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[TristanG]

Once more: In regard to my post:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137138.0.html

Technically, it should be very easy to add the file type "Matroska Video (mkv)" which is now only available for "Video" also for "Audio", I guess.
Therefore, it should be possible to handle MKVs like FLACs under "Music", right?

[JimH]

What version of JRiver are you using?

[TristanG]

The latest, of course.

[Hendrik]

MKV literally stands for Matroska Video, a video format. The corresponding audio format is MKA, Matroska Audio (.mka extension)

Having the same file type serve two very different media types is complicated, but luckily .mka exists to just not need to do that.
Its the same file format, just by convention only including audio and named .mka instead to allow identifying it. Its also already supported by MC.

If the file actually has video content, then its a video file, and should be handled as Video type. And say we were to support MKV as "Audio", as soon as MC would see a video stream in the file, it would still set it to "Video" type.

So in short, use .mka if you want it to be an Audio file. Then there is no ambiguity.

[TristanG]

Thanks for reply, but unfortunately, this is no solution. Please read

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137138.0.html

Even the "Album" nor the in the MKV-file included "Cover" is supported by MC!
It seems, that the tags of the Video-sections are completly different supported than under Music. That makes no sense!
Once more: MP3Tag supports the MKVs exactly the same way as FLACs - why not JRiver?

Please help!

[JimH]

Why can't you rename the files to .mka?

[JimH]

The latest, of course.

Full version?  "Latest" is ambiguous.

[TristanG]

I just tried to solve the problem by renaming to "*.mka".
Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

[TristanG]

By the way: The same is with the "*.mp4"-files. With MP3Tag, it's no problem to tag them like FLAC-files.
The well-known VLC-Player can read all kind of files, with Album, Cover and so on - why not JRiver?

[TristanG]

Jim, I really appreciate your post concerning Buckminster Fuller's synergy.
So, why not make synergy becoming reality and make video-files available under music?

The huge advantage of MC is the library feature. I even constructed an own view with colums for filtering my music-collection (mainly classical). For sure, it's not only me who'd like to use the library feature including different views also for video-files. In my opinion, it's the main reason to buy MC! Otherwise you can use streaming services.

[EnglishTiger]

Try using MKVToolNix to extract the Audio Content from the MKV file into a MKA file.

[TristanG]

EnglishTiger, thanks for your advice, but this will don't work because I have a huge collection, also of videos.

I still don't understand where is the problem - technically - of freeing the file types from the Audio/Video sections. Once more: Music video files contains mainly music, they are wether movies nor series you're watching on the tv, e.g.

[EnglishTiger]

Music video files contains mainly music

The import thing about the above is that, like all Videos, they don't contain only MUSIC - So if the MC Team were to do as you request you would probably be amongst the Hundreds Complaining when MC encounters a Video  stays in Audio Mode and only plays the Soundtrack.

[Hendrik]

You can already manually override the Media Type to Audio, or use MKA to have it import as Audio. But I already suggested that above. There are no changes for this planned.

[TristanG]

For me important is to have one single view in my library. At the moment regarding the files, I have several paths to music, e.g. Beethoven Symphony
- Musik\Klassik\Beethoven
- Videos\Klassik\Beethoven
- Videos\Klassik\TV-Aufnahmen\Musik\Klassik\Beethoven
- Videos\YouTube
The reason ist, that tv-recordings have a minor quality, YouTube videos even more, unfortunately. Therefore as a collector with a supreme high end stereo, I always try to purchaise the music because of the higher audio quality. TV recordings only are comparable to MP3 - thats definitively not enough! The same for YouTube (thats the reason why the YouTube path is not part of the (auto-)importing of MC).

MC is for me a special tool not only for playing but also for managing my really huge music collection. I always thought, that this would be the reason for the existence of MC - maybe I'm wrong.

So, I really would appreciate it if I would have only one (!) category called maybe Music/Video which shows (!) me in my own music view (special colums) all kind of files containing primarily music. Further more: And which allows me to search in all kind of files by only input only one times a searching term like in Gizmo! There, if you're searching, Gizmo shows all kind of files, not only music but also videos. So, if it is possible with Gizmo, it should go even more with MC's main view!

[blgentry]

I'm confused by this thread.

What happens if you change the Media Subtype to "Music" or "Music Video" and run "update library from tags" ? 

How about changing the Media Type to "Audio" ? (and also updating Library from tags).

Do either of these changes fill the metadata you want filled?

As for views, you can have views with mixed media types and media subtypes.  Each view is definable by you.  The stock Audio views filter on Media Type to only show AUDIO.  But you can change those views to include Video with a specific subtype (like Music or Music Video).

Brian.

[TristanG]

Hi Bigetry, the matter are the left hand sections in the main view / standard view of MC: There are only categories "Music" and "Video" available and they are not configurable by the user. "Music" doesn't allow video-files like MKV or MP4. Therefore, you always have two different sections "Music" and "Video" like on the file-side.

My suggestion is, to allow also MKVs and MP4s under "Music" to handle all files the same way which contains music. This to understand should not to be too difficult - I'm not writing in Chinese!

[lepa]

I think that stock main view/parent category is called "Audio" for audio files and it is configurable (not the name Audio though). You can edit it to show different media types or whatever.

If you are talking about tagging the file itself (thread you referred if I understood that correctly) I don't think MC supports matroska tags too well at least writing those but for database fields there are no limits

[blgentry]

Hi Bigetry, the matter are the left hand sections in the main view / standard view of MC: There are only categories "Music" and "Video" available and they are not configurable by the user. "Music" doesn't allow video-files like MKV or MP4.

Guess what?  You can change that!  You can alter the Audio master view to allow Video files.  Or just Video files with a subtype of Music or Music Video.  Do Customize View on the Audio object or on any of the categories below Audio.  Click on "set rules for file display".  In there you will see that there is a restriction (rule) that only allows Media Type = Audio .  You can change this to allow Video as well.  You might have to experiment a bit to get the exact combination of Media Type and Media Subtype, but it shouldn't be very difficult.

If you need more information about how to do this, there are tutorials on Views in the wiki.  Or perhaps someone here can give you extra help and guidance.

Best of luck.
Brian.

[TristanG]

Unfortunately, you cannot (!) change this. The highest priority have the Options. And there concerning "Music" are no MKVs allowed, nor MP4s.

The rules by the way are only filters. Since videos are not allowed under "Music", there are nor MKVs to filter.

Believe me, I know MC very well, because I purchaised it decades before. This problem exists from the beginning. I always hoped, that the guys from JRiver would change that. Since they doesn't, I posted this issue several times.

But you're invited to ask Jim himself. They definitively have to put this point to their feature list for a future version of MC.

[lepa]

images tell the story

[TristanG]

Thanks for posting the screenshots - but it's not working.
As I wrote before, the rules are only for filtering. Since in the options are no video-types available for audio, there is nothing to filter in an audio-view.

[blgentry]

It definitely works.  You are probably trying to do customize view on a single view INSIDE of audio.  If so it will, by default, inherit the filter from the parent.  Uncheck the "inherit from parent view" setting and it will then apply your rules directly.

Or change the rules on the Audio section itself.  The word that says "Audio" in the left hand column IS A VIEW.  You can change the rules for included files right there and it will affect all of the views below it.

Brian.

[TristanG]

No I can't. Of course, I tried first to right-klick on "Audio" left hand of main view since it's the highest category - I'm not a newbie.
But I even can't select it with right klick. The cursor goes down to one of my "Album" views.

Why do you don't ask Jim? He will confirm that it's necessary to change the options (see this thread-name).
You also should have in mind, that this is my third thread - and noone helped. The reason ist simple: They have to build a new version!

By the way: The "Video" section has an own system for managing file tags. As I wrote before, even "Album", "Conductor" or the "Cover" will not be read from MKVs or MP4s by MC - VLC does it!

The result is the following: It's inevitable, that for the MKVs/MP4s MC has to adopt the tag-handling from the FLAC-files. Logically, it's not understandable, why the JRiver-guys made a difference at all.

[dtc]

You can change the Audio view by right clinking on Audio in the tree - see attached. If you cannot do that then some setting may be stopping you. But, in general, you can change that view, as Brian said.

[lepa]

1. You cannot move .mkv row from video to audio section in the Options->File Types as .mkv extension means matroska VIDEO file so it is in the correct place in the video section. This is just how MC categorizes files with different extension by default and which can be overrided per file (or mass edit) by setting media type to something different.

2. You can have mixed audio and video views and you can play video files without video ie as audio files by changing media type to audio either manually or during auto import

3. MC doesn't support writing matroska tags to files and reads only limited fields AFAIK but there is no limitation what to save into database fields. So you can have Artist, Album, Conductor etc filled in the DB. Options/File Types has nothing to do with this


So if I can understand chinese I think you are asking basically for matroska tag support

[HPBEME]

But I even can't select it with right klick. The cursor goes down to one of my "Album" views.

Your cursor jumps to an audio sub view because you do not have the "Allow Tree Selection" box checked in the customize view dialog (see picture).  Once that box is checked, you can modify the tree's top level Audio view to anything you want.

That said, be aware that whatever you make that view look like, that is the view that MC will jump to when clicking the small link icons shown in detail lists (assuming you have that activated via options/general/features/linkable columns)

[TristanG]

@ Iepa: I have a test-file (something like Beethoven symphony.mkv) copied in the abovementioned path: "Music".
The file should be shown under "Music" on the left side in the sub views "Albums" as well as in the sub view "New Albums" - but it's not.
I have to say, that the file is tagged as an own album in the tag-field "Album".

[TristanG]

@HBBEME and blgentry: Allow tree selection was the solution for adding a new sub view Albums Music & Videos. Actually, the Videos are shown under "Audio" in this sub view!
Many thanks for that!

Now still missing is the full tag-support of .mkv and .mp4. The files are only shown as an album, if I had produced manually a sidecar.xml.

And even than, fields like "conductor" etc. are not shown, i.e. despite setting "Tags mit Werten anzeigen", in the tag-editor the conductor and other fields are not shown. In this regard, MC displays only the same fields like in the "Video" category (of course).

So I opt strongly for full tag support like MC does it with the FLACs. Many thanks in advance! 

[blgentry]

@HBBEME and blgentry: Allow tree selection was the solution for adding a new sub view Albums Music & Videos. Actually, the Videos are shown under "Audio" in this sub view!
Many thanks for that!

I'm glad to hear you got it working. 
I'd like to suggest that you be a bit more open minded next time.  I had given up on you because you contradicted everything I said.  It's difficult to help someone when they just say "No!" to everything you say.  I'm glad HPBEME stepped in with the final key piece to help you out.

Take care,
Brian.

[TristanG]

bigentry, despite the fact that I went several times against the wall (fig. for: it is my third thread and still not with a final solution), I was always openminded and not like others in these days thinking only in black-white manner. The evidence is that I tried all suggestions from you an HBBEME. Allthough I know MC very well since years, I only didn't knew the one checkmark. So I tried it and it works! This is simply the reason for exisitence of this board - please don't be too sensitive. And since I'm a polite human being, I thanked you and everybody else - and this was ment severely.

I really appreciate MC, believe me. That's also the reason, why I insisted to solve this problem: This and the still lacking point is important not only for me, that's for sure. So I still trust in a future version which offers full metadata compatibilty also for MKVs / mp4 like MC does it with the FLACs. By the way, this would be a huge advantage for JRiver over Roon! You see, I try always to be constructive (problem-solution oriented); you have to admit, that this will be not found very often in these days. Additionally, JRiver got my suggestion / feature request for free where others would pay for this competitive advantage a lot to enterprise consultants! And also regarding this remaining point, my thank you in advance is honest.

Finally, it's really sad that you US-guys are so far away (concerning forum meetings - does they exist in the States? But this should be a new thread)!

[lepa]

@ Iepa: I have a test-file (something like Beethoven symphony.mkv) copied in the abovementioned path: "Music".
The file should be shown under "Music" on the left side in the sub views "Albums" as well as in the sub view "New Albums" - but it's not.
I have to say, that the file is tagged as an own album in the tag-field "Album".

It is impossible to say anything about this without knowing the exact filter rule for the view and field values of the file. It will show up if filter matches the field data

[TristanG]

Iepa, this doesn't have anything to do with the filters. The video-files are shown correctly in my new subview "Albums Music & Videos"). Only the metadatas are not correct. In this regard, it depends on the kind of the file:

- MP4-files:
  - Album correct under Album name
  - Album Artist: correct
  - Date (Year): correct
  - Genre: correct
  - Artist: correct
  - Subgenre (a self-defined field): correct
  - Conductor (a self-defined field, since in the beginning of MC it was missing): missing; even with "show all tags" the field will be not shown
  - Ensemble (a self-defined field for orchestra, duo, trio, quartet, band...): missing; even with "show all tags" the field will be not shown
  - Instrument (a self-defined field): missing; even with "show all tags" the field will be not shown
  - Comment: is shown twice: 1) as Comment 2) as Description

- MKV-files:
   - Album field is empty, therefore the album will be find only under "unassigned"
   - Album Artist: field is empty
   - Artist: correct
   - Genre: correct
   - Date (Year): correct
   - Subgenre (a self-defined field for symphony, piano...): correct
   - Conductor (a self-defined field, since in the beginning of MC it was not implemented): missing; even with "show all tags" the field will be not shown
   - Ensemble (a self-defined field): missing; even with "show all tags" the field will be not shown
   - Comment: only as Description

[TristanG]

Concerning the cover:

- MP4: correct shown
- MKV: auto-generated by title (i.e. MC does not read the saved cover art)

[TristanG]

Composer: is also missing (all video-files) in the Tag-Editor

[TristanG]

The reason for the missing tag fields is, that it's not possible to change all flags easyly under "manage library fields\falgs":
The most of the time the setting "audio" is not changeable, so "composer" and "instrument" since they are greyed-out, whereas "ensemble" e.g. can checkmarked also as allowed also for "video". Since both "instrument" and "ensemble" are user defined fields, it makes no sense for me.

Does anybody know how I can switch from "Audio" only to "Audio;Video" also for the composer and the instrument?

And what's about the cover: It's not mentioned there, so it can't be the reason for not being read by MC (video files, see above).