[mrt2]

Ok So I'm quite new to this and I've been looking through the forums but haven't been able to find something that gives a very concise answer to the question of organizing files. I have a lot of TV Shows and for the most part all the seasons to the shows as well... What's the best way to tag them? Is there an application out there I can use to tag metadata that XBMC can read?
Also there is this 'clean up video file names' option or something to that affect in the video options in XBMC, what exactly does that do? Will it actually change the file names on my computer (shared remotely)? I don't have any content actually on the ATV I have it shared through my Mac Pro... I'd love to refrain from renaming the files as I seed these shows on torrents and changing the file names would screw with a lot of seeds to sites I belong to... I'd rather organize everything through metadata if that's even possible... If I ABSOLUTELY have to rename the files themselves I guess I could find a way to work around that but ANY SUGGESTIONS would be extremely helpful. Thanks so much for the awesome work you guys put it and thanks to the community for being so helpful.
I look forward to hearing and trying out the suggestions.

[althekiller]

See the section in the wiki about using scrapers, it describes in detail how the scraper expects your TV shows to be named/organized.

As for the "Clean filenames" option, it is merely for display purposes and doesn't actually touch the files.

[jmarshall]

Best way at present is to use nfo files if you want them. For the most part you don't need them though - XBMC will scan and download information just fine, assuming your filesystem is sane.

Note that tagging them (i.e. embedding information in the file itself) is not supported by XBMC at present (it will be shortly), but even if it was, it would alter the file, so your torrent seeding would still break.

[pender]

XBMC has a metadata scraper built in. For TV shows, add a source(s) that contain the TV shows and before you press OK/Select, select Set Content. Then Change the Scraper to TV Shows and leave the web service scraper on TheTVDB.com

Select Run automated scan and Use folder names for lookups and deselect folder contains single show/movie

Click settings before pressing select/OK and click Prefer Poster Art.

It will gather info for TV show episodes and will not change filename of local or network shares.

Filenames for shows should be
Seinfeld - S01E01 - Pilot.avi
You can try other methods like 1x01, but it works best with 'S' then two digits representing the season followed by 'E' then two digits for the episode.

Repeat for Music/Movies

Once done scanning, go into Library mode to enjoy the metadata.

[mrt2]

Thanks for all the help everyone!