Sort order on TV Show episodes

Question

Sort order on TV Show episodes

Help!

I am trying to figure out how to make iPad sort episodes by episode number rather than strictly by alphabetical order.

I bought the original Wifi Ipad on Apr 3. Transferred all my episodes (which are all coded correctly with Season and Ep #) and when I would select "24", they would all list out by episode # rather than sorted by title. Same with 5 other TV series.

I returned my Wifi and now own a iPad 3G and put everything back on it, but no matter what I try, everything is sorted by title, which makes watching TV shows in order completely useless.

I know some will say "just add a 1- in front of the title." You shouldn't have to do that.

Anyone know the trick to get iPad to sort by Ep#?

thanks!

8-Core 3GHz Mac Pro, 8GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 1, 2010 4:53 PM

Reply

Answer 1

May 1, 2010 7:32 PM in response to Stacy Rothwell

Mine sort just fine.
Make sure you fully tag them on both the info tab(track #,album is "showname, season#) as well as the video tab(season #,episode#). Make sure you have kind set as tv show.

As I said-mine sort correctly.

Reply

Answer 2

jaberg

Level 1

10 points

May 19, 2010 2:14 PM in response to Johnathan Burger

I'm having the same problem. Mine sorted correctly too—right up until they didn't any more. No idea what changed, but all of the tags are present and correct (and the same as before).

In addition, the box art that I had tagged the tracks with has been replaced (as seen on the iPad) with a screen shot from the first episode and the white textual representation of the series title and season number that used to appear under the box art has disappeared. I have no idea what show I'm looking at (except in my case there's only one show on the device.)

This is on the iPad only—everything still appears "as it should" within iTunes on the Macintosh.

I've tried resorting within iTunes and re-syncing and deleting the content from the iPad and replacing it. No joy.

I have reported this behavior to Apple using the feedback mechanism and suggest others having this problem do the same.

Reply

Answer 3

May 25, 2010 6:56 PM in response to Stacy Rothwell

Just fixed it on mine. It sorts by Track # in the Info Tab.

Find your video, hit Apple-I, select the info tab, and in the two windows: Track # _ of _ change the first number to the episode number.

Reply

Answer 4

jaberg

Level 1

10 points

Jun 17, 2010 2:11 PM in response to Monte Babington

I wish I'd read Johnathan Burger's message more carefully—the answer was there, I just glossed over it. Monte's reply put me in the right mindset. Indeed, once I added the track numbers (which would seem to be, but obviously is no, redundant given the episode fields in the video section) the episodes sort correctly and the box art is back.

I had a look at a TV episode that I'd purchased from the iTunes store and note that it too made use of the Track # field, as well as the Title, Artist and Album fields. I'll go back to my ripped video and add that informations as well just to be safe.

Thanks to both of you for sharing the correct answer. Sorry to Johnathon for not noticing it the first time.

Reply

Answer 5

OzziesMAC

Level 2

183 points

Jul 31, 2011 7:59 PM in response to Monte Babington

I added my track number to all the episodes on the info pad and they sort on iTunes properly, but on the iPad they are still out of sequence?

Reply

Answer 6

Jul 31, 2011 8:12 PM in response to OzziesMAC

Did you delete them on the iPad and resync them?

Reply

Answer 7

OzziesMAC

Level 2

183 points

Jul 31, 2011 8:30 PM in response to Johnathan Burger

They are actually not on the iPad but viewing them thru the shared library mode in iTunes.

Displays in proper sequence on iTunes but out of sequence in iPad.

Reply

Answer 8

Bearie

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2013 1:46 AM in response to Johnathan Burger

I deleted the tv shows i purchased then downloaded them again but they are still arranged alphabetically and not by episode. This problem is just for my ipad mini. I just recently bought the ipad4 and when i downloaded same tv shows on my new ipad4 they are arranged by episode and by volume which is really great. I tried everything for my ipad mini bit the problem persists- wont arrange by episode.

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 12, 2013 7:40 AM in response to Bearie

I have the same issue on my iPad 3. Doesn't matter how much metadata I put in my Archer episodes are all mixed up. I checked the episode number, track number and even the dates when they were released and nothing makes a difference. On iTunes and Apple TV, they are perfect, it's just on iPad.

Reply

Answer 10

Nov 12, 2013 10:12 AM in response to Airsculpture

Found a solution, at least for now. After using all sorts of Metadata apps, if I bulk select all episodes in the season and Get Info, then add the details to all the fields in the Sort By tab, this seems at least for now to make the episodes appear in order on the iPad.

Reply

Answer 11

Nov 19, 2013 6:20 PM in response to Airsculpture

That solution worked fine, until the next time I synced the iPad. Now, all the episodes are back out of order in my TVS how's on the iPad only. All are fine in iTunes, on the Apple TV and even my iPod.

Back to the drawing board.

Reply

Answer 12

Nov 20, 2013 7:37 AM in response to Airsculpture

Sorry about the predictive text on that previous post, **** iPad.

Basically everything on in iTunes and Apple TVs but iPad now back out of order after syncing with iTunes.

Reply

Answer 13

trose32

Level 1

0 points

Dec 1, 2013 11:57 AM in response to Stacy Rothwell

I was having the same issue and frustration. After doing some experimenting, I figured out something that is working for me at least. The video player on the iPad appears to be sorting in the order episodes were downloaded. I had an entire season of shows (23 in all) that I downloaded all at once in iTunes from my purchase history. When I hit the download all icon in the season header, I noticed that iTunes queued the episodes up in alphabetical order. They were also sorted this way once I synced them onto my iPad. I then wiped the season from both the iPad and iTunes and downloaded shows again, this time individually in ordery by episode. When i synced this time to the iPad the episodes were in the correct order.

So, for me at least the iPad appears to be listing shows in whatever order they were downloaded. I hope this helps anyone else experiencing this issue.

Reply

Answer 14

tirk

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2014 2:58 AM in response to Stacy Rothwell

I have the same issue. I've also noticed that the episode number shows on the iPad immediately after sync, but later disappears (and then the order, not surprisingly, goes wrong). This seems to be affecting the iPad but now (so I've noticed) iTunes or Apple TV.

Reply

Answer 15

mat060

Level 1

2 points

Jul 4, 2014 8:38 AM in response to Stacy Rothwell

Here is what I found.

All my TV Show episodes have the Episode and Episode # properly populated on my iTunes Library. Ordered properly by Episode Number.
Open up the Videos app on the iPad (iOS 7) <-- Don't close it, keep looking at the behavior as you delete and transfer the episodes back to the iPad
All the episodes display scrambled. All episodes are displayed as Episode 0
Deleted all the episodes from the iPad. Video app show no episodes.
Transferred the episodes to the iPad again
All the episodes show the correct episode number and ordered correctly by episode number <-- Everything looks right
Reboot the iPad
Open up the Videos app on the iPad
All the episodes display scrambled AGAIN. All episodes are displayed as Episode 0

Conclusion - There must be a run time bug that prevents the Video App of reading the correct Episode number. How can the same App behave differently when you have just recently transferred your content to the iPad and after a device restart. Haven't tried to close the Video App only, without restarting the iPad.

I hope this helps Apple to investigate this issue, SO ANNOYING.

Reply