Show Language Transform

The showLanguage transform controls how language and region markers in video series titles appear on your iPod. It’s designed for collections with multiple language versions of the same show (e.g., Japanese original, English dub, Chinese dub).

How It Works

When your video files are organized with language markers in folder names:

Movies/
  Digimon Adventure (JPN)/Season 01/...
  Digimon Adventure (CHN)/Season 01/...
  Digimon Digital Monsters (USA Dub)/Season 01/...

The series title on the iPod includes the language marker — e.g., “Digimon Adventure (JPN)”. The showLanguage transform lets you control the format of this marker.

Configuration Reference

Enabled by default with abbreviated language codes. The simplest way to change behavior:

showLanguage = false  # Strip language markers from display

For more control, use the table form:

[showLanguage]
format = "({})"    # Format string, {} is replaced with language
expand = false     # If true, expand abbreviations (JPN → Japanese)

Key	Type	Default	Description
`enabled`	boolean	`true`	Whether to show language markers
`format`	string	`"({})"`	Format string for the language marker. `{}` is replaced with the language code or name
`expand`	boolean	`false`	If `true`, expand abbreviations to full names (JPN → Japanese, CHN → Chinese)

Per-Device Override

Device-level settings override the global showLanguage setting:

[devices.myipod.showLanguage]
expand = true  # Show full language names on this device

[devices.nano]
showLanguage = false  # Don't show language markers on nano

Format Examples

Format	expand	Input	Result
`({})`	`false`	Digimon Adventure (JPN)	Digimon Adventure (JPN)
`({})`	`true`	Digimon Adventure (JPN)	Digimon Adventure (Japanese)
`[{}]`	`false`	Digimon Adventure (JPN)	Digimon Adventure [JPN]
`- {} Dub`	`false`	Digimon Adventure (JPN)	Digimon Adventure - JPN Dub
`({})`	`true`	Show (CHN)	Show (Chinese)

Supported Language Codes

Code	Expands To
JPN	Japanese
ENG	English
CHN	Chinese
KOR	Korean
FRE	French
GER	German
SPA	Spanish
ITA	Italian
USA	American
POR	Portuguese
RUS	Russian

Full language names (e.g., “Japanese”, “Chinese”) in folder names are also recognized and can be contracted to abbreviations when expand is false.

Sync Behavior

The transform is metadata-only — changing your showLanguage preferences never causes video files to be re-transferred. When you change the format or toggle the transform:

podkit sync --dry-run shows how many videos will have metadata updates
podkit sync applies the metadata changes instantly (no transcoding)

This works because podkit matches videos by their original series title + season + episode, independent of how the language marker is formatted for display.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
`PODKIT_SHOW_LANGUAGE`	Enable/disable (`true`/`false`)
`PODKIT_SHOW_LANGUAGE_FORMAT`	Format string
`PODKIT_SHOW_LANGUAGE_EXPAND`	Expand abbreviations (`true`/`false`)