How Nostalgex sorts your library into channels

The short version

Every channel is a short list of requirements. Nostalgex checks each title in your library against each channel, keeps the ones that fit, and puts the channel on air once enough of them do.

The Apple TV app and the web tuner, hosted or self-hosted in Docker, run the same rules. Fix a title on your server once and it's fixed in both places.

What to fix on your server

These are the things Nostalgex reads from each title. Change them in your server's metadata editor and save. Nostalgex picks the change up on its next scan, or straight away if you run RESCAN LIBRARY under SERVERS & ACCOUNTS in Settings on Apple TV.

• Genres. The big one. Plex calls them Genre tags, Jellyfin and Emby call them Genres. For a TV show, every episode uses the show's genres. A title needs the right genre to get on a channel, and the wrong one can keep it off.
• Studio. Nostalgex reads one studio per title: the Studio field on Plex, or the first studio listed on Jellyfin and Emby. A channel that wants Disney matches "Walt Disney Pictures", because it only looks for the word. If the studio is blank or doesn't match, Nostalgex also checks the title's production companies and networks from TMDB.
• Content rating. The Content Rating on Plex, the Parental Rating on Jellyfin and Emby. A rating from another country is read as the nearest US one, so GB-15 counts as R. Kids and family channels never take R, NC-17, TV-MA, 18, 18+, X or NR. A title with no rating at all is unrated, and some channels let unrated titles through.
• Year. A movie uses its release year. A TV show uses the year the show started, so the whole show sits in one decade. A title with no year gets past year limits.
• Star rating. A few channels want a minimum score, like ALL TIME GREATS and the decade channels. Nostalgex reads the rating your server holds for the title, which is the Community Rating on Jellyfin and Emby. On Plex your own star rating counts too. If neither clears the bar, Nostalgex uses the title's IMDb rating when it has one.
• Title. Some channels are lists of titles, like STAR WARS or FEEL GOOD TV. They match whole words anywhere in the title, ignore capitals, and ignore a "(1994)" on the end. For a TV show it's the show's name, not the episode's. The holiday TV channels, like CHRISTMAS SPECIALS, are the exception: they read episode titles and summaries.
• The TMDB match. Keywords, networks, production companies and IMDb scores aren't tags you write. Nostalgex looks them up from the title's TMDB ID, which your server saves when it matches the title. A wrong or missing match means the channels that use them can't see the title. You can read a title's keywords on its themoviedb.org page, but you can't change them from your server. The lookup sends only the public TMDB or IMDb ID, and the privacy policy has the details.

How a channel decides

Most channels work in two steps. A title has to get in, then it has to clear the limits.

The limits apply to every way in. A title that matches a keyword still has to be in the channel's years.

• Studio and genre together. When a channel asks for a studio and a genre, the title needs both.
• Only limits. Some channels have no way in at all, only limits. VHS VAULT is every movie from 1980 to 1999. That's the whole rule.
• Just a list. A channel that's only a list of titles doesn't ask for a genre. STAR WARS takes anything with the words Star Wars in the title, tagged or not.

Locked genres

Some genres are locked. A title with one of these tags only lands on channels that ask for that genre by name.

• Horror
• Reality and Game Show
• Animation
• Documentary
• War
• Western
• Talk Show and News

That's why a horror film never turns up on VHS VAULT, even a 1989 one. Animation also gets into kids channels and title lists. Studio channels, like PIXAR MOVIES, skip the locks. Music, Sport and History aren't locked.

Three examples

Real channels, so you can see how the pieces fit.

Make your own channel

If the built-in channels don't cover what you want, make a collection on your server. That's a Collection in Plex, and a Collection or BoxSet in Jellyfin and Emby. Put at least three movies in it. For shows, the episodes count.

On Apple TV, open Settings, then CHANNELS & BUNDLES, then MY COLLECTIONS. Press SCAN MY COLLECTIONS and switch on the ones you want. The web tuner has a MY COLLECTIONS section too. The collection's name becomes the channel's name: Dad's Westerns, Comfort Movies, whatever you want.

Film series get their own channels without any of that. Own three or more films from the same series and the FRANCHISES package gives the series a channel. Nostalgex works out the series from TMDB, so a film with the wrong match can fall out of its series. Franchise channels, explained has the rest.

Why a channel isn't on air

A channel needs a few matching titles before it goes on air. Most want three or five. A few want more, and ROM COMS wants 50. For TV, each episode counts as a title. Below the number, the channel is left out of your guide instead of showing up empty. A lineup with fewer channels than you expected doesn't mean anything is broken.

On Apple TV, go to Settings, CHANNELS & BUNDLES, CHANNEL PACKAGES. When a channel in a package you've switched on is short, a WHY ARE SOME CHANNELS MISSING? row appears. It tells you what each missing channel looks for, in plain words, and how many of your titles match next to how many it needs.

Titles with a home channel

A few kinds of title are locked to their own channels so they don't turn up everywhere.

• Holiday movies. A movie tagged Holiday or Christmas, or with a word like Christmas, Xmas or Noel in its title, or on my list of holiday classics, stays on the TIS THE SEASON channels. Tag a movie that way and it leaves its regular channels.
• Anime. Anything tagged Anime stays on ANIME.
• Scream and Halloween. The Scream and Halloween films stay on SCREAM ADULTS and SLASHER.

A locked title only airs on its own channels, so it sits out until their package is on. The guide offers TIS THE SEASON from a week before US Thanksgiving through December, and SCREAM in October.

When a title is on the wrong channel

1. Check what the channel asks for. The examples above show how the pieces fit, and the Channel Guide lists every channel.
2. Open the title on your server and compare its genres, year, studio and rating.
3. Look at the match. A wrong poster, year or description is the sign of a wrong TMDB match. Plex has Fix Match, and Jellyfin and Emby have Identify.
4. Save the change. If your server lets you lock the field, do it, so a later metadata refresh doesn't put the old value back.
5. Rescan. On Apple TV that's RESCAN LIBRARY under SERVERS & ACCOUNTS in Settings.

Still stuck? Tell me the title, the channel you expected, and which server you use. Support has how to reach me.

If you like reading the rules themselves, every channel's are in CHANNELS.md in the open source repo.