A good collection - doesn't matter what kind - is of the essence. Whenever you've got lots of something in one place, you at least need to make sure everything is labeled and stored correctly.

This is certainly true for downloaded TV series collections. Although the uploader's netiquette helps, a lot of your episodes will still arrive differently, if not mislabeled.

The result is work. A lot of extra, manual revision work for the user. That is, unless you're using an application that not only keeps your filenames in order, and sorts your collection, but even takes into account the TV air dates.

TV Rename

The name might be a little bit misleading. In fact, renaming is one of the lesser aspects of TV Rename, albeit still important. TV Rename could be considered a general personal assistant for everything related to downloaded TV series, much more than any competitor apps.

There are two ways to first get started with TV Rename. One is to add all the TV series you're interested in, be it already watched, interesting, or still airing titles. As can be seen in the screenshot above, this'll give you a general overview of your personal TV interests.

For every TV series, and every season thereof, you can click on to a general description and episode overview. From there on, you can fork off towards the TVDB website for more information, or even launch a Torrent search for the episode in question.

The second step would be to identify the video folders on your computers where your TV series collection is stored. This can be done via Tools -> Folder Monitor, and in two parts. First, you launch a semi-automatic search in a number of self-specified folders. This will return many of your video collections, but also a lot of irrelevancy.

Next, you skim through the list and highlight specific series. You'll try to link every folder to a specific series on TVDB, and specify if the folder holds all seasons, one season per folder, or only one of said seasons. Although some popular anime series are recognized, TVDB remains largely focused on western series. When done, these folders will also be monitored for changes and new episodes.

Renaming & Missing Episodes

For someone with an intricate TV series library collection, there are two big steps towards organized excellence. Correctly and (most importantly) consistently renaming all your episodes, and adding any that are missing from your collection.

These two things can be done in the Scan tab. TV Rename will scan every folder that's paired with a TV series, and try to notice faults.

Under missing, TV Rename will tell you about episodes that are already aired, but still missing from your collection. From this page, you can launch another BitTorrent search. But instead of being defaulted to Mininova, here you can choose from a considerable list of torrent search engines.

The application can also be used to flatten out inconsistences between filenames, and rename all your episodes via a singular pattern. By default, this is "Series Name - S##E## - Episode Title".

TV Air Dates

TV Rename is not an application to be used once or twice, and then be discarded. The When To Watch tab makes sure of that.

Of all series added by you, this will show you any recent and upcoming air dates. This includes episodes specifics, like episode number, air date, time and day, but also a short synopsis. Again, you can use this page to instantly launch a BitTorrent search.

What do you think of TV Rename? Or do you have another software alternative to organize your TV series collection? Be sure to let us know in the comments section below!