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TV Series Naming Conventions
Phase-Deploy, TVShows, Naming
Updated Feb 3, 2012 by Stuart.Boston

TV Series

Single Episodes

If you want your video files to be recognised as a TV Series, then you need to follow a naming convention for the files.

The exact same naming convention should be followed for ISO files and disk rips (VIDEO_TS and BDMV folders). For disk rips, name the folder as indicated below.

MovieJukebox does not need these files to be in separate folders per TV Series or Season, but sometimes this can make the organisation and cataloguing of the files easier.

The suggested formats are:

\Series Name\Season #\Series Name S__E__.avi
\Series Name\Season #\Series Name _x__.avi
\Series Name\Season #\Series Name S__xE__.avi
\Series Name\Season #\Series Name S__ E__.avi
\Series Name\Season #\Series Name S__.E__.avi

For example, these are all the same episode:

\Chuck\Season 1\Chuck S01E01.avi
\Chuck\Season 1\Chuck 1x1.avi
\Chuck\Season 1\Chuck S01xE01.avi
\Chuck\Season 1\Chuck S01 E01.avi
\Chuck\Season 1\Chuck S01.E01.avi

Note: The directory name is not used in determining what the series and episode is, that is all done from the filename.

However, in this format you can create a season NFO file to refer to the whole season (see NFO_Files), Posters and Fanart (see Artwork).

For example:

\Chuck\Season 1\Season 1.jpg
\Chuck\Season 1\Season 1.fanart.jpg

These will then override the default ones that are downloaded.

Another Example:

Psych\Psych.nfo
Psych\Set_Psych_1.banner.jpg
Psych\Set_Psych_1.fanart.jpg
Psych\Set_Psych_1.jpg
Psych\Season 4\
Psych\Season 4\Psych S04E01 - Extradition British Columbia.mkv
...
Psych\Season 4\Psych S04E16 - Mr Yin Presents.mkv
...
Psych\Season 4\Season 4.banner.jpg
Psych\Season 4\Season 4.fanart.jpg
Psych\Season 4\Season 4.jpg
...
Psych\Season 5\
Psych\Season 5\Psych S05E01 - Romeo And Juliet And Juliet.mkv
...
Psych\Season 5\Season 5.banner.jpg
Psych\Season 5\Season 5.fanart.jpg
Psych\Season 5\Season 5.jpg

Multiple Episode Files / Disks

Starting with version v15 there is support for files / directories that contain multiple episodes, with file titles.

The file title comes after the last dash in the file name, which must come after the season and episode identifiers.

Just list the additional episode numbers after the first episode:

24 S01E01E02E03E04-12am to 4am.mkv
24 S01E05E06E07E08-4am to 8am.mkv
24 S01E09E10E11E12-8am to 12pm.mkv
24 S01E13E14E15E16-12pm to 4pm.mkv

Gilmore Girls.S01E01E02E03E04.mkv
Gilmore Girls.S01E05E06E07E08.mkv
Heroes 3x09x10x11x12.avi

If there is no file title, one will be generated in the format

Episodes 1 - 4

This will also work for ISO files and VIDEO_TS / BDMV folders.

Special Episodes

For TV shows that have special episodes, they are named with a Season of 0 (Zero) and episode number as per TheTVDb.com website.

For Example, if you have the Lost series special "The Story of the Oceanic 6" you would look on the Lost Specials Page to find the episode number, and name the file

Lost S00E10.avi

Episode names

The part/file title it pulled from the file/folder name only when a dash is found within 2 characters of the end of the episode identifier. The file/part title ends at the next occurrance of any of ".()".

When a file/part title is found in the file name, it will be used instead of any episode title scraped from the web.

When no file/part title is found in the file name, then YAMJ will try to scrape a title from the web.

If no title for the episode is found, a title will be generated. For single-episode files, the title will be "Episode X". For multi-episode files, the title will be "Episodes X-Y" where X is the first episode number and Y is the last episode number. For multi-episode files where titles are scraped the titles will be concatenated together, seperated by " / ".

In the UI, files will be labeled by the part/episode number (multi-espisode files will he labelled X-Y, where X is the first episode number and Y is the last episode number in the file.

Some examples:

File or folder name Generated title
Dead Like Me S02E12.HDTV.XviD-xxxx.avi 12. Forget Me Not
Dead Like Me S02E13.HDTV.XviD-xxxx.avi 13. Last Call
Dead Like Me S02E14.HDTV.XviD-xxxx.avi 14. Always
Dead Like Me S02E15.HDTV.XviD-xxxx.avi 15. Haunted
Desperate Housewives S04E01E02E03E04.iso 1-4. Now You Know / Smiles of a Summer Night / The Game / If There's Anything I Can't Stand
Dragonball Z.S06E166E167E168E169E170E171.mkv 166-171. Episodes 166 - 171
Heroes.2x01x02x03x04 - Episodes 1 to 4.vob 1-4. Episodes 1 to 4
Heroes.2x05x06x07x08 - Episodes 5 to 8.vob 5-8. Episodes 5 to 8
Heroes.2x09x10x11x12.vob 9-12. Cautionary Tales / Truth & Consequences / Powerless / Going Postal: A Nifty Trick (1)
Prison Break S04E01E02 720p HDTV DD5.1 x264.mkv 1-2. Scylla / Breaking and Entering
Prison Break S04E03E04 720p HDTV DD5.1 x264.mkv 3-4. Shut Down / Eagles and Angels

Comment by jsleg...@gmail.com, Mar 24, 2009

I have some series all in VIDEO_TS format. How must I rename these.

Situation now :

DVD Series

Lost Series 1
Disk 1
Video_ts
Disk 2
Video_ts
Disk 3
Video_ts
Disk 4
Video_ts

How must I rename these directories ?

Comment by matio612, Jul 1, 2009

>> Note: The directory name is not used in determining what the series and episode is, that is all done from the filename.

Comment by lrugg...@gmail.com, Aug 10, 2009

Hi, I have a lot of full Seril Seasion For example Lost

Lost ---S01 ---S02 ---S03 ---S04 ---S05

i would like to have the same structure in the index.htm :

i Artwork for lost the open a new page with the list of all the Artwork for the seasions and next, when we select the seasions, the actually detail.

It is possible to do somethings like this ?

Best Regards Luca

Comment by arei...@gmail.com, Sep 17, 2009

I'm with Luca ^

This feature would be really nice...

Comment by buddywil...@msn.com, Sep 18, 2009

How would you name "extra's" that come with most TV series on DVD? Or specials not part of the standard season (Christmas special, etc...)

Comment by project member garp999@gmail.com, Sep 18, 2009

Luca, You need a newer version of YAMJ for this feature found in moviejukebox.properties

# Generate a single index page for each series
# 'True' if found seasons should be considered as one movie in the main list and separate list for each 
# TV show (with more than one season) should be generated.
# 'False' Each season is considered as separate movie and shown in main index.
mjb.singleSeriesPage=true

# Minimum number of movies in a category in the same set before they are replaced by the set master
mjb.sets.minSetCount=3

# Only replace set movies for the set master if all movies appear in a category
mjb.sets.requireAll=true
Comment by project member garp999@gmail.com, Sep 18, 2009

Buddy, Specials are found on theTVDB.com site and will be used in YAMJ as season 0. So special 3 is "show S00E03? - title" for naming purposes.

Extras are handled like trailers: "show S01E10?[Extra-deleted scenes]" Check option

# List of keywords to determine if the file is an extra (e.g. Trailer, Bonus content, etc)
# Filename will be like: "filename [TRAILER-trailer title].avi"
filename.extras.keywords=trailer,bonus,extra

But you need a new development version from Omertron's site... check PCH forums.

--

Everyone, questions should really be asked in the PCH forums, because we don't do support here.

Comment by gia...@gmail.com, May 14, 2010

Hi all, is it possible to have datailed episod page ? I have many TV show series and I would like to have a detail page for each episode. I have used the mjb.singleSeriesPage=true, mmjb.sets.minSetCount=3 and mjb.sets.requireAll=true but the navigation structure i have is: Name? -> Season? -> First episode page? -> Play all or Play x episode. I think should more usefull a structure like this: Name? -> Season? -> First episode page? -> Play all ore Play x episode -> x episode page?.

How can i achive this goal ?

Thanks in advance

Comment by project member Stuart.Boston, May 14, 2010

Im not sure what you actually want here. However, you can change the skin to one that gives you more information on the tv series than the default skins do

Comment by joymonkey, Oct 3, 2010

Is it possible to have muli-part episodes? For example I'd like to break Episodes into 3 selectable parts... seriesname S01E01?Part1?.avi seriesname S01E01?Part2?.avi seriesname S01E01?Part3?.avi seriesname S01E02?Part1?.avi seriesname S01E02?Part2?.avi etc.

At the moment (YAMJ v2.1) this naming scheme results in only one of the parts per episode displaying in YAMJ.

Comment by project member garp999@gmail.com, Oct 22, 2010

Yes, but it may be up to the skin developer's options as to how it gets handled.

Please ask all further questions in the NMT support forums for YAMJ questions.

Comment by agentu...@gmail.com, Apr 3, 2011

Having trouble with a TV series, Max and Ruby. I have four files, each with 4 episodes in them. I have them named "Max and Ruby S01E07E08E09?" and so on. However, I am not getting anything (posters, banners, fanart, episode names, plot, etc) when I run YAMJ. However, this series is in thetvdb.com database complete with all of those things. Why is it not picking them up? All I get are blank artwork and "UNKNOWN" for everything else. Suggestions?

Comment by dotterne...@hotmail.com, May 17, 2011

Pfffff...I've spent hours trying to get my DVD's of the Big Bang Theorie in YAMJ, but I cannot get it right. The explanation here is about avi's or mkv's for series, but how about dvd's? What should I put in the .nfo and where do I need to put the .nfo. For example: http://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=80379&lid=13 is for the whole series, the seasons pages are not reconized... Please help me, my work is suffering from this problem ;-) (dotternetta.h..tmail.c..m)

Comment by project member Stuart.Boston, May 17, 2011

DVD and BluRay? rips are the folder name, so just use the same convention for the foldername containing the VIDEO_TS folder. Place all the associated files into that folder too (artwork, NFOs etc) and name it the same as the folder.

Comment by randalls...@gmail.com, May 28, 2011

I've got some DVDs where multiple seasons are just combined into the same DVD. Example, The Beatles (cartoon series) volume 4 contsins episodes s01e19, s01e20, s02e01, s02e02, s02e03, s02e04. thetvdb.com actually has seasons mixed up on it for this series, listing several episodes under both season 1 and 2, and list season 3 episodes as season 2..... In this case I can list some of the all of vol 4 as season1, and start vol 5 dvd with s02e06. But that is still pretty messy. And what would I do If I come accross another DVD for a show where thetvdb just remains accurate? Is there a way to tell yamj that a dvd contains episodes from more than on season?

Comment by project member Stuart.Boston, May 28, 2011

No, as of 2.5 there isn't a way to do this


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