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[syndromeofadown]

Hello all

I'm new to TV shows that aren't DVDs ripped to hard disc folder.
I ripped a season to MKV with 22 episodes but TVDB shows it as 20 episodes plus a two part Special.
These specials are shown as episode "Special".

How do I get MC to add metadata from TVDB to these Special files?

Thanks

[blgentry]

For the very few of these that I have, it appears that you can use Season 0, or Season "Special" and MC will find the right information.  I believe that TheTVDB classifies all Specials as their own Season for lookups.

Brian.

[syndromeofadown]

Thanks blgentry.

I tried all sorts of variations of episodes and seasons but in the end found a way that got the info.
I used season 2 and episodes 0.1 and 0.2 since they aired at the beginning of season 2.
I copied and pasted the episode name from TVDB into the name field in MC then re-scraped/looked up.
All other fields were filled in correctly and the episode numbers remained 0.1 and 0.2.
Negative numbers instead of decimals would likely have the same results.

[RoderickGI]

The best method is always to look up what has been done on TheTVDB for the series, and use the same method. Some series are handled differently to others, until someone fixes them by changing them to match the rules. The rules are Season is 00, episode in the sequence number in which they were shown, from memory. The rules are on the web site somewhere.

It is a bit strange to see that your solution worked. What Series was that?

[syndromeofadown]

It is a bit strange to see that your solution worked. What Series was that?

Star Wars Rebels Season 2.

[blgentry]

That's really weird.  Season 2, Episode 0.1 doesn't work at all on my system.  Season 0 episode 12 is "The Seige of Lothal", which I think is the episode in question.  That works fine.

Brian.

[syndromeofadown]

Season 0 episode 12 is "The Seige of Lothal"

Correct.
Thanks, I get it now. I have never noticed Season 0 on TVDB.

In this case, not sure if it's typical, The Seige of Lothal is also shown in season 2 as episode Special.

When I scraped it I used:
Series: Star Wars - Rebels
Season: 02
Episode: 0.1 and 0.2
Name: The Seige of Lothal

Just tested again and it worked fine.
I don't check "overwrite existing values" when scraping which explains why my episodes stayed how I had them.
I tried with the option checked and it changed to season 0 episode 12.

So it looks like there are 2 ways to do specials:
1 - paste the episode name into MC
2 - use season 0 and episode as shown on TVDB

I like 1 because I want the episodes to be shown in season 2 in the correct order.

My tagging may be different than most because I use tag on import to fill series, season, episode, and genre.
I also manually add art as folder.jpg before importing.

[RoderickGI]

I think you got a match because the episode numbers were invalid, so MC fell back to using the Series name and Episode Name to look up TheTVDB. That functionality was added a while back, so that Season and Episode numbers can be blank or zero, and the lookup will still work as long as the Series and Episodes names are correct.

Also, if you had already had successful lookups of TheTVDB for the series "Star Wars - Rebels", then MC would have saved the tag "TheTVDB ID" for the series, and used that to select the correct series, and then just match the Episode Name.

But if your process works for you, then carry on using it. It is actually a pretty good idea, because having all the Specials in Season 00, out of sequence, can be very annoying. Doctor Who has a lot of that, and it can change the storyline if you miss a Special, or watch it out of sequence. Of course I could create a View that sorted by [Date], which is almost always correctly set to the date first aired. But then I would lose the value of the Season and Episode sorting in MC.