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[CountryBumkin]

I like to keep my media files organized, so I created a separate folder for each Movie and TV Series.

This works well for Movies, since I rip directly to the Movie's Folder and I don't need to move any files. But for TV series it seems to always be a mess.

I record my TV Shows to a single folder (H:\Temp-Recordings) which is not watched, then after a few days I do my maintenance routine which includes moving the TV shows to the corresponding folder using MC's "Rename, Move & Copy" tool. However I always find a bunch of files in the wrong folders. I don't understand why this is happening.

For example, looking at one of the TV Series Folders (Colombo in this case) you can see there a bunch of files from other shows that should not be in this folder.
How did they get in there? I then move these "xml" files to the correct folder using Windows Explorer.

I move the recoded episode directly from H:\Temp-Recodings to the folder H:\TV-Shows\Columbo with the MC RM&C tool, selecting the "move all files" option.



Lastly, the Theater View is correct. The TV shows display correctly and work/play correctly. This is only an organizational issue. Should I just leave well enough alone?

[daveman]

for TV shows

I keep every tv series in a directory with a subdirectory for season

I rename each file using the following under the name field:  =[Series] - Spadnumber([season],2)Epadnumber([episode],2) - [name]

this way my server is nice and organized

for Movies

I use subdirectories only for movies where there are multiple parts (e.g., superman 1 through 5) otherwise all movies are in 1 large directory

dave

[blgentry]

I move the recoded episode directly from H:\Temp-Recodings to the folder H:\TV-Shows\Columbo with the MC RM&C tool, selecting the "move all files" option.

That's your problem I think. "Move all files" will move everything, even files from other shows.  If your recordings were separated by show, this probably wouldn't be an issue.  I could be wrong though.

Brian.

[CountryBumkin]

That's your problem I think. "Move all files" will move everything, even files from other shows.  If your recordings were separated by show, this probably wouldn't be an issue.  I could be wrong though.

Brian.

That might be it Brian.
So I think I am just moving the "Columbo" ts file (usually several episodes in the series are moved at the same time) from the Temp-Recording folder, but it must be dragging the other files (the "xml"s) with realizing it. I suppose which ever series-episode I start my maintenance routine with, drags the other xml files along to the folder. It probably just happened to be the Columbo file this time.

Ideally, I would like to move the episode (.ts file) and it's "sidecar", and any "jpg" together. So the fix is to Not select "move all the files in the folder". Then after all the episode are moved - just delete whatever is remaining (any "xml", "jpg", etc.) in the Temp-Recordings folder.

But it will probably work out the same to just move the ".ts" file and let the "Get Movie and TV Info" tool fill in the rest. The folder I move the file to is watched, and I have it set to run the Get Movie and TV Info tool.

[mwillems]

That might be it Brian.
So I think I am just moving the "Columbo" ts file (usually several episodes in the series are moved at the same time) from the Temp-Recording folder, but it must be dragging the other files (the "xml"s) with realizing it. I suppose which ever series-episode I start my maintenance routine with, drags the other xml files along to the folder. It probably just happened to be the Columbo file this time.

Ideally, I would like to move the episode (.ts file) and it's "sidecar", and any "jpg" together. So the fix is to Not select "move all the files in the folder". Then after all the episode are moved - just delete whatever is remaining (any "xml", "jpg", etc.) in the Temp-Recordings folder.

But it will probably work out the same to just move the ".ts" file and let the "Get Movie and TV Info" tool fill in the rest. The folder I move the file to is watched, and I have it set to run the Get Movie and TV Info tool.

If you move the .ts without the "move all files" option checked it will bring the sidecar and the .jpg if MC created them (MC keeps track of helper files and moves them automatically).  The move all files option sweeps up everything else in the directory (including other recordings or fragments), so you definitely don't want that option for a shared TV directory.  The "move all files" option is almost never desirable unless you affirmatively know that you have files in the directory that MC isn't managing that you want to move and there's nothing else in the directory.

[RoderickGI]

Okay MWillems beat me to one of my points. Turn off the "move all files" flag. That is your main issue.

I use the JTV recording format which always creates its own directory for each recording, so I don't see these sort of problems. However...

If you recording folder (H:\Temp-Recordings) is not watched, how do you use MC's "Rename, Move & Copy" tool to move the files? MC has to know about them to move them, so it needs to have imported them. Also, you are talking about XML Sidecar and JPG files in the temp recording folder, which then got moved to the Columbo folder in this case, then the recordings have definitely been imported, and metadata collected for them.

So I don't understand your workflow. Do you manually import the (H:\Temp-Recordings) folder before doing the moves? If so, do you wait long enough for the import to do everything, including collecting metadata? Otherwise you may interrupt the collection process.

I would just have MC watching the (H:\Temp-Recordings) folder, and then move them later. If you want to keep them separate then perhaps you should modify your views to exclude that directory, or use an approval process such as described here by BLGentry, with the variation suggested by Glynor.

[CountryBumkin]

So I don't understand your workflow. Do you manually import the (H:\Temp-Recordings) folder before doing the moves? If so, do you wait long enough for the import to do everything, including collecting metadata? Otherwise you may interrupt the collection process.

I would just have MC watching the (H:\Temp-Recordings) folder, and then move them later. If you want to keep them separate then perhaps you should modify your views to exclude that directory, or use an approval process such as described here by BLGentry, with the variation suggested by Glynor.

I let the TV episodes collect in the "Temp-Recordings" folder all week (maybe two weeks). The folder is not "watched" but the shows are still seen by MC and they are listed/shown in Theater View in their correct series/season groups. It looks like MC automatically "watches" the "recorded TV" folder (although it is not the same as the "watched" folders under "Library & Folders" since the recorded TV folder does not have the Analyze Audio and Get Movie & TV Info, applied.

Then at the end of the week, or the end of the next week, I go to the "Temp-Recordings" folder and manually move (using RM&C tool) the TV episodes to their permanent folders (e.g. "TV-Shows\Series" folder). The "H:\TV-Shows\Series" folder is "watched" so once the files are moved these folders that would trigger the "Get Movie & TV Info" tool and the "Analyze Audio" to do its thing.

Here's a look at the files (top two. The files below the top two have already been moved) as they are recorded, before I move them. You can see that they have the Series name, Season Number, Episode Number, etc. from the EPG data.



The reason I do it this way, is because sometimes the TV Shows have wrong data (wrong episode numbers or season numbers) so I like to review the data before saving it to a permanent location.

[CountryBumkin]

If you move the .ts without the "move all files" option checked it will bring the sidecar and the .jpg if MC created them (MC keeps track of helper files and moves them automatically).  

I didn't know this - this is the key. Thanks

[mwillems]

I didn't know this - this is the key. Thanks

It's counterintuitive, but true.  I actually think there's a bug there that I've reported a few times, but I'm not sure the devs agree it's a bug: specifically if you're renaming a file with helper files and have the "move all files" box checked, MC will move rename and move the parent file, but will only move and not rename the helper files.  If you want the helper files to be moved and renamed correctly, you need to leave the move all files box unchecked, which (as you can probably appreciate) was not fully expected behavior for me.

I haven't tested that recently (and can't right now) so it's possible that wrinkle has been fixed, but that's the other reason I never check the box unless I have a verified need.

[RoderickGI]

It looks like MC automatically "watches" the "recorded TV" folder

Ah yes, of course. That is the part of the puzzle I was missing. I should have realised. Thanks CB.