Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[elprice7345]

Can the logic for Carnac and Fill Properties From Filename be improved to handle the following cases?

Filename: “Once Upon a Time (2011)-S06E10-Wish You Were Here.ts”

Carnac and “Fill properties …” should recognize and parse this as:
•   Series: Once Upon a Time (2011)
•   Season: 6
•   Episode: 10
•   Name: Wish You Were Here

Fill properties parses this as:
•   Name: Once Upon a Time
•   Date 2011

It looks like Carnac is interpreting the file name as a movie title.

The TVDB has a number of series with parentheticals in the series title most often representing the year, sometimes the country.

[BartMan01]

I second this request, I am seeing the same issue with files titled as follows:
SeriesName (Year) - SxxExx - Episode Name.

It puts the SeriesName in the 'Name' field and nothing in series, season, or episode fields. I have to use the 'fill properties from filename' feature to fix everything.

[elprice7345]

Can this be worked into the development queue?

It seems like a very small fix, but would make life much easier for many of us.

[Matt]

Coming next build:
NEW: Carnac understands the naming "SeriesName (Year) - S3E12 - Episode Name" for a TV episode.

[elprice7345]

Thanks!

[fitbrit]

Thanks!

Thank you too, for a polite and concise request with clear information and examples. That's the way to make things easy if you want help (if you can be helped). I hope others take note (including me!).
And thanks again, Matt, as well.

[glynor]

2. NEW: Carnac understands the naming "Series Name (Year) - S3E12 - Episode Name" for a TV episode.

This may cause issues. Many series are tagged in TVDB as [Series Name] = Blah blah blah (Original Year).

Such as:
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=73545

[CountryBumkin]

This may cause issues. Many series are tagged in TVDB as [Series Name] = Blah blah blah (Original Year).

Such as:
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=73545

Isn't that the idea - to separate out the different series when they have the same name (e.g. "The Odd Couple" from 1970 and "The Odd Couple (2015)"?

[leezer3]

That's how I understand it.

If so, great 

-Leezer-

[glynor]

Isn't that the idea - to separate out the different series when they have the same name (e.g. "The Odd Couple" from 1970 and "The Odd Couple (2015)"?

Maybe. But that might take a bunch more work, unless I misunderstand what was added.

The issue is this: Battlestar Galactica (the reimagined series) is listed in TVDB as [Series] = "Battlestar Galactica (2003)". If you have your series set to that in MC, it "just works" (without needing anything new at all).

However, that series had episodes through multiple years. Only the first season was in 2003. So, if Carnac is filling [Year] then my Episode dates will be wrong. Or, if the lookup fills [Date] (as it does) then the [Year] tag will get immediately overwritten.

Or, maybe I misunderstand what Matt added here. I assumed that it was changed so Carnac would parse something like:
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - S3E12 - Episode Name

As:
[Series]: Battlestar Galactica
[Year]: 2003
[Season]: 2
[Episode]: 12
[Name]: Episode Name

Perhaps that's not what Matt meant? Perhaps it was already doing that, and so was driving people crazy? Not sure. I don't like to have those years in my [Series] tags, so I always used the function that fills the TVDB Series ID (by doing the search manually once on one episode of a particular series) and then I could name the [Series] whatever I wanted.

[Hendrik]

There is nothing new here, just a new specific pattern that Carnac understands. Series with a year in their TVDB name are handled the same way they always have been (basically: not)

[glynor]

Right, but what is the pattern?

Does the new pattern fill [Year] or not fill [Year]?

If it fills [Year] then it'll mess up the TVDB lookup for all of those series, when people do it the "year way" (which, as I said, I don't do). If, instead, it used to fill the [Year], then this is probably trying to fix that issue, and all is good and right with the world.

[Hendrik]

Year is not consulted for looking up shows, so I don't see how its relevant if its filled or not.

[glynor]

Year is not consulted for looking up shows, so I don't see how its relevant if its filled or not.

Yes. My concern, and the point of my original post, was exactly because [Year] is not used for looking up shows.

If Carnac recognizes components of a filename, they get "stripped out". So, if [Year] is recognized in that kind of filename, it will remove that text on import from [Series]. It will go only in [Year], and so then won't be used for looking up those shows.

When you import the file called:
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - s03e10 - Some episode title.mkv

It will import as [Series] = "Battlestar Galactica" and not as "Battlestar Galactica (2003)". [Year] will contain "2003" but that won't be helpful because the lookup doesn't use [Year].

Therefore, the lookup on TVDB will not fail, it will match the wrong show, and will match an episode in the original series. Hence, my concern and my post.

Also, it shouldn't fill [Year] in any case, because in filenames, this is almost always the year the series was launched. While [Year] in MC refers to and is filled with the date the episode aired (once it gets its metadata anyway). So this information (if parsed by Carnac) is wrong anyway, and it sure should not be used for metadata lookup for this same reason.

Again, I might be misinterpreting Matt's build notes there. He very well could be saying "Carnac was fixed so the year is NOT stripped out anymore and [Year] is left unfilled for these files, so that it works with the lookup, and because it isn't the right year anyway." But that's hard to interpret from what he wrote, and I don't have any good test cases right now, and I've been busy working on some other nonsense, so I didn't make any fake ones.

[Hendrik]

Like I said above, its not any new behavior, just a new pattern that gets recognized - this specific pattern mentioned in the notes. We've had plenty patterns that include a year before. There is no special magic that you seem to assume, and definitely not anything new - just an additional specific pattern because someone had theirs named like that and Carnac didn't recognize it at all before (no Season/Episode info or anything).

[elprice7345]

Not in 22.0.59. Next release?

[CountryBumkin]

Not in 22.0.59. Next release?

Yes

[glynor]

I was busy with a project for a bit, so I didn't come back to this until tonight, so I split it out. Multi-build discussion it is, I guess.

It seems like you're misunderstanding me, Hendrik. This does have unintended consequences, and I've now tested it and I can prove it. Actually, something in this has been broken for quite some time. I just don't use the original-airing-date-based Series naming method (as I mentioned above) so I never noticed. In any case, what you were trying to fix in Carnac with this change is not actually fixed (but worse in some ways) and it did work perfectly in MC previously (but does not in prior builds of MC22 I tried, or even the final build of MC21).

I guess I'll show, not tell.

I understand quite well that you have other patterns that identify years, in Movies for example. If I import a file Moana (2016).mkv, which is of a sufficient length and type to get classified as a Movie, MC will import it with the following detail:
[Name]: Moana
[Year]: 2016
[Media Sub Type]: Movie

It will then look up that movie in TMDB and will fill the rest of the metadata. Okay, that's good.

Now, how about this. I import the file: Battlestar Galactica - s01e06 - Episode 6.mkv
This comes in as:
[Series]: Battlestar Galactica
[Season]: 1
[Episode]: 6

Which matches the original series (1978) episode The Lost Warrior, and gets metadata from TVDB as such. Okay, this is still good.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I import the file:
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - s1e06 - Episode 6.mkv

This should match the newer "reimagined" series, season 1, episode 6, titled Litmus. That is what is intended by that filename:
[Series]: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
[Season]: 1
[Episode]: 6
[Year/Date]: not filled

And, in MC 20.0.130, that is exactly what happens:


Looked up the right info in TVDB. All is good and right with the world. Now, notice, I need the "(2003)" part to be part of the [Series] tag. It can't be in the [Date] (or [Year]) tag because:

1. I need it to be part of the [Series] tag because that's how TVDB stores that series versus the original one. And...
2. That's not what [Date] is used for on TV Show episodes in any case. The 2003 in this case means "the year the first-ever episode of this particular series first aired, to distinguish it between the "1978 version of Battlestar Galactica, and the newer one". [Date] gets set to the date the episode itself originally aired, which for a Season 4 episode will be in 2008 or 2009, not 2003. Notice, even in my screenshot above, that s1e06 of the "2003" Battlestar Galactica has a [Year] of 2005 (you can see it in the tooltip). Because the "first full season" of BSG didn't air until a couple years after the "Miniseries" that started it back up (which was in 2003).

Okay. As I show above, in MC 20.0.130, it works correctly. I knew this to be the case because I went through it with a fine-toothed comb with Matt back when Carnac was originally developed. I gave him all sorts of examples of Series that used years just like that and tested to make sure they worked.

It is all busted now, and has been for quite some time. I don't know what or when you did what you did to it to break it, but it doesn't work right as of MC 21.0.90. By then, if that same filename contains a (NNNN) string (where N is a digit), it freaks out. Now, it comes in:
[Name]: Battlestar Galactica
[Series]: Blank
[Season: Blank
[Episode]: Blank
[Date]: 2003



That broken behavior continues right up through today's public build (22.0.59).

So, as of MC 22.0.60, you've changed it, and half-way fixed it, but in some ways you actually just made it much worse.

If I take that same file, in versions after 22.0.60 and import it, I get...
[Series]: Battlestar Galactica
[Date]: 2003
[Season]: 1
[Episode]: 6

Which causes it to look up as? The episode I pointed to in the first case, of the 1978 series. So, when it does the TVDB lookup, it is NOT pointing to the "reimagined series" episode it should be, but actually to the episode The Lost Warrior again.


It looks up the wrong show, and tags it incorrectly.

The issue is that:

* You "fixed" the fact that it was breaking when [Series] titles contain what appears to be a Year, by making the rest of the [Series] and other tags properly parse again.

* But, in doing so, [Date] still gets populated with that "2003". It should never be getting that 2003, because that is the SERIES date, not the episode date. But, anyway, that's what you've been doing since back whenever you broke it.

* This, however, makes the lookup "succeed" but it strips the important "(2003)" out of the [Series] tag (as Carnac always does, when something matches, it gets removed from the "rest" of the results).

* And so, it only works if the Series you happen to be looking up is the "original". If it is any of the newer versions (tagged by year) then it will fail. Same would happen with things like Hawaii Five-O, or other series that have been remade.

I'm fairly positive that the "orignal sin" that caused the whole thing to break since MC 20 is that you, at some point, added [Date] parsing into the Carnac parsing for TV Shows at all. Probably thinking, as Hendrik posted here, what's the big deal, we parse that for movies. But those years in filenames for TV Show episodes are used for something different. They need to be part of the [Series] tag, not filled into the [Date] field. Putting them into [Date] never helps, and causes issues.

I didn't previously realize it had been broken for so long. That's why users are complaining, and that's what needs to be fixed. Put it back to how it was in MC 20.0.130, and all of those people complaining will be happy. What you've done here won't help anyone (and it is better to just have it break and throw up its hands).

[Hendrik]

It seems like you're misunderstanding me, Hendrik. This does have unintended consequences, and I've now tested it and I can prove it.

It seems like you are misunderstanding me. The key is that we have had patterns which parsed Year out for TV Shows for a long time already, so this new pattern doesn't imply any fundamental change - its just a new pattern, nothing else. We've parsed Years out and put them into [Date] before, so its just consistent with what we had  - although not all pattern do that, since some are more "generic" and may just recognize it as part of the series name since its not explicitly handled.

Common patterns are also more "unfriendly" to human readers, like, Show.Name.2003.S03E05.Episode.Name.mkv - at best you end up with "Show Name 2003", which is hardly a format anyone actually wants, I wager. But impossible for us to conclusively know if thats supposed to be a year, or maybe just part of the show name, since its not delimited properly.

You are free to request a change in the general behavior, the key point i've been making however is that its unrelated to Matts change, which just adds a new pattern to a long list we already had, which include Year parsing already today. There was no fundamental change or "fix", its just a new specific pattern for one specific file naming strategy. None of your files would change behavior at all, unless you named them *exactly* like that - in which case you might have complained before since Carnac didn't extract any information from them whatsoever.

TL;DR: the only consequence of the change in question is that files named like that now parse, while before they parsed *nothing*.

PS:
If you want to discuss fundamental behavior, don't start in a build thread, because otherwise we'll discuss it in the context of the recent changes, which is what seems to confuse you.

[glynor]

It seems like you are misunderstanding me. The key is that we have had patterns which parsed Year out for TV Shows for a long time already, so this new pattern doesn't imply any fundamental change - its just a new pattern, nothing else. We've parsed Years out and put them into [Date] before, so its just consistent with what we had  - although not all pattern do that, since some are more "generic" and may just recognize it as part of the series name since its not explicitly handled.

You didn't read. I know it was long, but read through what I wrote. But I'm not requesting anything new. You ARE parsing [Dates] in filenames for TV Shows. You didn't used to do this, but you are now and when you did that, it mucked everything all up, and it doesn't help anyway because that isn't the right date.

It worked correctly from when Carnac was started up until sometime during MC21's development. I can dig up the threads where I asked for exactly this way back when Carnac was new, and got it from Matt, before if you insist. I know we worked on exactly these issues, and... It worked right in MC 20.0.130 and earlier.

It has just been broken for a while and I didn't notice. Other people obviously have and have been complaining.

[glynor]

I also found that the current version still barfs (even in its bad state) on filenames with two digit Seasons.

This file:
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - s01e06 - Episode 6.mkv

Still comes in like the pre-22.0.60 builds as:
[Name]: Battlestar Galactica
[Series], [Season], [Episode]: Blank
[Date]: 2003

Whereas the same filename with "s1e06" works the "new" broken way, as shown above.

[Hendrik]

I read it, but if you read all my posts in this thread, you'll see that all I've been saying is that this behavior is consistent with MCs behavior today, so the new pattern works as expected under that premise. I have not once argued if that general behavior is correct or not. Consistency is important.

If there is a fundamental problem, it should be discussed outside of the recent change, otherwise the context gets skewed (ie. someone might think only the new pattern is broken) and finding and fixing it gets more confusing, as someone may focus on the wrong area (ie. the recent change instead of the fundamentals).

[glynor]

That's why I moved it to its own thread. I didn't think it would take this much discussion. I didn't know it was so badly broken for all this time.

As I said, I'm looking at it with the view that it was tuned properly for a long time (years and years) to work properly with these kinds of naming schemes. At some point, someone came along and thought: Huh, that's weird. We can parse Years in movies and whatnot, but we're not doing it in TV Shows. That's easy to put in. So it got added and it broke the metadata lookup for these kinds of shows.

What it is doing now is clearly broken. It imports data, yes, but the wrong data. It changes the episode title of the show to one that cannot exist. No episode of that series that the current build looks up ever aired in or had anything to do with 2003, so why would an episode tagged with a date in 2003, point to an episode from 1978?

You said:

at best you end up with "Show Name 2003", which is hardly a format anyone actually wants, I wager.

That is exactly what would be intended by that filename, and would do the lookup correctly in TVDB, which is (after all) the whole point in the first place. Carnac was designed to be used with the Automatic Metadata lookup process, which uses TVDB. Which, for TV Shows with versions like that, uses this format:
Series Title (YYYY)

Where YYYY is the year first episode of the "version" of the show first aired. And, frankly, that's what all the filenames "out there" mean if you download them from somewhere you shouldn't.

You don't have to conform to continue to store them that way, because MC will also set the TVDB Series ID as a relational field when you look up the very first episode of a particular series. That's what I generally do... But it did at one time, and should again, work for shows like this.

Dates in TV Show episode filenames, at least those that are only four-digit years, should always be passed over (at least if it would otherwise parse as part of the [Series] tag).

As they say in the show... All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. 

[glynor]

I also found that the current version still barfs (even in its bad state) on filenames with two digit Seasons.

Worth noting that this is also relatively new behavior. It always worked with zero-padded [Season] fields in the filename before...

[astromo]

glynor, thanks for the historical background on this one. Very enlightening ... as always.

I lost track of whether Carnac had been working reliably in the past. And as you point out, if a reimagined series with a year in [Series] as listed on TVDB is imported, Carnac borks. All I'm getting is the original series name landing in the [Name] field and nothing else.

I've had to work around this by setting up a manual template for F12 (using your example), when that template is set to:
   [Series] - S[Season]E[Episode] - [Name]
[Series] is picked up correctly with the year included for a reimagined series.

Regardless of the whys and wherefores all a simple, non-beta user is going to see from this is - MC doesn't work.

And I'd agree that this is one for the devs to address. If I could be allowed to presume to speak with the voice of a simple, non-beta user, I reckon they'd have a view of, "I don't care how it's fixed, just fix it please."

[BartMan01]

I also found that the current version still barfs (even in its bad state) on filenames with two digit Seasons.

This file:
Battlestar Galactica (2003) - s01e06 - Episode 6.mkv

Still comes in like the pre-22.0.60 builds as:
[Name]: Battlestar Galactica
[Series], [Season], [Episode]: Blank
[Date]: 2003

Whereas the same filename with "s1e06" works the "new" broken way, as shown above.

I am seeing the same thing. The file pattern "Series (Year) - sxxexx - Episode Name" does not parse properly at all. I get the same thing glynor is seeing with 'Series' being the name and the series/season/episode information being blank. I have some shows that get automatically named that way when recorded from another source and I have to manually deal with it when pulling it in. In my case I can't even get the 'fill properties from filename' to work properly since I can't figure out a way to get it to ignore the (Year) part of the string for series where (Year) is not important or wanted.

[BartMan01]

Just tested .65 with tonight's Agents of SHIELD recorded outside of MC in the "Series (Year) - sxxexx - Episode Name" format. It imported correctly pulling in the correct name, series, season, and episode. Didn't check date before I grabbed the metadata.

[elprice7345]

I just upgraded to 22.0.65 and it still doesn't work for me.

I imported the file "The Flash (2014)-S03E10-Borrowing Problems from the Future.ts" and MC still doesn't fill in series, season or episode.

Fill Properties from filename still doesn't fill those fields either.

Am I missing something?

[glynor]

There has been a whole thread in the Beta board about this. I've been waiting for them to make it public before moving it over. Hold on...

[glynor]

I merged the two threads. Re-read through the threads here to see what has been going on.

[BartMan01]

I imported the file "The Flash (2014)-S03E10-Borrowing Problems from the Future.ts" and MC still doesn't fill in series, season or episode.

The lack of spaces may be the issue. It may need to be tweaked to match without the spaces in there. It is working for me on "SeriesName (Year) - SxxExx - Name" with the space before and after the "-".

[elprice7345]

Any plans to adjust the logic to fulfill my original request?

[elprice7345]

Can I get someone to fix this? I made the request on 12/5/16.

I've been a loyal subscriber for many years and his is one of the few improvement request I've made.

Thanks!

[glynor]

I'm interested as well.

[elprice7345]

I tested a few different scenarios with mixed results.

Why does “Fill properties from filename” work for:
•   The Flash (2014)-S03E14-Attack on Central City (2).ts

Doesn’t work for:
•   The Magicians (2015)-S02E06-Cock Barrens, The.ts
•   Taboo (2017)-S01E08-Episode 8.ts
•   Aftermath (2016)-S01E01-RVL 6768.mpg
•   America's National Parks (2015)-S01E01-Olympic.mpg
•   The Americans (2013)-S02E01-Comrades.mpg
•   …

Carnac seems to work if a second “(“ is found.

[elprice7345]

Still waiting ...  ?

4 months and counting ... this is a small fix ... a simple Regex adjustment

[lepa]

In addition to those year problems also this fails.

Silent Witness - S15E06 - some epname 2-2 - 2017-04-02

[lepa]

This one fails too.
..\Doctor Who (2005)\Season 10\Doctor Who (2005) - S10E05 - Oxygen.mkv

[elprice7345]

Still waiting ...  ?

6 months and counting ... this is a small fix ... a simple Regex adjustment

[Matt]

Coming in the first build of MC23:
NEW: Carnac understands files by the naming: Series (Year)-S#E#-Name.ext.

[elprice7345]

Whoo hooo!! Already paid for the upgrade!

[Ashfall]

Coming in the first build of MC23:
NEW: Carnac understands files by the naming: Series (Year)-S#E#-Name.ext.

Thank you!