode [episode#] in the beginning or middle of filename) <xml> <tvshowmatching> <regexp>Season ([0-9]+) - Episode ([0-9]+)[^\\/]*</regexp> </tvshowmatching> </xml> Example TV Shows\Scrubs\Season 1\Scrubs - Season 1 - Episode 01 - Pilot.avi

See Also

• IMDb
• http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=25349
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions
• Regular Expression Testing: http://www.regextester.com/