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Author Topic: A few questions from the beginner  (Read 3179 times)

Eles

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A few questions from the beginner
« on: April 05, 2007, 03:06:32 pm »

Today I discovered this software and I'm amazed. It's wonderful. But I have still a few problems. Can you help me? Of course I have searched the forum yet, but without success.
1) Some time ago I changed a few folder icons of some of my movies. And all files from modyfied folders are ignored from importing. I don't understand why. After I change the folder icon back to default, the next import will find the video file well.
2) Some of the "MKV" movies were added to audio library. I tried everything but didn't resolve how to move them in the section with videos.
3) Is here a way to automatically import covers for movies? Actually in many folders with movies I have cover picture too, but it's ignored and instead of it the new views right from the files were made.
4) Is here a way to automatically import information like genre or director, for example from IMDb?
5) Is it possible to create the customize shortcuts?

Well, audio section works like a charm, I'm extremely satisfied. But I suffer from problems with my movies as I described above.
Please help me if you can :)
Thanks
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gappie

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2007, 06:01:04 pm »

can only help with question 2. because i have seen that happen often, 30% of the mkv files i imported. it is easy to change. select the file and click on tag. look for 'media type' in the list. when it is not there click on the small icon at the left corner of the tag window and choose 'show all tags'. change the 'media type' in video.
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glynor

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2007, 11:47:18 pm »

1) Some time ago I changed a few folder icons of some of my movies. And all files from modyfied folders are ignored from importing. I don't understand why. After I change the folder icon back to default, the next import will find the video file well.

No idea here.  What do you mean you "changed the folder icons"?  Could you describe specifically what you did and how?

2) Some of the "MKV" movies were added to audio library. I tried everything but didn't resolve how to move them in the section with videos.

what Gappie said.   ;)

If you want to find all them in your library easily, you can certainly do a search in the Audio view scheme for:

[File Type]=mkv

And find them all.

4) Is here a way to automatically import information like genre or director, for example from IMDb?

No.  I wish.  It can import information stored about DVDs from YADB (which is MCs database), similar to how it looks up information on CDs.  You can do the same with music files through MC as well (such as MP3s and whatnot), but not video files yet.  I've asked for a method to do this before...

One thing you can do is add IMDB as an option in the right click --> send to --> external menu.   For example, I have:

Code: [Select]
Name: IMDB (Artist)
Program Path: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
Parameters: http://us.imdb.com//Tsearch?"[Name]"

As one of my "applications" in the send to external menu.  You can use any of the tags available in MC in the Parameters.

Some others I use that can be useful for tagging videos and grabbing cover art:

Code: [Select]
"http://www.amazon.com//exec//obidos//external-search//?index=blended&keyword=[Artist]"
"http://www.google.com//search?&q=[Artist] [Album]"

5) Is it possible to create the customize shortcuts?

Sorry, I have no idea what you're asking.  What shortcuts do you want to create?
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Eles

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2007, 04:50:27 am »

Thank you both for replies.
1) solved
2) solved

3) Video covers. In every folder I have video file and picture file with the same names. Can I force MC to use those pictures? In Audio section it works well, pictures are automatically used as album covers.

4) ok, send to - external - IMDb - better than nothing :)

5) by shortcuts I meant customizing keyboard shortcuts. But it isn't neccessary.

6)NEW - Audio files play 4-5x louder than video files. For pleasant listening I must set volume on 20percent, but then when I play video file - nothing is heared and I must raise the volume to 100. It's a bit uncomfortable. Any suggestions?
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glynor

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2007, 09:48:39 am »

3) Video covers. In every folder I have video file and picture file with the same names. Can I force MC to use those pictures? In Audio section it works well, pictures are automatically used as album covers.

You can use the Right-Click --> Cover Art tools for Video Files, the same as you can with any other files.  You can choose Add From File and pick the proper JPEG (or whatever) and it'll replace the auto-generated thumbnail.  However, you can't do them en masse that way.  Unfortunately, the Quick Find in Cover Art Directory tool looks for [Artist] - [Album] so unless you have those tags filled for your video files in a unique way, and you have the cover art named properly and in the specified Cover Art directory (Options --> File Locations), it won't work.  I agree that it'd be nice if MC automatically handled folder.jpg (and whatnot) for video files the same as it does for audio.

However, there's probably a way you can do it semi-manually with an expression and editing the [Image File] tag.  For example, if all of your cover art files have the same name as the [Name] tag and are in JPEG format, you could select them all and in the [Image File] tag field (in the Tag editor) type:

=[Name].jpg

Which would re-tag them all with the appropriate files.  If the [Image File] tag doesn't have a full path, it resolves from the location of the media file, so that could work.  If they're all named just "folder.jpg" or something like that, you could just select them all and type "folder.jpg" into the [Image File] tag.

(BTW: This feature, the ability to reference other tags and use expressions in tags, is brand new.  Thanks again, Matt!)

5) by shortcuts I meant customizing keyboard shortcuts. But it isn't neccessary.

Yeah... You can't.  MC plays nicely with Girder though, so if you use that you can do all kinds of cool things using the documentation here:  http://www.jrmediacenter.com/devzone.html

6)NEW - Audio files play 4-5x louder than video files. For pleasant listening I must set volume on 20percent, but then when I play video file - nothing is heared and I must raise the volume to 100. It's a bit uncomfortable. Any suggestions?

This is likely FFDSHOW's fault.  If you're using FFDSHOW to decode the audio in your video files, AC3 volume in particular can come out VERY low with some sound card drivers using the default settings.  I described this fix previously here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39195.msg267030#msg267030

If that doesn't fix it, you can also use FFDSHOW to boost the volume of the audio files using the Volume "filter".  Setting it to Normalize will do a "gain leveling" that smooths out the loud parts and brings up the quiet parts.  You can also just do a Master Volume boost in there, or boost individual audio channels.  I actually have a two FFDSHOW Presets that help with the random ultra-quiet video file (one normalized and one with the master volume set to 250%).  That way, if I encounter one, I can just right click on the FFDSHOW Audio Decoder icon in the task tray and pick my preset to quickly fix it.

Because MC strives to have bit-perfect audio playback, it generally completely bypasses the normal Windows audio "path" for many different Audio media types.  One result of this is that volume levels for DirectShow playback types (most video files) can be quite different than MC's "native" types (it has many positive results too though -- it doesn't let Windows mess up the quality of the playback for many file types).
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Eles

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2007, 04:16:06 pm »

Thank you glynor, I appreciate your effort.
Now I solved the major problems with your help and MC works well. Very well actually :D

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Eles

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2007, 05:05:21 am »

Quote
However, there's probably a way you can do it semi-manually with an expression and editing the [Image File] tag.  For example, if all of your cover art files have the same name as the [Name] tag and are in JPEG format, you could select them all and in the [Image File] tag field (in the Tag editor) type:
=[Name].jpg
Which would re-tag them all with the appropriate files.  If the [Image File] tag doesn't have a full path, it resolves from the location of the media file, so that could work.  If they're all named just "folder.jpg" or something like that, you could just select them all and type "folder.jpg" into the [Image File] tag.

Yesterday I finally decided to set covers to my movies. I thought this procedure would work, but unfortunately the  [Image File] tag is inactive and I couldn't write anything in there.
So I also tried the procedure with special cover folder, [Artist] - [Album] name and "Quick Find in Cover Art Directory" function, but it also didn't work at all.

Do I have any other chance to assing covers to videos except one by one looking for direct image file?
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glynor

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2007, 05:10:29 pm »

It worked for me when I tested it before.  I'm away from home right now, but I'm leaving today.  I'll try to remember to check on this and give you a better explanation of how this weekend.

When you modify the [Image File] field, you may need to do it in the Columns (Details View) rather than in the Tag Window -- I'm not sure.  You can still do more than one at a time though.  If you select multiple files, then hover over the [Image File] field in Details View, you can right-click and pick Rename (or hit F2) and it'll let you modify more than one at once.  It looks like you're only changing the one, but it'll apply the changes to all of the selected items.

Try a few before you do a bunch.

As I said though, I'm going from memory -- I'll try to give a more step-by-step this weekend or Monday.
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Eles

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2007, 09:01:12 am »

It seems Image File tag isn't editable at all. I can't rename that field, it doesn't matter one or more.
Only if I choose the picture by "add from file", then I see the filename in Image File tag.

Ok check it please :)  I'm waiting with hopes.
The music covers were added immediately automatically, so it's a shame the video covers didn't.
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glynor

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2007, 11:02:30 pm »

Sorry... I'll try to make my drunk ass remember this weekend.

Too much wine, not enough time.
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Alex B

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #10 on: April 27, 2007, 02:02:50 am »

Unfortunately, the Image File field is uneditable and the automatic cover art functions cannot be used with video files.

These older threads have some discussion about this matter:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=35648.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=35749.0


If Windows Explorer and MC are placed side by side cover files can be linked by dragging. This helps a bit. A cover art image can be dragged into the Image window in Action Window (click first the small image on the top left corner to open the expanded cover art display):




MC associates the dragged cover art image with all selected videos if more than one is selected:

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Eles

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Re: A few questions from the beginner
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2007, 09:59:08 am »

Yeah that helped :)
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