How are TV Series Special Episodes handled?
#1
Hi

In My Movies / WMC - Only Fools & Horses - Season 3 - I have eight episodes. (These are AVI files).

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In XBMC I only have seven episodes under Season 3. Episode 8 Thicker Than Water is missing.

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Looking on TheTVDB.com episode 8 is not listed as episode 8 but as a special episode.

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How do I get this special episode to show up in XBMC ?

Here are the files on the server.

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Many Thanks


In My Movies we have to put special episodes in to a "Season 0" folder

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Looking at Top Gear in XBMC it's picked up only one of the Special episodes but not the others. Something to do with the file naming?

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#2
The specials have to be placed in a season 00 folder. Episodes name should contain S00Exx. If you still have problems read this article.

Your season 0 folder contains files named like S01 - XBMC scrapes the episodes number/season from filenames not folders.
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#3
specials should be named S00Exx


Top Gear - S00E01.avi (for example)
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#4
I eventually figured out how to sort out the Special Episodes. I renamed them as you suggested. I also had to install and use Ember Media Manager to generate the NFO / TBN files for them, as My Movies Collection Management program only supports creating NFO / TBN files for Movies at the moment and not TV Series.

I am still however unable to add / play properly TV Series that are DVD from the TV Shows Library, please see here. Should this work?

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Thanks
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#5
thanks for this thread, got my special episodes all sorted out with your posts.
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#6
I already have looked at the wiki and thetvdb, while it definitely worked for some shows, I couldn't get it working with The IT Crowd specials

So my last try I had the following folder structure

Code:
|- The IT Crowd
|  |- The.IT.Crowd.S00
|  |  |- The.IT.Crowd.S00E01.The.Internet.Is.Coming
|  |  |  |- the.it.crowd.s00e01.720p.hdtv.x264.mkv
|  |- The.IT.Crowd.S01
|  |- The.IT.Crowd.S02
|  |- The.IT.Crowd.S03
|  |- The.IT.Crowd.S04

But I don't know how to match the special episode number according to the TVDB

Code:
Absolute #   Episode Name              Originally Aired    Image
             The Internet Is Coming    2013-09-27
             The IT Crowd Manual       2013-12-24
1            Yesterday's Jam           2006-02-03      
2            Calamity Jen              2006-02-03      

...

24           Reynholm vs. Reynholm     2010-07-30      
Special      The Internet Is Coming    2013-09-27    
Special      The IT Crowd Manual       2013-12-24

I've tried some stupid things like S00E00, S00E25, S05E01.

I don't get what I'm doing wrong.
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#7
If you click on the special entry in theTVDB you'll see the detailed information, including the "episode" number of the special (as noted above, many series have multiple specials).

From that "The Internet is Coming" is S00E04 and "The IT Crowd Manual" is S00E05. Try those and see how it goes for you (although quite why they are 4 and 5 I don't know...). As noted above, they don't need to be in a special folder, they can quite happily live with the episodes from the series or season as the scraper goes by file name rather than folder name once it knows what program it is actually scraping.
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#8
Oh that feels a bit embarrassing, the solution was almost under my nose. I was confused by the listing without numbers.
Thanks Darren
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#9
(2015-06-14, 19:35)DarrenHill Wrote: From that "The Internet is Coming" is S00E04 and "The IT Crowd Manual" is S00E05. Try those and see how it goes for you (although quite why they are 4 and 5 I don't know...).

Special episodes are named 1,2,3,.... accross all seasons. In you example they are special episodes 4 and 5 for this series whatever season they are in.
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#10
My point was there are only two specials across all 4 series as listed in theTVDM.com. So either the listing is incomplete or someone can't count. There are no specials 1-3.
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#11
Hum, yes. That doesn't make sense.
I just checked http://thetvdb.com/?tab=seasonall&id=254738&lid=7 and yes, special 1 is numbered 5, special 2 is 6 and so on.
So we can say special episodes are numbered across seasons but not starting at 1 Huh
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#12
Hi, I'm not sure if anyone can help with this one but I have Justice League Action and I can't seem to get the Special folder to show up when I've updated the library? I've tried naming the folder Season 0 and also Specials but it's still only showing the episodes in Season 1,

Thanks Smile
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#13
Hello @JoeTheJellyfish

Is this the show?... https://www.thetvdb.com/series/justice-league-action

If you had the episode Shazam Slam in Specials, the file would be named Justice League Action S00E02
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#14
Yes that is the one. In my folders I’ve nameed it:

Justice League Action
- Season 1
- S01E05 - Follow That Space Cab
- S01E06 - Nuclear Family Values
- Etc
- Season 0
- S00E01 - Comic-Con Prelude
- S00E02 - Shazam Slam
- Etc

But then in my library they aren’t separate or showing the folders labeled Season 1 and Specials but all in Justice League Action, if that makes sense?
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#15
https://kodi.wiki/view/Settings/Media/Vi...ow_seasons
Quote:Removes the TV show season node, toggles between "If only one season" (default), "Always" and "Never".
Since "Justice League Action" only has one season so far (Specials don't "count"), Kodi's default settings will remove the seasons node.
If you want the season and specials folders to show up, change that setting so "never".
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How are TV Series Special Episodes handled?1