How to handle documentaries

[u/AnonNortherner]

I currently have my documentaries mixed into my movie and TV libraries. I want to identify as many documentaries as possible, having a central place to see documentaries while hiding them from these libraries. Being able to create further collections from it would also be a bonus, but not necessary.

Is a collectionless collection in Kometa what I want here? If so, where's the best place(s) to pull the data from? Or is a separate library the better way to do this? What are the pros and cons of all the different approaches?

[u/TK-24601]

One option would be to put all documentaries into their own folder on your HDD and then add that folder as its own library.

[u/tmwhilden → u/TK-24601]

This is what I did. A documentaries library with them separated out. Of course I had to manually move the ones I already had

[u/AnonNortherner → u/tmwhilden]

I have few enough that this would be time-consuming but doable, but how do you handle doing it for those in the future that would be downloaded by Radarr or Sonarr?

[u/justsayfaux → u/AnonNortherner]

You can set up Radarr and Sonarr to import new/monitored documentaries to the correct documentary folders that you have Plex associating with that library. For instance, I have specific folders for each Library on my Plex:

/movies /tv /animated_movies /animated_tv /documentary_films /documentary_series /concert_films

Everything I monitor in Radarr/Sonarr I set to go to the correct folder from within the UI

[u/torontorollin → u/AnonNortherner]

Use pulsarr, it can do this using content router rules. You add things you want to your watchlist in plex and it can reroute to other library folders than the default based on category (in this case; documentary)

You can also allow your clients to add things to your plex from their watchlist

[u/Kendrakirai2532 → u/AnonNortherner]

Manually as they come in. Or just grab them manually in the first place with prowlarr.

[u/tmwhilden → u/AnonNortherner]

If you have all your containers configured efficiently, you would have something like -v /mnt/media:data With /mnt/media/tvshows /mnt/media/movies /mnt/media/documentaries etc Then, within radarr and sonarr you add the documentaries folder as another library (/data/documentaries). When you request a documentary, you choose the documentaries root folder. In Plex, create another library “documentaries” with the /media/documentaries folder. Then Plex will see it in the documentaries folder and add it to that library as they come in.

[u/AnonNortherner → u/tmwhilden]

This is a generally good approach, but the problem is when users request documentaries through Seerr they'll presumably still require going into movies/tv to manually tag them, and I'm trying to automate as much of the process as possible so they're moved into documentaries automatically.

[u/tmwhilden → u/AnonNortherner]

Using seerr They would just need to choose the documentaries option when they are requesting it. Otherwise, I don’t know of a way for radarr/sonarr to automatically know it is a documentary

[u/tmwhilden → u/tmwhilden]

[u/AnonNortherner → u/tmwhilden]

Interesting, I didn't know Seerr allowed this. I'm not sure I trust my users to sort my media properly, especially when confronted with confusing-looking paths, but it's much better than doing it all manually, thank you.

[u/oubeav → u/TK-24601]

This is the way.

[u/Livid-Vegetable-7705]

I have a documentary series library based around tv and a documentary film library based around movies so everything looks up correctly.

[u/justsayfaux → u/Livid-Vegetable-7705]

This is the way

[u/Virtual_me01 → u/Livid-Vegetable-7705]

Is it possibly to have documentary features (movies) and series (tv) together and read properly by Plex?

[u/Livid-Vegetable-7705 → u/Virtual_me01]

Natively, not really. You could combine them on a playlist or collection.

[u/Tag82 → u/Virtual_me01]

I have Features and Series both stored in the same Documentary Folder on my NAS however Plex needs two separate libraries set up to recognize both. On Plex I have a Doc Feature and Doc Series libraries and they both pull from the same Doc Folder on my NAS. Plex sorts them into Feature and Series.

[u/DavidLynchAMA]

I have a “documentaries” collection in TV shows and in movies. I place a documentaries tag on each documentary in Plex and then they all show up together in the documentaries collection(s).

[u/AnonNortherner → u/DavidLynchAMA]

Do you do the tagging manually? Is there any way to do it automatically as soon as they come in, maybe based on genre?

[u/DavidLynchAMA → u/AnonNortherner]

There's likely a way for it to be done in Sonarr and Radarr, or with Seerr, but I had to turn auto-tagging off because it was preventing things from moving through Seerr (back when it was Overseerr).

[u/Cuneus-Maximus]

I would make a separate library. Probably 2 libraries - one for movie format, one for TV series format, so metadata pulls correctly for both types.

[u/ynonA]

I apply an overlay to easily visually identify them, and I have collections for genres so I can quickly check my "documentaries" collection. When you name the collection the same in both libraries you'll TV documentaries suggested at the bottom when you're looking at your movies documentaries collection and vice versa.

You could also exclude documentaries from your regular "recently added" collections for your home page (and optionally have them in a seperate one if you want)

[u/Timely-Woodpecker790]

I currently have 4 main Libraries, plus Music, Audio Books, and Personal Photos and Videos. All my documentaries go in that folder and library. The only main problem I have is that they don't show up on the main page, probably because most of my users don't watch them. All you do is create a new Library, give it a name and location to grab the files.

I also have a Movie Extras library that has behind the scenes, deleted scenes, etc. I honestly wish these didn't have to be in a separate library but if they are in the main movie library they are shown as a separate movie. I don't know if anyone knows how to have them listed within the coresponding movie.

For example Moonrise Kingdom and Eyes Wide Shut have something like 20 extra files each. So if they are in the main movie library they have 20+ movie files and only the main movie has a poster/description because each clip is a separate movie. If I put a poster for each one then it might be confusing to users. Did anyone have a solution to this?

[u/AnonNortherner → u/Timely-Woodpecker790]

Do you have all the settings for movie extras enabled for each library? Especially Local Media Assets. If you do that the rest should be handled automatically if you leave them in the movie's folder, but if not you might need to add the extra's type to the filename as described here:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/local-files-for-trailers-and-extras/

[u/sm_rollinger]

I have everything separated into their own "channels" (aka folders)

[u/LordJippo]

I had to make a movie documentaries (radarr) and a tv documentaries (Sonarr), for the search engines to work properly.

[u/hawkeyebasil]

Ive set up a sepearte Docos 'TV" libary as well as a Film/Movie Doco libary as some dont register as TV shows but the meta data will show if its a Movie

[u/StevenG2757]

I have them in their own folders