Media files and folders need to be named and organized in a proper way helpful to DVDFab Movie Server. This lets the Server fetch information about each show.

 

Naming Movie files

The scrapers used by DMS will work best when your major types of content are separated from each other. We strongly recommend separating movie and television content into separate main directories. For instance, you might use something like this:

/Media

 /Movies

movie content

 /TV Shows

television content

 

Warning: DMS will do its best to appropriately find and match content. However, a failure to separate content such as movies and TV shows may result in unexpected or incorrect behavior.

 

Stand-Alone Video Files

Movie media files can be contained in one or more folders. To correctly name a movie file, name it as follows:

* MovieName (release year).ext

Where, ext is the file extension. (Some operating systems such as Windows may hide your file extensionsby default.)

 

/Movies

 Batman Begins (2005).mkv

 

Folder Nesting

Movie files can be placed into individual folders if you want, but it's not mandatory in most cases. If you have external media for a movie (e.g. external subtitles etc.) you should usually place the movie in a nested folder along with the custom media files. Name the folder the same as the movie file:

* /Movies/MovieName (release year)/MovieName (release year).ext

/Movies

   /Avatar (2009)

     Avatar (2009).mkv

   /Batman Begins (2005)

     Batman Begins (2005).mp4

     Batman Begins (2005).eng.srt

 

Naming and Organizing TV Shows

TV Shows need to be organized into a folder structure for each show. Once organized this way, DMS will recognize the shows and grab show posters, descriptions and other rich metadata.

 

Naming 'Series' & 'Season' Based TV Shows

The scrapers used by DMS will work best when your major types of content are separated from each other. We strongly recommend separating movie and television content into separate main directories. For instance, you might use something like this:

/Media

 /Movies

   movie content

 /TV Shows

   television content

Warning: DMS will do its best to appropriately find and match content. However, a failure to separate content such as movies and TV shows may result in unexpected or incorrect behavior.

 

Standard Television Series

TV Shows can be one-off, episode/series, or date-based shows. It is important that both the folder structure and each episode filename be correct for shows to be correctly matched. If you're not sure whether a show is episode/series or date based, check themoviedb.org and name it as it appears there.

By default, DMS matches against themoviedb.org , so you should name and organize your content based on the information on that site.

Tip: For identically-named remakes, include the year series folder name, e.g. "Battlestar Galactica (2003)" or "Dr. Who (2005)".


Series/Episode type TV Shows

To name series/episode based shows:

* TV Shows/ShowName/Season XX/ShowName - sXXeYY - Optional_Info.ext

Where:

* XX is the season number

* YY is the episode number

...Optional_Info is additional optional text (e.g. episode title) that is ignored by DMS, and ext is the file extension. (Some operating systems such as Windows may hide your file extensionsby default.)

Tip: Be sure to use the English word "Season" as noted above, even if your content is in another language.

 

/TV Shows

 /Grey's Anatomy

     /Season 01

       Grey's Anatomy - s01e01.avi

       Grey's Anatomy - s01e02 - The First Cut is the Deepest.avi

       Grey's Anatomy - s01e03.mp4

   /Season 02

       Grey's Anatomy - s02e01.avi

       Grey's Anatomy - s02e02.mkv

       Grey's Anatomy - s02e03.m4v

 

Multi-Episode Files

If a single file covers more than one episode, name it as follows:

* TV Shows/ShowName/Season XX/ShowName - sXXeYY-eZZ.ext

where ZZ is the last episode number contained in the file (e.g. "Heroes s04e01-e03.mkv" starts with episode 1 and ends with episode 3).

/TV Shows

  /Heroes

   /Season 02

     Heroes - s02e05-e08.mkv

   /Season 04

     Heroes - s04e01-e02.mkv

     Heroes - s04e03.mkv

Note: Multi-episode files will show up individually in DMS when viewing your library, but playing any of the represented episodes will play the full file. If you want episodes to behave truly independently, you're best off using a tool to split the file into individual episodes.