SteveMad

Q: Home Sharing TV Show folders/seasons mixed up after update to tvOS 9.2

After updating my Apple TV 4th generation box to 9.2, I discovered that TV Show folders have been added to the Home Sharing "My Computers" function. Love it! Been waiting a long time for it! However, the sorting criteria has changed and it is no longer sorting by Show Title, Season and Episode. There is some other metadata considerations being use and it is completely jumbling up my show collections:

 

IMG_3312.JPG

 

Admittedly, I have about half of my TV collections have been ripped from DVDs purchased and metadata painstakingly added manually by myself. And as upsetting as it is for this effort to be thrown out, it would be helpful to know what metadata fields (existing or new) that the Apple TV engineers are drawing from to build their pages. Also, there is garbage metadata directly from the iTunes purchases of mine that are causing sorting issues as well. So it seems that I will have to clean that up in order to view content in a consistent order - at least through my home sharing. It doesn't seem unreasonable to utilize iTunes as a content management system for items not purchased through Apple. Any other "home brewers" and iTunes TV Show watchers having similar issues with the latest update and Home Sharing?

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 10, 2016 9:29 AM

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Q: Home Sharing TV Show folders/seasons mixed up after update to tvOS 9.2

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  • Helpful answers

  • by jon_at_home,

    jon_at_home jon_at_home Apr 10, 2016 3:33 PM in response to SteveMad
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 10, 2016 3:33 PM in response to SteveMad

    Yesterday I described my version of this in a post, but stupidly didn't include the screenshot as you did.  I have the same issues. 

     

    It has to be a problem with the TVOS because two other earlier ATVs running earlier iOS are fine, as are iPads and iPhones....

     

    Sorry that doesn't give you a solution, but your problem is shared!

  • by WolfmanOz,

    WolfmanOz WolfmanOz Apr 11, 2016 3:37 AM in response to SteveMad
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 11, 2016 3:37 AM in response to SteveMad

    Same problem mate - you've explained it very well.

  • by jon_at_home,Apple recommended

    jon_at_home jon_at_home Apr 11, 2016 7:32 AM in response to WolfmanOz
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apple TV
    Apr 11, 2016 7:32 AM in response to WolfmanOz

    After some further investigation, here's what seems to have fixed it for me....

     

    So I switched to the column browser and added a whole bunch of the fields that weren't there by default.  (View, show by episode, then View again and select Column Browser).

    The fields I found that corrected my problem were Album and for good measure, Artist.  Just compare to those that are working correctly for you.  Of course, these fields don't show up as a tag you can enter under a TV Show normally, so just switch the "Media Kind", under Options, to Music Video, add the missing tag data and then switch it back to TV Show and save.

    By adding in the name of the Show, e.g. "The Big Bang Theory" as a bulk edit for the items appearing incorrectly, these were then shown as expected, when viewed on the ATV4.

     

    I think this is the resurrection of an old issue. or perhaps just an old solution.  If the ATV4 TVOS needs the Album tag to sort correctly, perhaps it ought to be available by default as an editable tag for TV Shows?

     

    Hope that helps

  • by WolfmanOz,

    WolfmanOz WolfmanOz Apr 13, 2016 4:01 AM in response to jon_at_home
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 13, 2016 4:01 AM in response to jon_at_home

    Thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work for me.

  • by WolfmanOz,

    WolfmanOz WolfmanOz Apr 14, 2016 5:43 AM in response to jon_at_home
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 14, 2016 5:43 AM in response to jon_at_home

    Sorry, didn't do it right as you explained. Now done and it has updated correctly.

     

    Very bizarre and pretty untidy from Apple.

  • by Orrelljet,

    Orrelljet Orrelljet Jun 8, 2016 7:08 AM in response to SteveMad
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 7:08 AM in response to SteveMad

    Hey SteveMad,

     

    Slightly off topic but...if you have acces to a Windows machine, I'd highly recommend buying Meta X, by Dan Hinsley.

     

    I, like you, spent years tagging manually until I found this genius piece of software a few months back.

     

    A Bloody godsend!

     

    J.

  • by Art20thC,

    Art20thC Art20thC Sep 3, 2016 3:46 AM in response to WolfmanOz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 3, 2016 3:46 AM in response to WolfmanOz

    I tried all of the above. Took a show with 3 seasons, currently sorting top downwards as 2, 3, 1.

    Bulk edited the group of episodes, changed them to Music Videos, edited the title of the show into Artist, Album and even Composer, then I switched them back to be TV shows. Rebooted the Apple TV, went back into the show, still in the 2, 3, 1 order.

    What is the sense of this??? OK, I get that it could be a metadata issue, but how on earth does blank metadata cause a non-numerical season sort? How does an algorithm generate such a bizarre, random sequence without any data with which to do it? Has the Apple TV evolved into a sentient being that can make arbitrary decisions?

    I've been advised by a friend who works for Apple it could be to do with "release date" but again, if it's blank, then how is this order being generated? Tried to edit in a release date- refuses to save it.

    I thoroughly hate the ATV4 interface. Glaring white background with no option to customise, the constant jumping back to the top of the list of TV shows every time you browse your computer, the forced auto-playing of the next episode. I have over 4300 episodes/movies in my database and I have 156 different TV Show groupings. This is madness for me.

    Seems to me Apple are more interested in selling content through iTunes than bothering to do a couple of hours' work to help ATV users customise their experience with a device they paid good money for. Note to Apple: Windows knows the word "customise" as well as the word "accessibility options" for people who find white screens harsh (e.g. Aspergers). This insistence that we will blindly accept the decisions of the empire will be your downfall!

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Sep 3, 2016 5:37 AM in response to Art20thC
    Level 10 (85,061 points)
    iTunes
    Sep 3, 2016 5:37 AM in response to Art20thC

    In principle TV Shows are grouped on the Show field and within a show sub-grouped on Season No. In practice recent builds of iTunes and/or Apple TV/iOS firmware seem to be taking account of Album, Artist & Album Artist in certain views. For consistency I therefore suggest the following approach:

     

    • Show = Album = <Show Name>

      e.g. "Heroes"

    • Artist = Album Artist = <Show Name> or <Show Name> Cast (or something like that)

      e.g. "Heroes Cast"

    • Season No. = <Season No.> or <Blank> (Separate seasons or all listed together)

      e.g. 1 - 2

    • Episode ID = s##e## (This field, sorted alphabetically, controls order)

      e.g. s01e01 - s02e34 (use s##e### when >99 episodes - I prefer to use absolute episode no. here)

    • Episode No. = Track No. = <Absolute Episode No.>

      (Can also be per season, but abs. is better) e.g. 1 - 34

    • Disc No. = <Season No.> (Can be set even if merging seasons)

      e.g. 1 - 2

     

    Taking this approach you can always merge or split into individual seasons simply by clearing or setting the Season No. field, and the order should always be correct.

     

     

    Heroes1.png or Heroes2.png

     

     

    For general tips on organizing media in iTunes see Grouping tracks into albums. Note that sort fields should not be used to link things with different main values.

     

     

    If you use the scheme above, and you let iTunes manage the media files, you may find they are renamed in a way that suits your needs better in Explorer/Finder.

     

     

    tt2