Mrs. Brown's Boys

[Peter_H]

For weeks I've had problems with Mrs.Browns Boys episode numbers, and figured I'd just put up with it, as they appear to have a lot of their episodes named as specials rather than seasons, and I was happy just to rename these episodes after recording.  But it's becoming more of a problem, continually trying to re-record episodes I already have, and conflicting with other recordings, so I thought I'd ask in case you can fix it.  I'm not sure how IceTV and Plex can deal with "Special" episodes?

Here are the examples from the current guide.  All on Sydney TV, Channel 7Two, recording with Plex DVR
* Sun 20/10 9:30pm labelled S03E07 Mammy Christmas - is actually Special 04
* Sun 20/10 10:15pm labeled as S03E08 The Virgin Mammy - is actually Special 05
* Mon 21/10 10:30pm labelled as S04E01 Buckin' Mammy  - actually Special 06
* Thu 24/10 10:10pm labelled as 4/9/14—Who's a Pretty Mammy? - actually Special 07
* Fri 25/10 11:15pm labelled as S01E07 - Mammy's Gamble - actually Special 10

I've even tried adding entries in the Plex database, creating for instance a copy of the episode and labelling it S01E07 - Mammy's Gamble, but even with this in the database, Plex is still (for a reason I cannot yet fathom), trying to re-record this episode.

Any ideas how you can better label these Specials?

[vader1111]

Plex uses a scraper which refers to TVDB.com.  Search TVDB.com to find the episode names & numbers.  For specials, use series 0 (i.e. 0x4 for Mammy Christmas).

On my system I would name the file as follows:
Mrs Brown's Boys - 0x4 - Mammy Christmas

[Tiphanee]

Many thanks for your notes regarding Mrs Brown's Boys.

We have corrected these issues and you will see the correct episode numbers going forward.

Cheers,

Tiphanee

[Peter_H]

Thanks Vader,
I have been relabelling the episodes similarly to how you have described.  That's not the problem.  I was hoping that IceTV could fix this so that it didn't keep re-recording episodes I already have, when IceTV/Plex gives it a different name

[Peter_H]

Thanks Tiphanee,
Unfortunately, at least in Plex, these episodes all still appear wrongly.  I have refreshed my guide, and you will see from the screenshot attached, that the Special episodes you have labelled with an episode number but no season, now appear as either Season 1 (which they aren't) or as dates instead of episode number
I guess I was hoping that you could label them in such a way that Plex could record them as Season 00 or Specials.  Maybe that's not possible?

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

Thanks Tiphanee,
Unfortunately, at least in Plex, these episodes all still appear wrongly.  I have refreshed my guide, and you will see from the screenshot attached, that the Special episodes you have labelled with an episode number but no season, now appear as either Season 1 (which they aren't) or as dates instead of episode number
I guess I was hoping that you could label them in such a way that Plex could record them as Season 00 or Specials.  Maybe that's not possible?

Ahh bugger, I see why this is happening, will see what I can do.

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

This is actually a really interesting one, the XMLTV format for season and episode numbering if 0 based, so season 1 is listed as season 0 in the file.

I am not actually sure if it can have a -1 for the season or episode numbers to try and get this to work correctly.

[Peter_H]

This is actually a really interesting one, the XMLTV format for season and episode numbering if 0 based, so season 1 is listed as season 0 in the file.
I am not actually sure if it can have a -1 for the season or episode numbers to try and get this to work correctly.

I don't understand WHY xmltv would use 0 for season1, but xmltv format is a bit beyond my expertise!  Lots of shows have "specials" episodes, so I imagine this is a frequent problem and there must be some standard way of labelling them?  But I don't know if anyone other than Plex names these as S0? 

If you want to try putting -1 on one of next week's episodes (S0018 and S0019, which have already been screened recently) then I can let you know asap how plex recording handles this, and there'll still be plenty of time to fix it for other people if it doesn't work.

Here's another interesting point...  Before writing my original post, I had tried creating "artificial" episodes in my Plex database.  For instance, if Plex/IceTV labels an episode as the non-existent S01E07, then I create a .TS file with that name and scan it into the database.  But Plex still tries to record this episode again.  I really doubt that Plex could "know" that there is no S01E07 of the show.  So there must be some difference for Plex, between shows that you assign no season to, and shows that you actually label S1, even though Plex shows them both as S1 on the guide.  Does that make sense?  Can you do anything with that information?
If that's the case, then perhaps a work-around would be to create your own numbering system for specials, calling them for instance S99.  Then at least if that numbering system was consistent, then it wouldn't record episodes I already had.  But that would only be part of the solution - for this to work I would still need to COPY and rename, rather than move, these episodes into a specials folder so that Plex could identify them, and pull the metadata from TVDB. 

[Peter_H]

I'm out of my depth here.  I did some research but it didn't help much and I don't imagine to know more about XMLTV than you guys do.  I don't know how to access the Plex XMLTV, but I had a quick look last night at the XMLTV file you make available to non-plex users, and I assume it's pretty similar.  You have the episodes identified with a number of different numbering systems...
  <episode-num system="SxxExx">E09</episode-num>
  <episode-num system="xmltv_ns">.8.</episode-num>
  <episode-num system="thetvdb.com">series/219631</episode-num>
  <episode-num system="thetvdb.com">episode/5081710</episode-num>
  <episode-num system="imdb.com">series/tt1819022</episode-num>
I don't know which one(s) Plex looks at, and couldn't find any documentation on this, but I'm guessing it's probably the xmltv_ns system?  I assume you have more direct access to Plex staff than I do since you're noted by them as the EPG provider for Australia? 
Could you try changing this to...
  <episode-num system="SxxExx">S00E09</episode-num>
  <episode-num system="xmltv_ns">-1.8.</episode-num>
Or if they don't accept the -1, could you leave out the xmltv_ns line completely?

I don't really care that much about Mrs. Brown's Boys specifically.  Just thought it would be worth trying to find a solution to this, because otherwise there's no way to deal with "Specials" from any show.