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[marko]

Does the CD\DVD database keep a thumbnail cache? (and would this work or not?)

I'm not there yet, but I'm not that far away from it.

This system I've got here of copying an image file, editing it, letting Otto take care of importing/updating it, plus the required tags and viewschemes to keep the versions linked is working nicely, real nice....

Thinking ahead though, as my image library matures, I'll be looking to burn image files to DVD for backup and space saving reasons. I've not yet decided how I might go about this, but...

Say I decided to burn a few thousand .jpg's to DVD, and then delete them from my hard drive, I would expect the following to be possible:

• I would be able to create a viewscheme using database modifiers that allowed me to maintain links between the files on the DVD and any versions of those files that remained on the hard drive.
• MC would keep cached thumbnails of those files on the DVD and use them for display (in a thumbnail list view) even if the DVD was not present in the drive.
• If I requested any file action that required the DVD to be in the drive, and it was not, MC would prompt me to insert the DVD, asking for it by its volume name
• upon inserting the DVD, or starting MC with the DVD inserted, MC will not hang for an eternity while it scans every file and their tags before resuming normal service

Hopefully, my expectations are not too high!
If anyone has any experience with this kind of approach with MC, perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing your experiences here to save me from having to burn a test DVD, set up test viewschemes etc. etc.

[darichman]

Perhaps you might have to be the pioneer here, Marko?

[marko]

So I did, and it's not good news I'm afraid. The answers appear to be:

Yes, it retains thumbnails, even the an exit behaviour of 'remove orphans' which is nice,
Yes, this does work, sort of, in a rather unfriendly way.

Issues encountered using MC to burn 920 photos (1.8 Gb) to DVD, placing them in \yyyy - MM\ folders...

• mc hangs for around a minute when the 920 files are dropped on the drop-target, and then a further 2 or 3 minutes after the folder naming rules have been set. the burn appears to go smoothly, but...

• of the 920 files, only 460 were placed in subfolders, the other 460 were left on the DVD root. is it pure co-incidence that this is exactly half the total files?

• inserting the DVD, then selecting it in MC's drives and devices, showing the files in subfolders, MC went into a "gathering info and updating info" coma for well over five minutes. had I filled the DVD to capacity, this would be hitting the 15 minutes or longer mark, which is, obviously, not so good.

• I removed the DVD from the drive (the following points are all made without the DVD in the drive) and was amazed when MC happily continued to play the files. Knowing this couldn't be right, I closed MC, deleted the contents of the library\cache\ folder and tried again. Now MC prompts for the DVD by volume name, which is good.... but...

• if audio is playing at the time, there is no prompt, just a black screen with white "no images" text. This might actually be desirable behaviour, I'm not sure yet, just recording my findings atm.

• right click, image, edit image, does absolutely nothing. no prompt, no editor, nothing. Sending to an external application fares little better...

• photoshop and betterjpeg both launch and do nothing. no prompt from MC or the launched application. acdsee may shed some light on this problem though.
  right click, send to..., external, acdsee causes acdsee to throw the following:
  
  MC should prompt for the DVD before sending to external, and then send the full filename (starting with the drive letter) otherwise, external apps are looking for the specified files in their application directories, and of course, failing to find them.

• even with the DVD inserted, MC still does not send the full filename to external apps, rendering those 'send to...' options rather useless. the only workaround I can think of is to set seperate send to rules that include the drive letter, and always remember to use the same drive after that. I've not tested this because it's too lame to pursue any further than just theory

On the plus side, with thumbnails preserved, the quick view scheme I threw together worked very well indeed. version sets were displayed together, and some creative thumbnail text clearly indicates which files are offline. which is nice

The silly ammount of time 'gathering and updating' takes, the burn issues, and send to external apps all really need to be addressed to make image backup DVDs and MC a viable option.

MC12 has made huge strides in image handling ability, I've not opened Elements in months, and my MC image library is threatening to become more than half-way organised, something it's never been close to for many years. To my mind, backing up photos to DVD is a popular pastime, and one you'd expect MC to take in it's stride. Not only should we be able to stuff them in one end with confidence, but we should enjoy the same confidence when it comes to squeezing them out the other end for archiving.

So, how much of this do you think can be fixed for v12?

-marko.

[Jaguu]

marko,

it's not clear to me, why you want to burn images to DVD? If it is for mere archiving and backup reasons, then I would suggest, buy some additional internal or external hard disk and use some replicator to make external backups. Disk space is so cheap nowadays that it is not worth the trouble to care about DVD burning. I haven't burn either a CD or DVD for the whole last year! I have 27'000 images on my hard disk, and compared to the space used by ape files and divx files, it is close to nothing! But I have 3 internal 160GB HDD (one is S-ATA) and 5 external USB driven drives (from small and handy 80GB 2 1/2" HDD to 250GB standard HDD). And store them in different places around the house (and one in the Garage)! Mastiff even makes backups to his carputer via WLAN!

On the other hand, if you want to burn CD/DVD's for giving to friends or relatives, you would probably want to have some nice menu-driven interface, or even a CD/DVD that you could use on a pure DVD player. Unfortunately, MC12 does not support such features and you may use external applications. I tested quite a few of them, they all have the one big drawback that they do not automatically import MC tags. So for this we depend on J River that they will hopefully one day implement those missing features (together with screensaver handling and rotating wallpapers)!

[glynor]

Say I decided to burn a few thousand .jpg's to DVD, and then delete them from my hard drive, I would expect the following to be possible:

• I would be able to create a viewscheme using database modifiers that allowed me to maintain links between the files on the DVD and any versions of those files that remained on the hard drive.
• MC would keep cached thumbnails of those files on the DVD and use them for display (in a thumbnail list view) even if the DVD was not present in the drive.
• If I requested any file action that required the DVD to be in the drive, and it was not, MC would prompt me to insert the DVD, asking for it by its volume name
• upon inserting the DVD, or starting MC with the DVD inserted, MC will not hang for an eternity while it scans every file and their tags before resuming normal service

I burn off my video files to DVD quite regularly.  Once I've watched them, or once I've compiled a full season of TV shows (which in MPEG-4 can usually fit on one or two DVD-R discs), I throw them onto disc.  I then re-import these disc files into MC's library so that I can still easily see and manage the files via their metadata, and delete the actual video files off of my RAID.

I haven't finished reading your results of the test (though that doesn't look good).  However, in my experience...

1) I don't use MC to burn the discs.  It doesn't have a "Verify Disc" function which is game, set, match as far as I'm concerned.  I use MC's "folder as a handheld device" transfer function to queue up the files I'm going to burn to a local (and easily accessible) drive, and then I burn them using Nero (or sometimes using PrimoDVD on my disc duplicator at work).

2) After burning the discs in Nero, I re-import these files into the MC library.  I generally just do this by inserting the disc, navigating to Drives and Devices, and re-tagging the files.  This process is annoying somewhat because I have to completely re-tag the files (any suggestions?).  Luckily, if I name them well I can usually accomplish most of it using the Fill Properties from Filename tool.

3) I have a number of video view schemes which either include or exclude removable files.  That way I can choose to see or not see these files in my view scheme browsing.

4) MC does properly ask for the disc when I try to play one of these files.  It would be nice if the error message was a little more friendly, though... It says "The track named "bleh" cannot be played because the volume labeled "bleh" was not found.  Would you like to try again?"  Okay for me, but my wife doesn't know what to do.  It'd be nice if, when you try to play something on a removable disc (as opposed to a hard drive), the error message said something more like "The track named "bleh" cannot be played because the volume "bleh" was not found.  Please insert the disc labeled "bleh" and click yes.  Would you like to retry?"

5) When you insert the DVD in the drive, full of video files, MC is certainly NOT zippy.  Even when the files don't contain any tags themselves.  I regularly experience UI freezes of more than 3-5 minutes on my relatively powerful machines.  It's better than it was with MC11.1 though...

[jgreen]

Talking just about optical (CD, DVD and other "write once" media), I hope that marko and Glynor continue to bang away at pioneering this.  MC could/should have the ability to write an "archive disc" which would have a header/title immediately recognizable to MC, in the same way that a firewire drive is, as long as the path is retained.

[marko]

Using build 106:
I sent 3079 photos (4.3 GB) to be burned to DVD. It took MC 4 minutes to come back to life after the files were dropped on the target.

I then set a folder naming rule of \YYYY - mm\ and MC went into a coma, spinning the cpu @100% for almost 50 minutes. I think most users would have end-tasked MC long before 50 minutes were up. It was one of those deep, deep comas that stop the screen from refreshing.

The burn went well, with all files correctly ordered on the DVD. The Volume name I chose for the DVD was too long. MC did not warn me about this, choosing instead, to truncate my choice, making it look silly. I should not have been able to enter more than the maximum allowed characters in the volume name field.

Selecting the DVD in drives and devices, then clicking "show files in subfolders" started the "gathering info and updating view" process, locking me out of MC. This took over half an hour. I've no idea how long it took (I fell asleep in front of the TV while waiting).

After making sure MC had all the thumbnails built, I removed the DVD and  loaded my viewscheme containing image files from the cd and main databases.
Browsing around in this viewscheme is quick, and all the info in the tags is present. It works well.

With ot without the DVD in the drive, trying to do any work with the files is still flawed as mentioned above. A saving grace is that drag and drop does work as expected.

[jgreen]

Yeah, I can confirm your long wait to queue up image files.  I selected ~1200 jpg images, 170 MB total, and dropped it on the burner.  Just under 2 minutes for MC to assemble the queue, vs ~3 seconds to do that with 300 audio tracks/4.3GB.

[marko]

painful as it is, I re-tested this with build 118.

1600 files, 3,700 megs...

On initial drop, MC took just over a minute to sort itself out, and then took a further 5 minutes in a comatose state to sort out a new folder structure.
I did not have a DVD-rw available for testing with, so have not tested the initial read time of the burned DVD at this point. I'll sort a disc out and report back. Hopefully, things have picked up in that dept. too.

While 5 minutes is a vast improvement over the previous 50 to construct the disc for burning, I still think it's too long!!

-marko.

[JohnT]

Marko, please try the next build. While the "analysis" phase (file import) will still take some time when you drop files that MC has not seen before, the subsequent stages should be MUCH quicker. Also, the folder structure save/load should work correctly now.

[marko]

John, brilliant work!

Let's see:

2414 files, 4.3 gigs, dropped on burn target, MC ready to burn in less than 1 minute.

Changed folder naming rules, MC ready to burn in less than two.

click to burn:

Now, I didn't time the burn, but it was in excess of 20 minutes, which surprised me, as I thought that 16x media would be quicker than that. It was no big deal for this test though, as I had other things to do during the burn. I did pop in and check for hangs or error messages now and then though, and grabbed a quick screenie of a possible refresh problem....

the math here is clearly wrong!!

Anyhoo, burn completes, disc pops out, I pop it back in. There's no files on the disc root, so I brace myself, note the time, and click the show all files button.
MC goes into 'hunter/gatherer' mode....

In less than 3 minutes, the "busy" cursor stops being busy, and the 'hunter/gatherer' animation freezes....
...............
and then, after around 10-15 seconds, the files appear, and thumbnailing begins.
Job done.
-----------------------
This is 100x more user-friendly than things were at the top of this thread. Nice that you caught the disc label border and blacked out "close disc" option thing too.
That's burning and listing taken care of.

Before I move on, is there any way to force MC to keep thumbnailing the DVD? If I browse away from the view, or leave it scrolled in one place too long, MC goes to sleep on the job, and as far as I can tell, the 'build missing thumbs' feature doesn't apply to the cd\dvd database (which makes sense), so I have to keep giving MC a nudge to get on with it. Knowing it's a one time only job, I can live with it, but if there's a way to automate it, I'll accept any tips

Next up, working with the files on DVD:

• I removed the DVD from the drive (the following points are all made without the DVD in the drive) and was amazed when MC happily continued to play the files. Knowing this couldn't be right, I closed MC, deleted the contents of the library\cache\ folder and tried again. Now MC prompts for the DVD by volume name, which is good.... but...

[li]if audio is playing at the time, there is no prompt, just a black screen with white "no images" text. This might actually be desirable behaviour, I'm not sure yet, just recording my findings atm.[/li][li]right click, image, edit image, does absolutely nothing. no prompt, no editor, nothing. Sending to an external application fares little better... [/li][li]photoshop and betterjpeg both launch and do nothing. no prompt from MC or the launched application. acdsee may shed some light on this problem though.
right click, send to..., external, acdsee causes acdsee to throw the following:

MC should prompt for the DVD before sending to external, and then send the full filename (starting with the drive letter) otherwise, external apps are looking for the specified files in their application directories, and of course, failing to find them.[/li][li]even with the DVD inserted, MC still does not send the full filename to external apps, rendering those 'send to...' options rather useless. the only workaround I can think of is to set seperate send to rules that include the drive letter, and always remember to use the same drive after that. I've not tested this because it's too lame to pursue any further than just theory[/li]
[/list]

Reading over the quote again, it's pretty much all cosmetic, smooth the bumpy ride stuff, much of which probably wouldn't crop up very often, if at all, in the majority of cases.

If the "send to's" could work though, it would save going round the "locate on disk (external)" route, which does work, but feels a long way for a shortcut.
Speaking personally, any further enhancements are always gratefully received, but I can work away fine with things as they are in build 119.

Nice one John, and thank you for listening.

-marko.

[dcwebman]

Just one comment as to archiving. I can't remember where I read this, it may have even been in these forums, but instead of getting a hard drive enclosure, one online store (can't find the URL right now) has just the cable without the case.

You know all those old hard drives you have laying around that are either 5400 speed or too small (10GB, 20GB, etc.)? With the cable, you just keep archives on the hard disks which are faster and hold a lot more than a DVD, then you sit the hard drive up on a shelf. At work, I was able to acquire drives that nobody wanted anymore and ended up with about 10 drives so I have plenty of archive storage.

I haven't tried using MC yet for images but will probably soon. Hopefully the prompting of the right DVDs will do the same for prompting for the right drive.

EDIT: turns out lots of stores carry them now, here's one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812156015

[marko]

I may look at external hard drives in the near future, for now though, I have a shedload of blank DVDs that need to be put to good use.