Thread: How do you get and organize TV Episodes?

I was just curious how other people are getting there TV episodes. I have set up what I think is a pretty cool system for getting all my TV needs that I have pieced together over the course of time that I'd like to share. Perhaps some of you have similar systems in place or can help me improve mine.

First of all there are numerous software tools involved in my process.
1) uTorrent
2) System Ghost
3) AHK
4) mkv2vob
5) TheRenamer
5) PS3 Media Server



You can probably guess that my media player of choice is the PS3. The goal was to make a hands free system that automatically downloaded new episodes of the TV series I watch (HD only) and make the available to my PS3.

The process is a bit complicated, but here is the jest of it:
1) With built in smart episode filter and RSS Downloader of uTorrent, I set up the shows I want to download automatically, and filter for 720p files only. (Tracker of choice is TVTorrents.com)
2) Once downloaded, uTorrent puts the seed file into a new folder. Event Ghost is running in the background and sees this new file and copies the file name.
3) Event Ghost kicks off AHK (really this is just because mkv2vob does not have a command line utility) which (simplified) converts the mkv file to a format the PS3 can play natively. Then it kills the mkv2vob process
4) The output folder of mkv2vob is a separate folder (I label it "Unsorted Media") that leaves the seeding folder alone (so that I can continue to seed the torrent to keep up my ratio).
5) Event Ghost, upon the ending of AHK script, opens TheRenamer. This program basically scrapes the filename for the series name, season number, and episode number and goes to theTVDB.com and grabs actual name of the show. It then renames and moves the file into a more structured folder format. It ends up as TV Shows\Series Name\Season #\Series.S##E##.Episode Name.
6) This folder is automatically set up to share with the PS3 via the PS3 Media Server.

And that is it! So far it has been awesome. I've had a few hiccups along the way though. A few shows didn't convert correctly when running through mkv2vob. It isn't entirely robust either, so when that error occurs, it can cause the whole scripting to stop in its tracks until I clear an error window.

Anyone else have anything similar?

1. uTorrent
2. ???
3. Windows Media Player
4. Profit!

Seriously, that's about as simple as my setup is. I'm old-fashioned I guess.

1. uTorrent
2. Rename it myself
3. External HDD
4. TV!!!

You got a very complicated setup. Honestly, I just do everything manually, I guess I could use an RSS and everything, but I just like to keep it simple :)

Yes, it is much more complicated than it should be. If you get your shows consistently from the same supplier, such as LOL, you would not even need to rename your files.

Fox

Psh. I think it's good, :P. I've been working towards the theory behind the very same sort of system myself... except for music, movies, shows, ebooks, everything. It's not quite done yet and I've come across a big timesink/hurdle with all the annoying reorganizing of my drives that I have to do as part of it (which is entirely my fault for making them so messy in the first place) but the concept is there and I can't wait for it to get running properly.

Coming from a network admin background, everything is about automation... and I finally figured, why not bother to put in the same effort at home? Makes it easier for the girl too, :).

I organize them with folders, each show has its own folder, on my external hdd I just open whatever folder I want to watch with VLC then just browse left and right through the episodes.

1) TED/RSS/Manually Added
2) uTorrent
3) TheRenamer
4) Archive HDD

That's my simple process! =)

1. Manually Add
2. Copy over to external HDD/NAS
3. Rename
4. Watch

I have my personal pc and my mediacenter pc with xbmc installed. I hacve the following setup on my XBMC pc

1) Setup filters for uTorrent RSS so that shows download to their respective folders.

2) uTorrent Downloads the files

3) XBMC systematically checks for new media files in my video directories, else I manually reboot the XBMC program.

4) Enjoy :)

4) MediaRenamer to rename my files after I stop seeding them (I usually only do this once the season ends so I can seed for as long as possible).