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[InflatableMouse]

Y'all know I love MC right?

Loosely related to this:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,128338.0.html

But regardless of tagging support, I took a systematic approach to get MC to properly fetch movie info, and unfortunately, it failed on almost all of them. Let's see what happened (or at least, what I think is happening):

On import, MC reads a tag from (in this case MKV file), a field called "Name". This field is written by the tool creating the mkv file, but often these tools don't have the proper info to write those tags. So what happens is when that tool doesn't have any info, it falls back to the filename and writes that to the "Name" field instead.

Since my files are properly organised on disk, I decided to first use the Library Tool "Fill properties from filename".

Example files:

├── Ad Astra (2019)
│   ├── Ad Astra (2019) - Remux-2160p - KRaLiMaRKo.jpg
│   └── Ad Astra (2019) - Remux-2160p - KRaLiMaRKo.mkv
└── Star Wars (1977)
    └── Star Wars (1977) - Remux-2160p - FGT.mkv

I used the following Template in MC:
Directory: [Name] ([Year])
Filename: [Name] ([Year]) - [Source] - [Notes]

Now that MC has the proper name and year for all movies, I select all, run Get Movie & TV info. Unfortunately, it only got about half of them right.

So, on a movie that didn't work, I select it (a single movie) and run get movie and tv info manually. The following happens (see attachment).

It actually worked!

So, if that worked, first hit is spot on, then why didn't MC fetch it the first time around?

In addition, why does MC insist on using the Name tag for querying a database, when that is actually a very unreliable way to get the movie name (see above)? I have never actually seen that tag being properly set to the movie name, and no other program that I know of actually uses it properly (all rely on folder and filenames for movies and series).

I really hope we can improve this. Many people will organise movies (and series) by name, year (or season), and so forth. MC could fall back to using folder and filenames if it detects the Name tag isn't reliable. It shouldn't be difficult to extract the name and year (often between braces) from file and foldernames, many free tools to download an organise movies will organise the same way (as Name (Year)). I think its a more reliable way than tags (at least until the rest of the world starts realizing tags are actually very handy and start using them too).

Next step would be to enable MC to write those tags back to the file .

Thanks for considering!

[JimH]

The reason that it didn't do all the first time and that it got one when you did it manually is, I believe, that we limit access to the server to avoid being shut off.  Try searching for old threads on this.

If you had waited a while (hour, day?), it would probably have retrieved another batch.

[InflatableMouse]

Perhaps, but it was only 32 items to begin with. I don't know how much MC throttles queries, but taking an hour or more for 32 movies is really unnecessary. No other program I use here throttles that much. So if that were the issue, you may want to look into increasing that.

Also, if that is whats going on, as a user I would really appreciate feedback that MC is indeed throttling and still processing (the bottom bar telling me 'saving 19 tags' with no way of ever knowing what it is that it is saving, is, respectfully, not good enough).

Last but not least, it only started pulling a few items after I fixed the names (tags). So regardless of any throttling, I still believe MC's 'get movie & tv info' can be much improved by also looking at file and folder names (and perhaps less throtting).

[saftsuse]

I hope this is not considering hijacking a topic, but I have the same problem and think it is better to just continue on this thread instead of making a new topic.

I am on trial to test if JRiver fits my needs. I am ripping my BD's and are already more than halfway through my collection. So I have about 900 files where the tag on all my MKV files are named "Main feature"
So in theater mode, all my movies of course show up as Main feature.
I have googled and searched this forum to find out what to do all day. Usually I would try to figure this out the next couple of days. But the trial is unfortunately only 7 days. ( Please consider making the trial period longer for such a complex program)

So to my questions:
So if I understand this correctly, there is NO way to make JRiver look beyond the tag of the MKV files?

Seems that you have a work around solution, but I do not understand this from the OP first post:
>I used the following Template in MC:
>Directory: [Name] ([Year])
>Filename: [Name] ([Year]) - [Source] - [Notes]
***********

Where do I need to input this?
My MKV files are only named by movie title like this:  Folder=movietitle - MKV file =movie title.

Thanks for any help :-)

[JimH]

How are you ripping your BD's?  MakeMKV?

[tij]

From my experience ... JRiver looks into mkv internal tags first ... and use that to search metadata ... if mkv has no internal tags, then I believe MC will try to get movie name from the file name.

MakeMKV set mkv tag automatically (unless you manually change it) ... for example it set mine to "SHREK 1 3D" ... these days i am careful with that

When i do manual search ... JRiver is more flexible to offer best matching choice

But I think without manual intervention during import ... MC just assumes metadata in MKV is correct ... which i believe is correct action

[glynor]

Last but not least, it only started pulling a few items after I fixed the names (tags). So regardless of any throttling, I still believe MC's 'get movie & tv info' can be much improved by also looking at file and folder names (and perhaps less throtting).

For movies, it definitely goes by [Name] and [Year] (if present). Carnac automatically fills the [Name] properly for files that contain a recognized filenaming pattern, but this only happens if the files don't explicitly contain tags with valid data.

And the Automatic Metadata Lookup works a little bit differently in "automatic" mode than in manual mode. That's because in manual mode you can confirm a "fuzzy match". In automatic mode, it may overwrite good data with bad if it picks the wrong match. For example, if the name tag is just "harry potter" and it picks the wrong Harry Potter film (because the date was wrong maybe or missing), and fills in all the metadata, now how would you even know it is wrong without actually watching the file? It would LOOK LIKE it was the episode it picked.

So, the automatic mode is a bit more conservative. It wants exact matches, or very close, without a bunch of extraneous crap at the end of the Name field.

Not sure how they could make this work better and still have it work generally on everyone else's files where the tags might be valid and the filename structures incorrect or less reliable.

[saftsuse]

How are you ripping your BD's?  MakeMKV?

I am using cloneBD.
So I guess I have to manually search every single file? Not sure if I am in the mood to do that right now.

Thanks for replies.....

[flac.rules]

I agree with the thread starter here, I also have a lot of wrong searches, and the MKV-tag is usually the culprit.

[tij]

You really need to research before ripping to library ... imho what MC is doing is logical ... embedded tags should take priority, and not filename structure (embedded tags survive renaming files ... obviously, info stored in file name doesnt)

You should carefully see how your ripping software is tagging ... and how you can override its default behaviour to correct values that it intends to assign

For example MakeMKV sets name tage from VOLUME LABEL of the disc, which usually is not elways exact match to movie name. This ofcourse can be overridden.

I made my share of mistake when starting to rip movie discs ... to the point that i had to rerip or remux my old rips (i used to include all audio tracks in my rips without labelling them ... to find out later that some rips had several English tracks and i had no clue what they were)

BUT if you made mistake ...and there are too mamy of them to correct manually ... i suggest MP3tag, which supports mkv ... you can tell MP3Tag how info is structured on file name ... and it can write those to embedded tags in batch

EDIT: if yoi do decide to use MP3tag ... or other tools to correct intetnsl tags ... make sure you try it on small set of files ... before applying to whole batch

[syndromeofadown]

I have been subtly whining about embedded video tags for years. I doubt I have one video where the tags are proper.

Basically I find it strange that MC prioritizes a value that it cannot edit.

An example of why it doesn't make sense:
Pretend someone is ripping the X-Files box set. There are 70 or so discs. By default the name Makemkv applies will be something like "X-Files Season 01 Disc 01" for the first disc, then "X-Files Season 01 Disc 02" for the second disc. It will add this to all four episodes on each disc. MC with think the episode name of all the episodes on the disc is "X-Files Season 01 Disc 01", and can even overwrite scraped episode names with this value in some cases. To apply the correct name when ripping each episode would need ripped individually with custom name applied, but you don't know which episode is which until it is ripped because blurays typically aren't in order.

Another example of why it doesn't make sense:
Similar to TV shows, when ripping a movie all extras will need ripped separately to avoid having the movie name applied to them. Again, you don't know what the extras are until they are ripped.

Though I think using embedded tags is a bad idea, it doesn't bother me personally. I work around it.
It is news to me that mp3tag can edit these fields, I thought the video needed remuxed to edit them.

[syndromeofadown]

On the topic of improving Get movie & tv info
An idea I have had for a while is as follows:

For Movies MC can add a field called "Name to Scrape" (year field will need a value too).
For TV Shows MC can add a field called "Series to Scrape" and another called "Episode to Scape".

MC can prioritize these values when scraping, with it being optional to overwrite existing values.

Then when the scraping database has episodes in a mental order or tv shows with years in series name, you don't have to conform to their conventions.

With movies the extra field would be beneficial because you could call your movies things like "Die Hard (Full Screen)" and still be able to do an automatic scrape.

Basically, when automatic scaping fails the user could edit these fields instead of the Name and Series values that they want to unchanged.

It makes more sense with TV but still useful with movies.

[tij]

Though I think using embedded tags is a bad idea, it doesn't bother me personally. I work around it.
It is news to me that mp3tag can edit these fields, I thought the video needed remuxed to edit them.

So far i am aware of only tags and chapters that can be edited within mkv without remuxing whole file.

I dont do internal tags with MC (infact MC only has read only access to my media). I do standard internal tags for audio once - right after ripping - then verify integrity of audio with CUETools and never touch that file again. My video files have empty tags (have to redo this with mp3tags to my old rips to avoid reripping). Stories that in somd cases retagging corrupts file gets me too scared lol.

An example of why it doesn't make sense:
Pretend someone is ripping the X-Files box set. There are 70 or so discs. By default the name Makemkv applies will be something like "X-Files Season 01 Disc 01" for the first disc, then "X-Files Season 01 Disc 02" for the second disc. It will add this to all four episodes on each disc. MC with think the episode name of all the episodes on the disc is "X-Files Season 01 Disc 01", and can even overwrite scraped episode names with this value in some cases. To apply the correct name when ripping each episode would need ripped individually with custom name applied, but you don't know which episode is which until it is ripped because blurays typically aren't in order.

Another example of why it doesn't make sense:
Similar to TV shows, when ripping a movie all extras will need ripped separately to avoid having the movie name applied to them. Again, you don't know what the extras are until they are ripped.

What i do with MakeMKV is i delete tag assigned by MakeMKV. That way when mkv is done, its tag is empty. Then MC will scrape from file name.

[Ashfall]

I'm experiencing the same with the unreliability of tags in video files.  Since MC prioritizes them, and they are never reliable, I make sure to remove them prior to importing.

For my own MakeMKV rips it's simple to manually clear the name tag every time.

For automatically snatched files, this command is in a batch file that runs afterwards.

"C:\Program Files\MKVToolNix\mkvpropedit.exe" %1 -d title

That works for me until we get an MC option to ignore tags in video files during auto-import.

[syndromeofadown]

What i do with MakeMKV is i delete tag assigned by MakeMKV. That way when mkv is done, its tag is empty. Then MC will scrape from file name.

For my own MakeMKV rips it's simple to manually clear the name tag every time.

This is a solution. My problem is that 99% of my video collection was done before MC used the embedded tags so I never cleared the value. There was no need. I think the majority of users probably do the same.

"C:\Program Files\MKVToolNix\mkvpropedit.exe" %1 -d title

Thanks for this. I will look into using it.

[flac.rules]

You really need to research before ripping to library ... imho what MC is doing is logical ... embedded tags should take priority, and not filename structure (embedded tags survive renaming files ... obviously, info stored in file name doesnt)

You should carefully see how your ripping software is tagging ... and how you can override its default behaviour to correct values that it intends to assign

For example MakeMKV sets name tage from VOLUME LABEL of the disc, which usually is not elways exact match to movie name. This ofcourse can be overridden.

I made my share of mistake when starting to rip movie discs ... to the point that i had to rerip or remux my old rips (i used to include all audio tracks in my rips without labelling them ... to find out later that some rips had several English tracks and i had no clue what they were)

BUT if you made mistake ...and there are too mamy of them to correct manually ... i suggest MP3tag, which supports mkv ... you can tell MP3Tag how info is structured on file name ... and it can write those to embedded tags in batch

EDIT: if yoi do decide to use MP3tag ... or other tools to correct intetnsl tags ... make sure you try it on small set of files ... before applying to whole batch

I guess you can say it is logical, but a program is for the benefit of the user, not the other way around. Even if it is more logical that the tags are used, when the practical consequence is a worse system for most(?) users, i really think it should be looked into, or at least be som sort of option.