Movie Library Rebuild Completed

I mentioned around first of the year that I had accidentally deleted my entire movie library. It was over 1.500 at the time I went stupid. I've been working on rebuilding it for some time.

Well, I'm done.

It's not exactly the same. Previously, I was using iTunes running on a Windows 10 machine to serve up my local files. I downloaded all my iTunes purchases, and played them through iTunes on my Apple TV. And I ripped all my DVDs out and imported them into iTunes as MP4 files.

At the time, the total movie count was 1,525 of which 1,259 were iTunes purchases.

I decided to move everything to Plex, allowing me to stream to more devices. I could have left my Apple purchases in iTunes, and put the non-Apple content in Plex, but that would mean switching apps depending on what I wanted to watch. I didn't want that. I wanted everything in one app, and I wanted more than iTunes offered. So, I installed Plex and began moving everything over.

Along the way, I screwed up and while intending to delete the iTunes content I had already moved over, I instead deleted the iTunes content I hadn't moved over. The total opposite of what I wanted to do.

So began the long process of rebuilding a fairly large movie library.

One thing I didn't like about iTunes was that they had two categories of content: TV Shows and Movies. (I'm not counting music videos, which went into the Music category. Music is another story entirely.)

Of the things that iTunes called "Movies" were things like short films, such as some old Buster Keaton two-reelers. You can make the case that they're movies. But they also listed Disney shorts -- think Mickey and the Beanstalk -- as movies.

And MST3K episodes were movies. Of the movies riffed, around 150 were available through iTunes, and I had them. But, really, I think of those as TV episodes, not movies.

Some Warner Brothers shorts were listed in iTunes as "TV Shows" even though they were just collections of shorts.

With Plex, I had complete control over how I categorized the content. I created three main categories: Movies, Shorts, and TV Shows.

I finished up my last import of iTunes content into Plex. Yes, I had to rip it out because of Apple's copy protection. Yes, I know they don't like it. No, I really don't care, because I'm using it as my own personal use, not for distribution.

Anyway, it's done. I now have 1,587 movies. Real movies. The number is up because I've continued to build my library as I restored it.

I have 568 short films. That's individual Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck cartoons, along with the Buster Keaton and other similar shorts. I have them tagged with ways that are useful to me, for when I want to watch certain things: Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Bugs Bunny, Frisky Puppy, Road Runner, Sylverster, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, etc.

And I am building my TV Shows library. I didn't really have that done in iTunes, so I didn't lose anything there. But, I have all the MST3K listed as episodes of that TV show. Also, I've done the shows I own full series of: Star Trek (original), Firefly, The Fugitive, The IT Crowd, Men Into Space, The Outer Limits (original), The Twilight Zone (original), and Get Smart. I'm working on Doctor Who right now, and have the first ten seasons. One more Jon Pertwee season, then on to Tom Baker.

So, finally -- fi-nal-ly -- my movie library is rebuilt.

Now, to watch it all. Starting with the unriffed MST3K movies.