TMDB ID Support for TV Shows

[Wyne]

The TMDB ID function already works excellently for movies, where it automatically retrieves the correct metadata. For TV shows, this useful feature is still missing.

I would write this format for TV shows:

Ahsoka 2023 - S01E01 - Part One Master and Apprentice [tmdb-114461]

It would be very useful if the TMDB ID recognition were implemented for TV shows as well, just like it already works for movies. This would simplify metadata matching and avoid confusion with similarly named TV shows.

This method would ensure that metadata is no longer displayed incorrectly.

[andyo]

it’s weird that it’s not supported, I was about to post the same thing after several attempts to add the tag to folder, subfolders and the files themselves didn’t work. @james is this feasible?

[kilubyte]

Hey folks. I’m struggling getting consistent metadata across devices. It’s very unclear in what order Infuse is prioritising file- and folder-names and tmdb-ids seem to be ignored. And yes, i checked the metadata 101 page.

To reproduce: Create some strm files or mp4 files and name them as shown in the examples below to test metadata behaviour. I tested using a WebDAV source on all latest Infuse apps on iOS, macOS and tvOS.

I try to name things as specific as possible like this:

folder name

show name (YYYY) {tmdb-12345} EN
another show in german (YYYY) {tmdb-98765} DE
some spanish movie (YYYY) {tmbd-12345} ES

file name inside that folder (no subfolders):

show name (YYYY) S01E01 {tmdb-12345}.mp4
movie name (YYYY) {tmbd-12345}.mp4

However, the tmdb-X attributes are being ignored. Since this is the most explicit way of defining the correct show or movie, I don’t understand why it isn’t treated with the highest priority.

Example 1
folder name: dark (2017) {tmdb-70523} DE
file name: dark (2017) S01E01 {tmdb-70523}.strm
metadata result: correct on iOS and macOS but then on Apple tvOS:

Example 2
folder name: chernobyl (2019) {tmdb-87108} DE
file name: chernobyl (2019) S01E01 {tmdb-87108}.strm
metadata result: correct on apple tvOS and iOS but then on macOS:

In the screenshot above at the bottom you can even see that the file name is correct and Infuse is fetching totally wrong metadata not even matching the wording of the show name. Again, the correct tmdb-id is present in the folder and filename and still ignored.

Example 3
folder name: how i met your mother (2005) {tmdb-1100} DE
file name: how i met your mother (2005) S01E01 {tmdb-1100}.strm
metadata result: on all devices, this is not even identified as a show and will be put in “others”. If i remove the (2005) it works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So again, why not identifiying by tmdb-ID?

Example 4
folder name: dark matter (2024) {tmdb-196322} EN
file name: dark matter (2024) S01E01 {tmdb-196322}.strm
metadata result: on all devices it shows dark matter (2015) which is a totally different show.

I also read here in the forum on some older posts, that removing the brackets around the year resolved the issue in some cases. But i don’t think that’s a good solution. I mean take a movie like "2012” which released in 2009. The title would be 2012 2009.mp4 which will most likely confuse metadata fetching even more.

So my question is: Why can we not just go for {tmbd-id} as the main priority and source of truth? If that tag is present in folder or filename, Infuse would fetch based on that ID rather than trying to figure it out based on title and/or year.

[NC_Bullseye]

A couple of suggestions, first for folder names, don’t put anything other than name and year, leave the tmdb numbers off of the main series folder or movie folder if you’re putting movies in individual folders. Try changing the folder names to just the series and year or movie and year first and see if that doesn’t help.

A side note, for season folders in TV show directories don’t have anything other than “Season xx” for the name. Any other info added to the season folder will cause issues.

Second, I’m not sure that Infuse can use the TMDB numbers on TV series, it’s only shown in the movies section of the metadata users guide.

As to the question on 2012,

@kilubyte

The title would be 2012 2009.mp4 which will most likely confuse metadata fetching even more.

I have mine named “2012 2009 BluRay 1080p.mkv” and it picked it up correct the first time.

[kilubyte]

Thanks for the suggestions. I made a few more tests. Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a “clean” Infuse (i tried it on macOS), remove all sources/files/shares and delete all metadata (Settings > General > Metadata).
2. Create a local folder on your desktop like “infuse test”
3. In that folder create two subfolders. One called “Dark (2017)” and one called “Chernobyl (2019)”
4. In the “Dark (2017)” folder, create a file called “Dark (2017) S01E01.strm”
5. In the “Chernobyl (2019) folder, create a file called “Chernobyl (2019) S01E01.strm”
6. Now add that local folder to Infuse. (Add files > Local folder > “infuse test”)
7. See that Infuse is fetching the wrong metadata for both shows. For the german show “Dark” from 2017 it shows “Dark Blue and Moonlight”, a chinese show from 2017. For “Chernobyl” from 2019 it shows “Chornobyl: Exclusion Zone” from 2014.

As you can see, it even picks totally different show names and years. Making it impossible to reliably name folders and files to get the right metadata.

Now when doing the same test in Infuse on another device like iOS, it can be that it picks up the right metadata with these folder and file-names. It’s not reliably reproducible when it’s right and when it’s wrong.

If you remove all the years from folder and filenames, then delete the metadata and let it refetch, it most likely picks the right shows for the examples in my test. However, this creates a new issue. If you have two shows with the same name like “Dark Matter” one from 2015 and one from 2024, it’s just a lottery if it fetches the right metadata from TMDB. We need a mechanism that scales and works the same way for all movies and shows.

Infuse’s approach of fetching metadata is just highly unreliable and i wish that the team would fix this once and for all using tmbd-ids as the main indicator for shows and movies. There are even posts here in this forum suggesting the same thing: Add TMDB and season + episode to deeplinking

[james]

What you are seeing is likely related to TMDB having multiple years for a specific title. This includes the original release year and also release years from other countries. This can cause issues with certain titles.

It seems TMDB recently added a new API parameter we’re looking into adding that limits searching to the primary release year only which will likely help with some of these quirks.

[kilubyte]

Thanks @james for looking into this. A suggestion: The most solid way would be to check for an IMDB-ID in folder- and/or filenames. I know, TMDB IDs are not unique across shows/movies/people which is absolutely nuts from a data architecture point of view. So why not using the IMDB ID which seems to be unique and then use that to check against the find-by-external-ID endpoint of TMDB? This should eliminate all the metadata mismatches. If no IMDB-ID is present you fallback on search by name and year.

If you type “Dark Matter” in the search field of themoviedb.org you’ll get 6 shows and 32 movies making it very likely that metadata is off, if Infuse just relies on name and year. A pattern like “Dark Matter {imdb-tt19231492}” should solve this problem. I just tried it using the TMDB API and with the additional check for season-folders or a S01E01 pattern in filenames, i am reliably getting the right metadata.

More examples to test in Infuse: Try to get the metadata for “The Hunter”. An italian show (original title: Il Cacciatore) from 2018. This one on TMDB and here on IMDB. Whatever format i try (using just the english title of the show, adding the year in the folder- and filenames, or even adding {tmdb-id} or {imdb-id} to the filenames (e.g. The Hunter (2018) S01E01 {imdb-tt8118950}.mp4), it fails to get the right metadata. Same for “The Bridge” with “Bron/Broen” as the original swedish title. Manually editing the original or translated title until it finds the right metadata is not feasible for a large library. We need a way to control it independent from the title and year.

[Sergey_from_VRN]

So, is there any plan to support {tmdb-xxxxx} tags for recognizing TV series? Both for individual episodes and for folders?

There are no problems with movies - I just entered a tag and the file name can be anything, even without any meaning, but with TV series, if there are several of them with the same name, I often have to edit it manually.