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Author Topic: DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies  (Read 1959 times)

stricko

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DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies
« on: February 03, 2009, 10:59:22 am »

Hi there, I've got a whole load of movies held on a network share. They are primarilt maintained using My Movies over on another PC. Typical locations are....

N:\B\Batman\VIDEO_TS\,,,,

N:\D\Deep Impact\VIDEO_TS\...

you get the idea

My Movies puts a folder.jpg in the Batman directory, but MC seems to look in the directory where it finds the video files, i.e Batman\VIDEO_TS.

I've been looking for a utility to copy the folder.jpg's down into the VIDEO_TS subfolder but I can't find anything useful. XXCOPY seemed the best bet, but I acn't get it to work (it won't allow wildcards in the destination address, I think?). I could create a list of the offending directories and then construct a Dos script, but a) it's a pain to do and b) I'll want to run this on a regular basis, and the directories will change each time.

So, does anyone know of a way around this?

Thanks in advance (BTW, I'm new to this, so I way have missed something blindingly obvious)
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stricko

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Re: DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2009, 09:53:43 am »

In the absense of any whizzo utilities or arcane config options, I ended up doing it manually.

If anyone wants to know how to do this.

List all Directories and sub-directories to a text file in a DOS window
Import the file into Excel, using the \ as a delimiter
select the records for the VIDEO_TS directories
Concatenate various bits of each line to build the DOS Copy commands
Cut/paste the commands back into a DOS window.

That hides a lot of trial and error and fiddling about, but having done it once, it should only take a few minutes next time, or I'll do it one at a time.
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Alex B

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Re: DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2009, 11:02:41 am »

You can do it with MC:

1. Import the folder.jpg images to a new library (create a library for this task with Library Manager). Disable the "Ignore special files" setting if you use the Auto-Import feature for importing the folder.jpg files.

Alternatively you can skip the "new library" step and just use your regular library. Then the cover art files will be imported like any other image files, but if you don't want to keep the folder.jpg files imported it might be easier to use a separate library for them.

2. Select all folder.jpg files and use the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool for copying them. I attached a screenshot of the correct tool settings.

(You must be logged in to see the attachment.)

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stricko

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Re: DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2009, 04:20:36 am »

Arcane, but very useful. Many thanks
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Alex B

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Re: DVD Cover Art imported from My Movies
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2009, 05:16:58 am »

I think the procedure nicely demonstrates the power of MC's file handling tools. I often use MC with custom libraries for special file naming and moving tasks. It works also with other than usual media files when the so called "Data Media " mode is enabled in Options > General > Advanced > Features.

Here's way to use MC for copying only the newly added folder.jpg files:
- Immediately after importing the folder.jpg files tag them with a tag like "copied"

Later on, after the first run, you can create a smartlist that excludes files with this tag value. Import all folder.jpg files from the video files location(s) and use the smartlist when want to you select only the newly imported cover art files. Tag these new files before running the "R, M, & C" tool (the smartlist will hold the tagged files if you don't make it refresh by going elsewhere).

Though, if after the initial import you import new DVDs one by one it might by easier to just manually copy each new image file outside MC or inside MC in Tree > Drives & Devices > My Computer...

Personally I think the parent folder would be a more logical place for the cover art file. The VIDEO_TS folder and the files inside it should be handled as a single media file entry in the library without changing the folder's contents anyway.
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