[spiff]

those can be used, but it wont be added by default. wait for the configuration possibilities.

[Livin]

Maybe taking a 'survey' of how people sort/store the files is good to give Spiff an idea of what is most popular?

I do this...

<SMB share root> : temp shows, will be deleted after watching
|-- <Show Type> : Educational, Comedy, etc
|-- <Show Name>
|-- <Season> : if it has a season... some like BBC specials do not
|-- <File> : Episode # - Episode Name; example = "04 - War on Drugs.avi"


I see no reason to have long filenames with the show name and season if the DB is going to track everything and we are going to browse via the DB, graphically.

[J_K_M_A_N]

Well, I do it that way because I also look through them on my PC. If I only used them on the xbox I would store them differently.

Thanks Spiff.

J_K_M_A_N

[Gir_Ver_2.0]

Ouch.. What have I started hehe sorry Spiff....

[tvdb-scott]

People, just change your files so they make sense and will work with how spiff has things set up. I have far more shows than I care to admit and it didn't take me very long to rename them. Try a renaming utility to make things easier.

For the most compatibility between all the different HTPC software out there, I'd suggest naming them as "{Series Name}\Season {SeasonNum}\{Series Name} - S{SeasonNum}E{EpisodeNum} - {EpisodeName}". From setting up my site, I've dealt with the 3 most popular HTPC plugins/scrapers and 4-5 smaller software packages as well. This format seems to be supported by everything.

I did have my episodes named as "{Series Name}\Season {SeasonNum}\{EpisodeNum} - {EpisodeName}", which worked well for browsing in file mode, but had to rename since the scraper didn't support it. It really doesn't take much to rename everything.

[Gir_Ver_2.0]

Except that the S04E13 is a retarded naming scheme. it's actually intuative that Simpsons - 603 - (episode name) refers to the sixth season and the third episode. Besides noone is suggesting that Spiff alter things, in fact my thing was on how I should alter the program to read my way and then a few posts later Spiff stated that he would make it customizable (the way the world should be).

[Gir_Ver_2.0]

Scratch the retarded remark.. it's just unnatural and inconvenient.

[zerojay]

After updating this morning, almost all my problems with the TV Shows database has disappeared. This is really the killer feature I was waiting for. Huge thanks to the entire XBMC team, especially Spiff.

I think I might have found a few corner cases though.

1) The IT Crowd

The show was on the air for six episodes and is being renewed. NBC is in the middle of pre-production on a US version of the show. When the scrapper searches for "The IT Crowd", it finds the US version first which has no episodes. The UK version is known on TV.com as "The IT Crowd (2006)", however renaming my directory to that as well as "The IT Crowd 2006" does not match up against the UK name and continues to match the (vaporware) NBC version. Any idea what can be done about this?

2) Seinfeld

The very first episode, the pilot, is marked as Pilot on the site. The episode is then completely ignored and not added to the database. Episode 2 is marked as Episode 1 by the scrapper, even though the site says Episode 2. It does the same thing for all other episodes in this first season, bumping them up by one and giving them the incorrect episode description.. Not sure what to do about this... should I rename the episode to use "S01EPilot" or something similar? "S01E00" didn't give me any luck either.

If I'm not being clear enough, let me know and I'll post exact filenames and results from the database.

[tvdb-scott]

2) Seinfeld

The very first episode, the pilot, is marked as Pilot on the site. The episode is then completely ignored and not added to the database. Episode 2 is marked as Episode 1 by the scrapper, even though the site says Episode 2.

Use the Zsori scraper. It all looks right there:
http://tvdb.zsori.com/?tab=season&series...onid=16112

[tvdb-scott]

Except that the S04E13 is a retarded naming scheme. it's actually intuative that Simpsons - 603 - (episode name) refers to the sixth season and the third episode. Besides noone is suggesting that Spiff alter things, in fact my thing was on how I should alter the program to read my way and then a few posts later Spiff stated that he would make it customizable (the way the world should be).

It's been the standard for all the release groups for a while now. A couple also use the "603" format as well, but that's slightly less intuitive, actually. If someone puts 1103, does that refer to season 11, episode 3 or season 1, episode 103. Believe it or not, but there are series that have over 100 episodes in a given season (think soap operas).

By separating using S and E, or even x (6x03), you're avoiding any possible issues with the regular expressions. Yes, making it customizable is best, but people should really try to organize their episodes in a way that makes sense to themselves AND a way that can be easily parsed using a regular expression.

The "603" format is handled by spiff's scraper, but it will break for series with over 100 episodes. There's absolutely no way around it, unless you add an extra 0 pad to the episode.

[zerojay]

Use the Zsori scraper. It all looks right there:
http://tvdb.zsori.com/?tab=season&series...onid=16112

Unfortunately, it's missing way too much for me to really use it.

[djdafreund]

It's been the standard for all the release groups for a while now. A couple also use the "603" format as well, but that's slightly less intuitive, actually. If someone puts 1103, does that refer to season 11, episode 3 or season 1, episode 103. Believe it or not, but there are series that have over 100 episodes in a given season (think soap operas).

By separating using S and E, or even x (6x03), you're avoiding any possible issues with the regular expressions. Yes, making it customizable is best, but people should really try to organize their episodes in a way that makes sense to themselves AND a way that can be easily parsed using a regular expression.

The "603" format is handled by spiff's scraper, but it will break for series with over 100 episodes. There's absolutely no way around it, unless you add an extra 0 pad to the episode.

Thanks for the explanation on that. It kind of makes sense. Ok, so i understand now the reason for having S and E, but i don't understand why (or maybe i'm reading too much into this.) we still have to include the series name within the filename to remind us what series folder we already know we are in (or is it not needed??), as in "Heroes\Season 1\heroes - s1e1 - Genesis.avi", or would \Heroes\Season 1\s1e1 - Genesis.avi" also work fine?
I used to hate the whole s & e deal, and renamed all my entire shows collection to the normal (most everyone i know personally) "season 1\101-,102-,103-etc., season 2\201-,202-,etc." But i am more now trying to be more open minded with this naming thing, as i am starting to want to keep things to be universally proper. So if the majority people/programs use the 's-e-' format, then i want to rename my collection again to make it the universal naming. But i do notice some shows themselves don't use but a number only, which throws everything out of whack.
Which brings us all to the choice we all need to make, which should be the RIGHT way of naming everything to be working with everything/everyone I use 'eXtreme Movie Manager' i bought a long time ago, and also does TV SHows, and auto-grabs all info and proper naming from TV.COM using tv.com script made, and can rename files even, so i don't have a problem changin my ways of naming. I just want to get some insite as to what is right.
Sorry for the long post, i just wanted to be very detailed with what i am asking, as i see similar points are on ALL our minds here, and also since we are dealing with a good % of all xbmc that also love that tv shows has been recently added.
Thanks for all feedback in advance. Especially to Spiff and szsori for any responses on your thoughts or insite. Thanks a bunch!!

[jmarshall]

You don't have to include the series name. The series name is derived from the folder - not from the file (due to differing filename schemes in this regard being too hard to track)

[jgawera]

I've personally always used the sXXeYY format.

[spiff]

again, the reason we cannot match numbers at the start of the filenames are series with numbers in their name. so we require a separator (one of ._- ) in front to make sure we dont arse up. when its configurable, you can do whatever you want.

and calling a naming convention 'retarded' is just, well, retarded.