vodmatic works out what a file is from its path. It is good at it, but it is reading names, not watching video — so the closer your naming is to a convention, the less it has to ask you.
Layouts
Each library folder has a layout: a pattern saying which part of a path means what. vodmatic proposes one by sampling your folder, and you can correct it.
A layout is written with tokens between braces:
{show} |
The series name |
{movie} |
The film name |
{season} |
A season folder, such as Season 3 |
{genre} |
A genre folder, which also decides the portal category |
{year} |
A year folder |
{letter} |
An A–Z bucket folder |
{file} |
The file itself |
{any} |
A folder level to ignore |
So a series library arranged as Drama/Vikings/Season 01/Vikings.S01E01.mkv has the layout {genre}/{show}/Season {season}/{file}.
What good filenames look like
Episodes. Anything containing a recognisable season and episode marker works:
Vikings - S01E01 - Rites of Passage.mkvVikings.S01E01.1080p.WEB-DL.mkvVikings 1x01.mkv
Films. Title and year:
The Addams Family (1991).mkvThe.Addams.Family.1991.1080p.BluRay.mkv
The year matters more than it looks. Without it, a remake and its original are the same title, and the metadata provider has to guess which you meant.
What causes trouble
- Release folders as the title. A path like
Call.me.Kat.S01E09.WEBRip.x264-ION10/Subs/2_English.srthas the show name buried in a folder that is really a release name. vodmatic handles the common shapes, but this is the case it most often has to ask about. - No season folder. Every episode of every season in one directory works, as long as the filenames carry
S01E01. - Episode ranges.
S01E01-E02is understood as one file covering two episodes. - Subtitles. Name them after the episode they belong to —
Vikings.S01E01.en.srt— or put them in aSubsfolder beside it. A subtitle whose episode cannot be worked out ends up on Needs attention.
When it cannot tell
Anything vodmatic is not confident about goes to Needs attention rather than being guessed at. You set the title, the kind and the numbers by hand, and it is queued straight away. It never asks about the same file twice.
Overrides
If a whole set of files is named in a way vodmatic reads wrongly, an override under Settings can correct the title or the kind for everything matching a pattern — rather than you answering the same question fifty times.
Renaming files later
You can. vodmatic notices on the next scan and treats the new path as a new file. The old portal entry keeps pointing at the address that no longer exists, which is exactly what the Missing files screen is for: it finds them and offers to repoint them at the new path.
