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Video cover art location?

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RoderickGI:
For video files, such as TV Episodes, Movies, and other videos the Cover Art files are always next to the video file, along with the Sidecar file if there is one.

Series and Season Cover Art for TV Series and TV Logos are stored in sub-directories below the Cover Art location set in "Options > File Location > Cover Art". Audio Cover Art has some options shown in the same settings area.

Apparently, this was debated long ago, even before my time (2013) I believe, and that was the decision made. Particularly for Movies, as the file name could be set to anything and there are lots of movies with the same name, it was a matter of making sure that the correct Cover Art was associated with the video file.

Just think how many movie files may just be called "Superman" and how would you, or the software, know which Cover Art to associate with the file? Lots of people put multiple movie files in the one directory, so the names have to be unique. But some people, myself included, have one sub-directory for each movie and all files associated with it. If everyone was forced to name movie files something like "[Name] [Year] [Director].ext" then maybe Cover Art could be handled differently. That is why movie files sourced from alternate sources have such a structured filename, and even then some can be very ambiguous, or wrong.

The current solution allows for complete flexibility in naming the video files. The cost is that the Cover Art files must be next to the video files.

If you come up with an acceptable foolproof scheme for solving the association problem, then a request may be heard. Otherwise, it has been asked for before and is very unlikely to be considered.

BTW, did you search the Wiki.

From https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art#How_Images_Are_Stored

"For video, cover art is always stored next to the file using the same filename as the video. For example, "Big Bang S01E11.mkv" will use "Big Bang S01E11.jpg" for cover art."

~OHM~:
Well then you have a logical explanation. thanks RoderickGI

JimH:
Thanks, Roderick.  I added a link to  your post in the cover art topic on the wiki.

fermenter:

--- Quote from: ~OM~ on January 02, 2018, 10:00:58 pm ---make a request....ya never know....tis the season  ;)

--- End quote ---
Well the list of features I'd like to see developed ahead of this is pretty big, so I might keep my powder dry for now...  ;D


--- Quote from: RoderickGI on January 02, 2018, 11:18:50 pm ---If you come up with an acceptable foolproof scheme for solving the association problem, then a request may be heard. Otherwise, it has been asked for before and is very unlikely to be considered.

--- End quote ---
Thanks for the thorough response. As for the 'association problem', a couple of things don't add up for me. Firstly, are you saying that my MC database uses no key?! If so I'm surprised. Certainly I'm no programmer, but I always figured that MC would have its own unique identifier for each library item, that way it can associate any number of things regardless of their relative locations. Secondly, are you saying there is no 'art address' field for each record, and that it relies on a relative path and name matching?

If MC uses the file path as its only identifier, and needs a fixed relative path to find an associated image file, then yes I can see the potential problem - but surely if MC has solved the problem for audio why is video any different?! It seems much more likely that I'll have multiple songs with the same title than movies. In fact I don't have ANY movies that share a title, but I probably have 10 versions of 'Comfortably Numb' - the cover art for all of which I can apparently store in a single nominated directory - and MC (presumably) has the smarts to deal with this?

In fact, the wiki article you linked to even states that MC will deliberately store the video art in a different location if it is unable to store it to the same folder as the video - which kind of shoots a hole in the idea that it can't be done, doesn't it?

Even if the problem is as you state it, and MC uses no key, and/or no database field for the address of a file's cover art - surely it wouldn't be impossible to 'encode' the video file's full path into the image name when saving, (thereby giving each image a unique ID)?

Honestly it isn't a biggie for me, but you seem to be suggesting both that music art and video art are fundamentally different, and that MC can't perform even quite basic database associations, both of which I'm struggling with.

RoderickGI:
Honestly Fermenter you would have to get a developer to respond to most of those questions, or search the forum for the discussion around the original decision. I wasn't part of that. But the decision was made to do it the way it has been done, so that is the information I shared.

Does MC have a key for every item? I'm not sure. TV Channels have a Key. TV Recording Rules have a Key. I'm not sure all records have a key, as they are not visible to a user, but I would also guess that they do. There was a little discussion on that at one time, but I can't find it quickly. In fact, if I connect to my MC Server using a Client, and then select a video file, right-click and select "On Disk (external)", the location can't be opened and the URL shows the file does indeed have a Key. See attached image. But I think that Key is just used for media file location, and not Cover Art association.

Have a look in the Cover Art sub-directory. All Cover Art files are named to match the media file name. Some are structured, some are not. For example, a TV show Season will have a Cover Art file named something like "{TV Show Name} - Season {Season number}", or more specifically in MC terms, "[Name] - Season [Season].ext". So the association is created using the media file name, without the path, and in some cases additional tag values. It is named programmatically, and MC does not use database keys for an association. Cover Art is separated into different directories for [Series], [Season], etc., in part for informational purposes I'm sure, but also so that no duplicates are created.

Yes, there is an "Art Address" for every video file. It is stored in the [Image File] tag. If you really wanted to put all Cover Art under the Cover Art sub-directory, you could move the image files and edit the tag to point to the new location. But you would have to do that after using the "Get Movie & TV Info" function, and any other Cover Art functions, because MC will put any found Cover Art next to the video file and overwrite the tag with the new location.

I've never imported an optical Disc into MC, let alone tried to add Cover Art to it, so while the Wiki says it will be placed in the Cover Art folder, I have no idea how it gets structured or referenced. But the [Image File] tag would tell MC where to find it.

The MC database is not a Relational Database. It does allow fields to be marked as relational to a few select fields, such as [Series]. That is done programmatically, not in the database.


But if you solved the Cover Art file problem that you have, so that the files didn't clutter up the directories that the videos are in, what would you do about the Sidecar files? You don't have any option to move them to another location, and their creation, editing, and management is all handled programmatically. I guess the other devices you are using don't display XML files, so they are not a problem? Could you get those devices to also not display images in the view you are using?

Anyway, I wasn't privy to the reason behind the way video Cover Art is done that way. I just read that there were problems with the incorrect Cover Art being displayed, because of file naming, which is used as the key to find Cover Art.

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