Question about TV episode titles

[Cartographer]

First off, I want to say this is great software.  I've imported all of my movies, and it works very well as a centralized database for those.  The only place I'm having trouble is in the importation of TV shows.  It's bringing them in easily, but it always lists the individual episodes in the following way, "#1.01", "#1.02", etc. and placing the actual title of the episode as the "Original Title."

I desperately need to know how to channel the "original title" field data into the "title" field.  I have quite a few episodes stored, so doing it manually isn't really feasible.  If anyone can give me any assistance, it would be greatly appreciated.  This is really a pretty minor nitpick on a well-constructed piece of software, but it's one that's been bugging me lately.

[rick.ca]

Welcome, Cartographer.

If memory serves me, when a series is first added, that's how the episodes are initially named—because no episode information is available at the series level. You would then update the episodes—normally by selecting all the episodes of a season that need updating, and running the plugin. I suspect your field overwrite settings do not specify that the Title be overwritten. Original title is probably been recorded because there was nothing there previously.

[Cartographer]

Thanks, Rick.  That seemed to take care of the problem.  I changed the "title" checkbox to a checkmark, and everything seems to be coming in correctly now.

One other question, is there anyway I can get it to read the "folder.jpg" picture that's in the season directory as the image I want to use for each of the episodes in that directory?  I can do it one at a time, but not all at once.

[rick.ca]

I don't think so. But the same image for every episode? How dull! Consider selecting Take one screenshot to use as poster.

[Cartographer]

Will give it a try.  Thanks!

[Cartographer]

I have another question about the TVDB plugin.  As far as I can tell, I can only select one season of one television show at a time for the TVDB plugin to analyze.  So, I'm not sure why I have to manually select the TV show, using the "Select Movie" box, for every episode I want to put through the plug-in.  Am I doing something wrong, or was it built this way on purpose?

Another suggestion, having to do with the IMDB plug-in, would be to alphabetize the series as they come in.  Most of the time, it lists the proper series/episode at the top, but I've repeatedly found it incredibly difficult to find the correct series when doing an IMDB scan for the pilot episode of a series.  Almost every first episode of a series seems to be named "Pilot", and they are in no discernible order when displayed.

[rick.ca]

Am I doing something wrong, or was it built this way on purpose?

Neither. I suspect the program works that way because for other sources a search is required to get the selected episodes. In the case of TheTVDb, I believe it's API only facilitates the retrieval of information for all episodes at once. So, hopefully, the plugin can be be changed so this step is skipped. In the meantime, you might find it less annoying to update the entire series, rather than selected episodes.

Similarly, the IMDb plugin should first be run on the series record. It will add all existing episodes and their URL's. Then, when individual episodes are updated, the URL is used and a search is not necessary. Searching for episode titles is highly ineffective, even if the name is not "Pilot."

[Cartographer]

Am I doing something wrong, or was it built this way on purpose?

Neither. I suspect the program works that way because for other sources a search is required to get the selected episodes. In the case of TheTVDb, I believe it's API only facilitates the retrieval of information for all episodes at once. So, hopefully, the plugin can be be changed so this step is skipped. In the meantime, you might find it less annoying to update the entire series, rather than selected episodes.

Similarly, the IMDb plugin should first be run on the series record. It will add all existing episodes and their URL's. Then, when individual episodes are updated, the URL is used and a search is not necessary. Searching for episode titles is highly ineffective, even if the name is not "Pilot."

When I'm bringing in a new series, I go through the following steps.  Import the series.  Do a TVDB import on the overall series itself, then an IMDB import on the overall series.  Then, I do a TVDB import on each season, followed by an IMDB import on that season, which fills in the various episodes of that season.  As you said, sometimes the TVDB import gives an IMDB link, which speeds the process along.  Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to happen often enough.

[rick.ca]

Similarly, the IMDb plugin should first be run on the series record. It will add all existing episodes and their URL's.

Sorry, this is probably inaccurate. If memory serves me, it's necessary to add the series first, and then update each season separately (and only then is the episode URL added—along with the other data). Please correct me if I'm wrong—it's been a while since I've paid attention to what it's doing.

I think the problem with your routine is it assumes TheTVDb plugin works the same way. As I mentioned, it doesn't. Try updating the entire series in the manner you describe, but with IMDb only. When that's complete, update the series record with TheTVDb plugin. Unless I'm missing something, that should add whatever additional information you're seeking (I use it for episode descriptions) for all episodes—without requiring any user interaction.

The annoyance comes later when you just want to update a few (e.g., released since last update) episodes. Then the choice is to update the whole series again (which takes longer), or confirm that each episode "found" belongs to the series (which, of course, they all do).

[darichman]

I'm also getting the hand of importing all my TV shows into the program.
So far I have all my files imported and listed under correct Season/Episode numbers with titles from TheTVDb.

Like you, it seems the best way to do this was to enter just the series titles (ie no actual files or episode entries) into PVD first, then run the TVDb import plugin to get all the episode name and number listings (I find these much more accurate than IMDb), and finally, to do a file import. The program was reasonably good then at matching the season/episode numbers of the files to the correct entries in PVD. I still went through and manually checked them all, however!

I have another question about the TVDB plugin.  As far as I can tell, I can only select one season of one television show at a time for the TVDB plugin to analyze.  So, I'm not sure why I have to manually select the TV show, using the "Select Movie" box, for every episode I want to put through the plug-in.  Am I doing something wrong, or was it built this way on purpose?

Now I'm halfway through importing episode metadata from IMDb. I agree it is often a bit painful not being able to queue episodes from multiple series/seasons. I have to do it in small batches limited by season. Is there any chance of making it so Shift+Clicking across multiple series might also select the individual episode entries to facilitate lookup?

[rick.ca]

Is there any chance of making it so Shift+Clicking across multiple series might also select the individual episode entries to facilitate lookup?

I assume you mean multiple seasons—there's always a chance, but probably not before you're finished. Maybe you'd like to hold off on updating things like ER (15 seasons) and Law & Order (19 seasons).

[darichman]

Well series or seasons I guess... once I have all the correct imdb URL's, I'd love to be able to just run the whole lot every month or so to update the information. You'd be surprised at how lazy I can be sometimes.

It's a good thing I don't have ER and Law and Order then
I do have a lot of Star Trek to look forward to...

[rick.ca]

I got bored with Law & Order many years ago. I decided to watch some current episodes recently—mainly to answer the burning question, "Why the heck is this still running?" So, of course, I had to add and update the previous 18 seasons—one at a time!

For periodic updates of existing series, it would be nice if the currently running season could be flagged, and then plugins automatically update those seasons when the series record is updated. I suppose a more direct way to implement that would be to add the option for the plugin to always update the last season when the series record is updated.