Follow TMDB's genre grouping for TV shows

Fair enough … maybe it’ll get more traction there. First like secured. Top-thousand most-liked suggestion list membership imminent! :pensive::grimacing::crossed_fingers:t3::rofl:

Is there perhaps not a way to identify if users are using third party media managers, and only splitting the TMDB TV genres if that is the case?

Or only splitting the genres if Infuse detects additions to its database of non-TMDB-sourced split genre metadata that would result in having both an “Action & Adventure” (TMDB) genre next to an “Action” (non-TMDB) genre?

The weird part for me is that in TV Shows it works as most people would expect (does not split Action/Adventure, Comedy/Drama etc into 3 separate genres). But in movies it splits them up, yet this apparently “works as intended”. I can’t comprehend why anyone would intentionally design it to be inconsistent. Why would any user want that? That’s why I assumed it had to be a bug.

You’ve got that backwards, but otherwise, yes.

The issue might start with TMDB’s own inconsistency in not allowing TV Shows to be tagged as either “Sci-Fi” or “Fantasy” from the start (as they allow movies to be), but simply “Sci-Fi & Fantasy”.

Nevertheless, when it comes to TV, according to TMDB, Infuse’s exclusive metadata provider, there is no such thing as a genre named “Action” nor is there a genre named “Adventure”.

There is only “Action & Adventure”.

@james has explained Firecore’s reasons for ignoring this truth above.

Here’s hoping someday they’ll figure out a way to fix the experience for vanilla Infuse users while not offending their loyal Plex and Emby contingent.

Oops… yeah that was backwards alright… I’m having one of those backwards days…

I’m using a Plex server and my experience seems to be the same as the Infuse-only users describe. Does this affect Plex users differently somehow?

I’ve never used Plex, so I don’t really know. But if your Plex sources all its TV metadata from TMDB, than it’s going to pass on the same genres as users of vanilla Infuse will get.

If I understand the reason Firecore gives for splitting the combined genres — that Plex users might bring TV genres that aren’t combined as the TMDB ones are, and that if these users also have other videos from sources other than their Plex servers, for which Infuse is responsible for grabbing metadata, this could result in users seeing genres for “Action”, “Adventure”, and “Action & Adventure” (and ditto the other two ampersanded TMDB TV genres) — than I guess it makes sense that even if you bring ampersanded genres from Plex Infuse will still split them.

That’s what you’re seeing?

Yes, that’s what I’m seeing. Doesn’t matter if I use “Action & Adventure” or “Action/Adventure” or “Action Adventure” or even “Action Comedy Drama Adventure” as my genre. As long as the word “Action” or “Adventure” or “Comedy” or “Drama” appears anywhere in the genre, each of those words becomes a separate genre in Infuse. This is rather frustrating because I should be allowed to create whatever custom genre I want, but I can’t use any of those words without Infuse causing problems.

I dunno… this all seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Whether the genre is grabbed automatically via TMDB, or entered manually, and whether tagged by Infuse or Plex or Emby, I’m struggling to understand why any of that matters. When I was using both the Plex media server and player, whatever genres were assigned to TV Shows or Movies, those genres were displayed by the player exactly as written. Simple as that. So why can’t Infuse do the same thing… just use the genres as written. Why does it matter how or when or where a show got tagged? Splitting 1 genre into 3 isn’t helpful regardless.

Really, this all boils down to one simple questions for Firecore:
How does splitting “Action & Adventure” into 3 separate genres benefit the user?

Unless there is a good answer to the above, why do it?

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Read @james posts in the thread above. He explains Firecore’s reasoning.

I wouldn’t have made the same decision, but I appreciate his sharing how they came to that choice.

He’s also admitted we have a valid point, so moved this thread to suggestions.

If we get another couple hundred likes or so on the first post, Firecore might actually give us the option whether to split (and duplicate) the genres or not. :tipping_hand_man:t2::pray:t3::crossed_fingers:t3::hourglass_flowing_sand::spiral_calendar::older_man:t2::hourglass_flowing_sand::headstone::hourglass_flowing_sand::heart::white_check_mark::ghost:

Yeah, I’ve read the whole thing, but that is more about about technical details, and that’s not really what I’m asking. So ignoring technical details or limitations or the moment, I just want to know if Firecore believes it is actually a good idea split 1 genre into 3, and if so, why?

In other words, is this something they want to fix but haven’t been able to, or do they not want to fix it because they actually think it’s a good idea? If it’s the latter then I would love to know why.

Firecore has confirmed there isn’t a technical reason they’ve decided to do this. They want it this way.

They don’t care that it breaks the experience for every Infuse user who only sources metadata from Firecore’s own preferred (and exclusive) provider; even when those users previously jumped through all sorts of hoops renaming all their files to match TMDB when Infuse’s switch of metadata providers broke their collections.

Perhaps you missed this post:

James’s Explanation

^ And so far only 5 of us seem to have cared enough to complain about it. Which doesn’t bode well the issue will ever be fixed. (Firecore doesn’t even believe it’s broken.)

Perhaps the only option is to use local metadata. Since the TMDB is being matched, it should be fully matching rather than having its own standards.

Unfortunately Infuse does not support genre tags for TV items in local metadata — only in movies is that tag supported.

This is now showing as planned for 7.5.5 :flushed:?!

Perforated bovine! Definitely one of my longest-standing pet peeves to date — not the most important one from a functionality standpoint, admittedly — but certainly one that’s most frustrated me from the perspective of just, “Why??!”.

Great news. Thanks to all involved — can’t wait to see this go live!

Maybe because there were urgent issues that needed fixes so they just added a quick release in to cover those and the 7.5.4 was used for the urgent fixes and the original content is still on the same time track just with a decimal increase? Same time, just a different number.

^Fixed some swipe-keyboard word-choice errors that maybe contributed to your misinterpreting my post.

Most long-standing feature omissions or swing-and-miss additions (as opposed to others that were solid home-runs and others landing somewhere in-between) have been represented as “wishlist” items Firecore just hadn’t had the resources to dedicate efforts to as yet, or good faith efforts that maybe just fell short.

My “Why?!” description simply referred to my being perplexed that the given behavior (precipitating this thread) was confirmed to be a deliberate choice. That this opinion has seemingly been reconsidered makes me very happy.

I very much appreciate and look forward to seeing this implemented — along with all the other very exciting UI upgrades that look to be coming soon in 7.5.x.

It’s a great list!

[Edit: Combined sequential posts]

Ah!!

@NC_Bullseye — Just in case you thought my “Why??!” referred to the comment above — No!!

This is the first time I’ve noticed this on the upcoming features list — so my quotes commen was merely an expression of “Wow! It’s coming soon, and even has a release version pegged!!” — not a complaint that the feature had been “pushed back”. I’d never even seen it before.

Two different statements, unrelated.

Apologies for the confusion!

Infuse 7.5.5 now uses TMDB’s merged TV show genres.

Note, if using a media server or setting genres manually via XML/NFO it is still possible to use set individual genres, and these will not be merged.

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50 hearts to previous post.
Thank you, @james !!

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