Sage recordings, Plex media server and media preparation - any users?

[tvmaster2]

Hi - just started playing around with Plex Media Server and clients (iOS-Android-etc.).

My Sage dirs are based on my two tuners - each tuner sends recordings to a specific folder, which is fine. I've created a few other dirs for things like internet downloads, DVD rips and Youtube files, and Handbrake conversions.

Question: Plex seems to be extremely picky about how libraries/folder structures work, and naming conventions. It likes TV shows in one folder, Movies in another, Home video, Photos and Music all in their own little world. There appears to be some coding introduced when you use the Plex media-kind folder creation build-ins.

This has driven me crazy trying to figure the best way for both worlds to exist.

Has anyone with more than one Sage tuning directory and Plex got a good, efficient and simple way to have these media servers working together?

[valnar]

I run Plex and Sage on the same Windows 7 box, but I don't use Plex for Sage recordings. I had thought about it, but now with Sage getting a new life I may not bother.

Yes, Plex is picky about TV shows and movies. That's how it gets its artwork. Fortunately about 95% of what I had worked "out of the box", and only had to rename a few things. It was funny what posters it found for my home movies of my kids. lol

[wayner]

It's funny but Plex is behind Sage in some ways and folder structure is one. If you have metadata a program should be agnostic towards the folders that you put files in. That certainly became the case with Sage V7 but Plex seems to follow older paradigms where folder structure is of paramount importance.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

It's funny but Plex is behind Sage in some ways and folder structure is one. If you have metadata a program should be agnostic towards the folders that you put files in. That certainly became the case with Sage V7 but Plex seems to follow older paradigms where folder structure is of paramount importance.

and they seem to have written rules into the movie/tv/music etc folders that try and exclude the wrong kind of data, which has its own dilemmas, like YouTube or Google files and random internet downloads, etc.

There was a Plex/Sage scanner on this site that someone wrote a couple of years ago...has anyone used that? I think
I read that the last Plex update may have broken it....

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by valnar

...Yes, Plex is picky about TV shows and movies. That's how it gets its artwork. Fortunately about 95% of what I had worked "out of the box", and only had to rename a few things. It was funny what posters it found for my home movies of my kids. lol

lol...yeah, I ran into that - for some reason it renamed Repo Man & Barb Wire as 'The Russian Girls, episodes 39 & 40'. how it got there is anyone's guess

[DDuckles]

Filebot

[wayner]

I use the Plex scanner and it seems to work for the most part but I haven't upgraded Plex in at least a couple of months.

[farscapesg1]

I said I was ditching SageTV.. but after 2 months with WMC and the new possibilities of SageTV I reconnected one of my HD300's to the living room TV. I've been using Plex during the time and one thing I could never get quite right was being able to watch the SageTV or WMC recordings (HDHomerun Prime 1080i recordings).

I'll agree, the folder structure limitations in Plex (and MediaBrowser, if I remember correctly from all my testing) is annoying. Coming from SageTV, it's hard to grasp why I have to set up separate categories for TV and Movies.. and why it can't see the different media types in one folder structure.

For me, besides my recording folders, all the others are already separated out between TV, Movies, etc. Just curious... I meant to try it out, what if assign the same folder to both a movies library and a TV library? Shouldn't each category run and find the corresponding media types in that folder and populate them?

[Fuzzy]

I use Pix64's Plex Scanner and BMT Agent, and it works great. No worries about how Sage is storing the files, no worries about having to rename them. The only thing I wish it did was sync watched status between Plex and Sage - but I've been able to live without that for a couple years now.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I use Pix64's Plex Scanner and BMT Agent, and it works great. No worries about how Sage is storing the files, no worries about having to rename them. The only thing I wish it did was sync watched status between Plex and Sage - but I've been able to live without that for a couple years now.

which version of Java are you using on your Sage/Plex server?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

which version of Java are you using on your Sage/Plex server?

Looks like 1.7.0_45

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Looks like 1.7.0_45

ok, thanks - it seems people who installed 8 are having problems with the Plex/Sage Scanner combo

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

ok, thanks - it seems people who installed 8 are having problems with the Plex/Sage Scanner combo

Yeah, I've read that as well. I have no reason to upgrade Java while things work fine.

[valnar]

After Java 7 update 45 Oracle changed a lot of security. I keep it at that level too on my Sage server. Unless you are surfing with your Sage server, it shouldn't hurt anything.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, I've read that as well. I have no reason to upgrade Java while things work fine.

wow - Pix Scanner seems to work great - all titles appear to be there - some problems with metadata artwork for TV shows, but I'm assuming that will appear shortly, but I may need for force a refresh or two?
How would Pix Scanner work with directories with things like internet downloads, Youtube videos etc - stuff that wasn't recorded by Sage but may have program info in the title at least?

[Fuzzy]

As far as "downloaded" tv shows, if sage/phoenix/bmt sees it as a tv show, and it's in a TV folder that is connected to the BMT agent in plex, it should attach the metadata from BMT to it, and won't know a difference. Movies, it is dependant on naming, where the more conventional Title of Movie (Release Year) format is best for Plex to pick up the right info - since that is the naming that works best for sage to recognize it as well, it's what I've always used. for movie rips.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

As far as "downloaded" tv shows, if sage/phoenix/bmt sees it as a tv show, and it's in a TV folder that is connected to the BMT agent in plex, it should attach the metadata from BMT to it, and won't know a difference. Movies, it is dependant on naming, where the more conventional Title of Movie (Release Year) format is best for Plex to pick up the right info - since that is the naming that works best for sage to recognize it as well, it's what I've always used. for movie rips.

I've converted a bunch with Handbrake, and placed them all in a folder, separate from all other material on my drives. Using the Pix Plex alteration, and the Sage drop-down Finder for movie titles, the library only seems to find half the movies in the folder. Any idea why? They're all .mkv file exteneions, and I admit I haven't added the year to the movie titles...

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

ok, thanks - it seems people who installed 8 are having problems with the Plex/Sage Scanner combo

Sorry for the threadjack but is the latest java (8) working with Sage otherwise (meaning, for everything except maybe the Plex scanner)? I always try to ask around here before I upgrade the version on my Sage server!

[mechling-burgh]

From my understanding it doesn't with work the jetty web server for the sage web server.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

From my understanding it doesn't with work the jetty web server for the sage web server.

That is correct.