Support for episodes split over multiple files

[jmediamanager]

Reported by eskermikey, Jul 2, 2013

I have a few episodes of anime series that have one "episode" split over two or more files. Thermae Romae is a good example of this, where fansub groups have treated it as six half-length episodes but AniDB considers it three full-length episodes containing two sub-episodes each.

I would like to be able to inform JMM of this so that it won't skip over the second part of the episode because it thinks I've watched it already thanks to having watched the first part.

[da3dsoul]

+1 on this. Re Zero is just the most recent I ran into. It's too common to not have compatibility.

[da3dsoul]

It should also do this automatically. If aniDB lists ep01a and ep01b separate, use aniDB setting (how it already works). If it doesn't, automatically group ep01a,b,c,etc into an episode.
Common names:

[int][alpha]
[int] (part[int]) with or without parentheses
[int].[int]

[da3dsoul]

I'll add more info to this. Anidb usually lists these as a single episode. That helps with identifying at least. If we sorted the episode names lexicographically, as long as they are from the same source, they should be in the right order. This will need a new system similar to the multiple files utility, but it will be a list of parts, capable of being reordered in case they are named stupidly.

Regardless, this is not a, "Okay, I've got 5 minutes" task. Removing from the 3.7 milestone unless someone is already working on it.

[bigretromike]

+1 for interest

[ElementalCrisis]

What about this. We already support multiple files per entry, so why not extend this functionality to include split files? If the user has multiple files for the same entry, this simply mark part 2 as a split file and select the series and episode/movie/ova that it ties into. Shoko then assigns the original file a part 1 and instead of asking the user which file to play, which is what happens when you have multiple files for the same entry, it plays part 2 automatically.

[da3dsoul]

Well, we need to take all clients into account. Sure we could just mark it as a single 50 minute Episode, and play both as a continuous stream, but that invites too many problems.
We could also attempt the playlist route, but not every client supports that, so it'll single out clients for a major feature. I'll end up writing a shitty workaround since Nakamori is one of the clients that doesn't support it if that happens.
My best idea is to simply make a second Episode listing with a link to the same AniDB episode (it'll take some work, but it's not any harder that VideoLocal_Place's). It'll auto fill the info and look like two identical episodes of TvDB doesn't list them separate, either. We have a part value, defaulting to one, and when querying the episodes from AniDB_Episode, it'll be how we differentiate.
Whether part should be on the Episode level or VideoLocal level idk.

[bigretromike]

It could be on ep level: if anidb have episode 86. but group throw it 86a nad 86b then it would 2 files for Episode 86 but with 'part' atribute? part=1 part=2 etc. other thing would be to somehow check if you are missing 86c or it stops on 86b :-)

[ElementalCrisis]

How does Nakamori for example currently handle multiple files for the same episode? Unless I'm missing something everything should be handled the same way except for the playback part.

[bigretromike]

hmm if its as seperate episode then its listed as seperate one

[ElementalCrisis]

Not separate episodes, but instances when you have multiple files for the same episode. This is how Desktop does it.

[bigretromike]

oh yeah. nakamori can access them - and currently it play first on list :-) but that a good point we could add menu for that 👍 API list all files linked to Episode without any problem.

[ElementalCrisis]

So yeah for split files we can use the already existing multiple files for same episode function(s) as a base and then go from there. We make the user manually mark the files as split and Server handles the playback of split files.

[bigretromike]

that is an option. also thanks for asking I made a issue about it bigretromike/nakamori#191

[ElementalCrisis]

@revam this is supported now, correct?

[revam]

we have support for managing them, but not for watching them back-to-back in the proper order, no. so nothing have changed.

[revam]

No idea about other clients, but Shokofin has basic support for them when you're using the VFS, and Jellyfin itself have full support for them if you have "proper" video library hygiene (according to the official jellyfin guide(s) for how to manage your library).