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[Vissian]

Is there anyway to use the absolute episode number from theTVDB instead of the default order within the season? Or to have it imported into some filed? I don't see it being imported into any of the fields to do a quick & simple field copy.

[BartMan01]

You need to create a custom library field for that. I created one called 'Episode Order' and I use that for my primary sort on TV shows since I have at least one (Firefly) that aired out of order on TV.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Fields

[Vissian]

I have used custom fields for many of other things. I'll try to get more specific in what I'm asking about.

TheTVDB site has an entry for each episode called "Absolute Number", which references the actual episode number it was aired, regardless of season. This is most common in anime shows (or at least I have several that are numbered this way). A great example is Bleach, which even has the Absolute Number [AN] in their opening credits! Since TheTVDB decided to use the S#E# format as the primary structure, anytime I have an episode in the AN format, the "Get Movie & TV info" doesn't work because the AN format is ignored in the query to TheTVDB as far as I can tell. Wikipedia typically utilizes the AN format for these shows as well (which is where I get the actual title names).

Another annoyance is the automatic importing takes the first number from the episode number and makes it the season number. For example: "Series - 420 - Title.mp4" gets assigned to season 4 and episode 20; it's actually season 19 and episode 420. Probably can use some logical expression to handle this upon import, but it is a minor annoyance compared to the "Get info" issue.

Updating a few thousand episodes is quite tedious, and frustrating when the data is readily available. Some of these animes are several hundred episodes and still counting!

[6233638]

I've requested this in the past, so +1
 
Media Center should be pulling down both the "Aired Order" and the "Absolute Order" to separate fields, with absolute order taking priority for sorting.
There have been a number of shows where I've had to manually fix this, and it's not a fun job.
 
Additionally: what are we supposed to do about specials?
I recently added a show which had some "special episodes" and I couldn't figure out a way for MC to download the information for them.

[Hendrik]

Media Center should be pulling down both the "Aired Order" and the "Absolute Order" to separate fields, with absolute order taking priority for sorting.

We could probably pull that info in somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be filled reliably everwhere, especially when it comes to in-season full episodic specials (like Doctor Who Christmas Specials)
What your views sort by is your own choice though, really.

The question also is when those fields are filled and/or changed. When a show originally airs in one order, and is then released in another order on DVD/BD, the Absolute Order may only then be changed to match the DVD order, and you wouldn't be any wiser, since you don't go around updating your shows all the time.

If we had such a field, we could also try to make it lookup over that if Season/Episode is not filled, which would probably work assuming that Absolute Order and Season/Episode never desync - but given the example above, I think it could possibly desync at some point, which would leave the question - what do I prefer for lookup, absolute or S/E? Probably S/E, since thats what we've used for ever, and its not going to change for existing episodes, while the example suggests Absolute might.

At least you could fill Absolute using the "Fill from Filename" tool and then lookup over that, making the whole process a bit easier.

Additionally: what are we supposed to do about specials?
I recently added a show which had some "special episodes" and I couldn't figure out a way for MC to download the information for them.

TheTVDB sorts specials into Season 0, so find out the Ep number to go with that, and it can pull info for that.
With specials not filling Absolute Order either, that unfortunately cannot really be automated any.

[6233638]

Actually, looking over this again (re-ripping one of my discs) the issue is not quite what I remembered.
It's not simply that the episode numbers are wrong, it's that Media Center is assigning the wrong information to each file.
 
It looks like TVDB has three ways of organizing episode data:
 

• Aired Order
• DVD Order
• Absolute Order

I'm not sure how/when DVD/Absolute order would differ, as they seem to be the same for every show that I've checked.
However Aired Order - which MC uses - quite often differs from the DVD or Absolute order.
An example of that would be Firefly: Aired Order / DVD Order
 
If the "Aired Order" differs from the DVD or Absolute order, it is typically because the broadcaster scheduled them out of order for whatever reason, and then the DVD release has them in the order that was originally intended by the show's creator.
 
The result is that when I ripped the Firefly Blu-rays, all of the episodes were in the correct order on the discs, but then Media Center used the "Aired Order" for its data and all the episode information (names/descriptions/thumbnails etc.) was completely wrong.
 
So it's not just an issue of the numbers/sort order being wrong, all the information for the show is wrong.
And no-one is going to have the "aired order" stored on their PC, so it should be using the dvd/absolute order for its data.

[Hendrik]

So it's not just an issue of the numbers/sort order being wrong, all the information for the show is wrong.
And no-one is going to have the "aired order" stored on their PC, so it should be using the dvd/absolute order for its data.

How is that? When I record a show when it aired, then I'll have it stored like that on the PC.

Are you trying to argue that everyone will only ever have DVD/BD versions of shows on their PC, and broadcast doesn't exist? :p
In fact, the Aired Order is how shows come to be first. At the time of airing, you do not know if that is the correct or final order that the shows will have on the DVD.

There is no way for MC to know which order to use, as there is no way to really know if the source is broadcast or optical - and I'm most definitely not going to change the default.
On top of that, TheTVDB uses the Aired Order as their primary order field as well, not the DVD order, not the Absolute Order, so someone over there must disagree with you as well.

Judging from my TV show library, and from other people that I commonly talk to about such things, watching and archiving things after they aired are far more common than DVD/BD archival.

[Bizarroterl]

For most episodes Hendrik is right. Firefly and Bleach are exceptions to this.

Ideally MC would have a default look up of First Aired Date.  Then by series a optional look up could be defined so that shows like Firefly could be set to DVD and Bleach to Absolute.

[Hendrik]

Yes, some shows have different aired and dvd order, I have Firefly Blu-rays myself and had to manually fix them, but thats not the point.
The point is, broadcast order is as valid as the dvd order. There is no way to know which order the user put the files in.

If anything, we could possibly add a checkbox when running manual lookups to switch to dvd order.

But the original topic of this thread was for Animes which typically don't use Season/Ep numbering at all but stick to Absolute order, which is a different topic entirely.

[flac.rules]

How is that? When I record a show when it aired, then I'll have it stored like that on the PC.

Are you trying to argue that everyone will only ever have DVD/BD versions of shows on their PC, and broadcast doesn't exist? :p
In fact, the Aired Order is how shows come to be first. At the time of airing, you do not know if that is the correct or final order that the shows will have on the DVD.

There is no way for MC to know which order to use, as there is no way to really know if the source is broadcast or optical - and I'm most definitely not going to change the default.
On top of that, TheTVDB uses the Aired Order as their primary order field as well, not the DVD order, not the Absolute Order, so someone over there must disagree with you as well.

Judging from my TV show library, and from other people that I commonly talk to about such things, watching and archiving things after they aired are far more common than DVD/BD archival.

I haven't seen this problem very often, do you have any examples of TV-seriers where the order is different, and the aired order is preferred?

[flac.rules]

Yes, some shows have different aired and dvd order, I have Firefly Blu-rays myself and had to manually fix them, but thats not the point.
The point is, broadcast order is as valid as the dvd order. There is no way to know which order the user put the files in.

If anything, we could possibly add a checkbox when running manual lookups to switch to dvd order.

But the original topic of this thread was for Animes which typically don't use Season/Ep numbering at all but stick to Absolute order, which is a different topic entirely.

Ah, ok, now i get your point, even if DVD order might be "right" from the series creator perspective, the episodes can be named on a numbering based on the TV_order, so the wrong  metadata will be downloaded for the episode?

[Hendrik]

Ah, ok, now i get your point, even if DVD order might be "right" from the series creator perspective, the episodes can be named on a numbering based on the TV_order, so the wrong  metadata will be downloaded for the episode?

Yes. How do I know which order was used to name the files? It could be an old broadcast recording, and I'm just trying to refresh metadata, or something.
Not everyone buys DVDs or BDs of every show.

[Bizarroterl]

There is a file renaming program that allows you to use the 3 different orders.  It's called filebot.  At least you could get them named as you like.  Even properly named though, MC still just uses the season/episode #.

Media Center Master will generate sidecar files but it too only uses aired order so that's not an option.

[Hendrik]

An option to switch the lookup to DVD order for manual lookups is certainly not out of the question. It would mostly solve this particular problem, I guess.

[flac.rules]

Well, I don't know if my vote counts for much, but DVD order seems better, as it has a higher chance of being what the creator wanted, and I don't have any TV-channels

[Bizarroterl]

I know Kodi allows aired or DVD in their lookups, but it's at a more global level.

Firefly is the most often mentioned series for DVD order but as it is a limited number of episodes most just do the manual edits and call it a day.

[mwillems]

An option to switch the lookup to DVD order for manual lookups is certainly not out of the question. It would mostly solve this particular problem, I guess.

This would make me very happy. Most of my TV for retention comes from DVDs or Blu-Ray, and the DVD order is (at least with the kind of content I'm mostly interacting with) rarely the same as the aired order, so I'm constantly flipping back and forth doing the renumbering by hand to avoid downloading the wrong data.  An option to switch which order the tool uses would make my day.

In my experience, older TV shows (60's and 70's) and cartoons are rarely packaged in aired order.

[6233638]

How is that? When I record a show when it aired, then I'll have it stored like that on the PC.
Are you trying to argue that everyone will only ever have DVD/BD versions of shows on their PC, and broadcast doesn't exist? :p

Don't recordings use EPG data?
Perhaps MC could use "aired data" for whatever format it is recording to? (jtv?)
 
Anything imported externally, i.e. Blu-ray/DVD rips would make more sense to use the DVD order.
I think it's really only edge-cases where this applies anyway. The majority of new content matches for both.

[Vissian]

But the original topic of this thread was for Animes which typically don't use Season/Ep numbering at all but stick to Absolute order, which is a different topic entirely.

Thanks for trying to bring it back on topic!

Most of the Animes I have still group story arcs by season, but the absolute order for episodes is key when watching and sorting the show. Ultimately, when I'm done with manual updates, MC is configured with a Season subgroup and ordered by episode number. I'll probably have to reevaluate this at some point, since a handful of media server clients I use (PS4 & Chromecast primarily), only utilize the Name field for displaying content from the MC media server.

Perhaps an option to allow the users to assign which imported fields are mapped to the MC fields (with the default mappings being what is already in place)? Obviously, this function would have to be configured to import all the data fields from TheTVDB (or any source) instead of the current field choices. Something akin to checkboxes next to the field to enable/disable import, and then a "map to field" dropdown for each.