I have a 2011 Mac Mini with all my movies on a 2T external hard drive. My movies are in all different formats. If I install Plex would all of my movies have to be in the same format? Also how should I organize my movies for the best results. Just put them in a folder titled "Movies"? Also if I purchased an ATV2 for another TV in the house and jailbroke it and ran Plex ....would all my movies have to be converted to ATV2 format? Thanks for your help!
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Plex Question
- Thread starter wicked23
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They don't need to be in the same format. Best way to organize movies is to name them the exactly as they would be named on IMDB, with year included. My suggestion would be to organize media based on what they are, movies, tv, pictures, home vids, etc. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with ATV.
Good luck!
Good luck!
I agree, for my Plex library I use a folder for TV shows, a folder for HD movies, and a folder for SD Movies. The movies did not have to be separated but I did it for organization and ease of upgrade. I have all different formats of files (mkv, avi, mp4 etc) it does not matter to Plex. As far as naming, for movies you want to use the IMDB movie name and then year (for example "The Matrix (1999).mkv"). TV shows should be in a file structure by show name > season number > episodes (using thetvdb naming) (for example there would be a folder named "Family Guy", with another folder named "Season 01" inside. The episodes for that season would be inside that folder named like "Family Guy - S01E07.avi". Plex has evolved a lot since I started using it and it is pretty forgiving now, but I would still recommend sticking to a consistent format. For ATV, it will work if you jailbreak and install Plex. No need to convert the files, the Plex server running on the computer will do any transcoding necessary. The ATV Plex client still is in development so there might be a bug or two.
Plex plays many more formats than iTunes does. The Plex site gives you information on how to name and organize file names for movies and TV shows so Plex can identify them and automatically download metadata.
Plex downloads artwork, including movie posters, TV show posters and posters for each season.
I have stayed with Plex 0.8 and organized all my movies/tv-series into a few directories on 2 USB HDDs.
I don't care about covers and other IMDB information so for me I think that is a much better solution than messing around with the "Manage instead of watching movies" which seem to be the theme for Plex 0.9 and the media server...
...but if you want cover and IMDB information you obviously should go with Plex 0.9.
I don't care about covers and other IMDB information so for me I think that is a much better solution than messing around with the "Manage instead of watching movies" which seem to be the theme for Plex 0.9 and the media server...
...but if you want cover and IMDB information you obviously should go with Plex 0.9.
Why you wouldn't ask this question over at the Plex Forums baffles me.
Honestly, reading the basic description of the software on their main webpage would have answered most of your questions.
With regard to naming your files, I suggest you read their wiki on the subject, as it is quite specific.
Honestly, reading the basic description of the software on their main webpage would have answered most of your questions.
With regard to naming your files, I suggest you read their wiki on the subject, as it is quite specific.
What baffles me is that you wasted time writing the first part of your post. I posted it here because I have enjoyed the help and responses I have received from fellow Mac users in the forum. If you don't have anything helpful to say then just move on to the next topic. Sometimes it is better to keep your snide remarks to yourself.
You can check out the naming guide over at their site:
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/PlexNine_PMS_Naming_Guide
Basically it will find most movies on Title alone. Throwing the year in () won't hurt. An example would be: Movie_Name (####).
TV Shows you can use a folder structure to name your TV Shows/Seasons or you can have a flat structure by naming each show as: Show_Name S##E## where S = Season and E = Episode. An example: The Simpsons S02E03. There are a few special cases such as pilots and specials being considered Season 0. That's all in the guide from the link above. I've had more success with the flat structure.
Hope this helped.
http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/PlexNine_PMS_Naming_Guide
Basically it will find most movies on Title alone. Throwing the year in () won't hurt. An example would be: Movie_Name (####).
TV Shows you can use a folder structure to name your TV Shows/Seasons or you can have a flat structure by naming each show as: Show_Name S##E## where S = Season and E = Episode. An example: The Simpsons S02E03. There are a few special cases such as pilots and specials being considered Season 0. That's all in the guide from the link above. I've had more success with the flat structure.
Hope this helped.
Thanks for all the helpful posts. Another quick question. I have a lot of movies that I have ripped and are in the raw Video_TS .VOB form and was curious what final format people prefer to use. I have been using HB to convert my videos to the ATV2 mp4 format. I also leave some of my movies in the .dvdmedia format. Is there a better quality format I should be converting them to for use in Plex and on my big screen? Thanks
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If you prefer the best quality format, I would suggest keeping them in Video TS. Or use something like MakeMKV that does not compress but rather just puts and single MKV wrapper around the files. Either way Plex will use them happily.
I used to keep everything ripped into the native Video_TS as well. The only issue with this format is that support for it is slowly diminishing in Plex. If you get an apple TV and jailbreak it to run Plex, Plex cannot stream Video_TS.vob files. The reason for this is that those file types require decoding like a DVD to play and the media server will not do that for streaming to other devices (iphone, ipad, apple TV, etc).
Do what the previous post said. Use MakeMKV (a free program). That program will still maintain the 1:1 filesize and not have any compression or transcoding performed. But the result file will be an .mkv file, which Plex will happily stream to any device. Some playback functions improve using this format over Video_TS as well (such as advancing and rewinding).