INTERACT FORUM

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Video metadata fields  (Read 12935 times)

Yaobing

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10901
  • Dogs of the world unite!
Video metadata fields
« on: March 17, 2009, 02:11:15 pm »

What fields do you use or would like MC to have?
Logged
Yaobing Deng, JRiver Media Center

glynor

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 19608
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2009, 02:44:25 pm »

[Name] (of course)

[Series]
[Season]
[Episode]

[Genre]

[Artist] (typically used for directors or similar data, for music artists for Music Videos)
[Corporation] (custom field, used for things like HBO, ABC, CBS, NBC, Disney, Paramount, Touchstone, etc)

[Media Sub Type] (but I am STILL unhappy with our inability to customize this list, much has been posted regarding this in the past)

[People]
[Places]
[Events]
[Keywords]
Date-fields (especially [Year])

[Copyright]
[Rating]

[Comment]
[Description]
[Lyrics] (music videos)

With the exception of the [Corporation] field, the only other field I'd like to see added would be a boolean [Best] field that would denote the "best shot" in a set of similar raw video clips (I use MC to manage some of my raw video off of my camcorders for work).  A [Project] field might be nice too, but I currently use the [Album] field for that info when I have it.
Logged
"Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese."

Visit me on the Interweb Thingie: http://glynor.com/

tls62dk

  • Galactic Citizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 406
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2009, 05:01:19 pm »

Same as Glynor of course and then,

[Audio]
[Subtitles]

[Aspect Ratio]

[Genre] (Multiple)

[Actors]

I would mainly use MC for movies and TV series.

TLS
Logged

leezer3

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1587
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2009, 06:31:15 pm »

Can I add these to the potential list:
Broadcaster- Basically the same as Glynor's corporation, but IMHO more recognisable :) (I use a Broadcaster/ Publisher field to run across books, audiobooks and TV)
Studio- The producing studio; Pixar etc.
Director- I use this for both directors & series creators. Handy for finding works which you might not consider to be related.

I also have three separate subgenre fields for TV, films & anime, although these are very much custom and not something that I'd advocate for public consumption.

The only other thing I'd like, is for MC to remember the stream selection in tags. I've posted this in the past, but I have some anime where the dub is better than the sub, and vice-versa. It'd be good if MC could remember which I've chosen, as the only way to do it currently is to set the global defaults in Haali.

Cheers

-Leezer-
Logged

JimH

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 72380
  • Where did I put my teeth?
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2009, 06:46:55 pm »

The only other thing I'd like, is for MC to remember the stream selection in tags. I've posted this in the past, but I have some anime where the dub is better than the sub, and vice-versa. It'd be good if MC could remember which I've chosen, as the only way to do it currently is to set the global defaults in Haali.
Yaobing,

If we can do this, let's do.

Thanks for starting this thread.

Jim
Logged

Yaobing

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 10901
  • Dogs of the world unite!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2009, 07:08:26 pm »


The only other thing I'd like, is for MC to remember the stream selection in tags. I've posted this in the past, but I have some anime where the dub is better than the sub, and vice-versa. It'd be good if MC could remember which I've chosen, as the only way to do it currently is to set the global defaults in Haali.

Are you using build 140?  There has been a recent fix on this problem.  Right-click, "Stream Selection", or OSD menu.

EDIT: Maybe you are talking about DVD playback?
Logged
Yaobing Deng, JRiver Media Center

leezer3

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1587
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2009, 07:34:49 pm »

Ah, now I hadn't noticed that it was doing that, last time I really worried about it was somewhere in the final builds of MC12 :D
However, it's a little hard to find at present, and gives no indication that it's actually saving the selection.

In that vein though, another thought (Not quite a library field)-
If this was user editable, it'd be rather nice to be able to set a preferred stream set in advance. I'd envisage this working in a smartlist sort of way (I.E. If genre= anime, use Audio=Jap & Subs=Eng / If genre=Film, use Audio=Eng & Subs=None), but TBQH this is a pipe dream sort of idea  ;)

Cheers

-Leezer-
Logged

imugli

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1598
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2009, 07:39:08 pm »

I'll do a full list later, but pretty much whatever DVDProfiler stores I'd like to be able to import.

However, I think what gets shown on a theater view screen (for instance) should be customisable somehow, because for

- DVDs I only really want to be able to see Year, Actors, Director, Producer, Synopsis.
- Tv Series I'd want to see Year, Series, Season, Episode, Actors, Special Appearance Actors, Synopsis.
- Home Movies I'd want to see Date, Location, People, Synopsis

I can imagine others would want to see more or less info, however...

jsosow

  • Regular Member
  • Recent member
  • *
  • Posts: 25
  • I'm a llama!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2009, 07:58:20 pm »

I have been a JR Media Center user for a long time now and love it.  I have always used Dvd Profiler to do my cataloging for videos.  I lately upgraded the server in the house to Windows Home Server.  I then started looking for a better way to browse movies and be able to start them.  I found a program called My Movies.  It runs on the WHS and keeps track of the movies and meta-data info that it creates in the directory with the media file.  You then run a client on other machines.  It works with Window MCE.  You can also get other clients.  The thing is is that it doesn't use the standard internet databases and is really lacking.  So then I found a program called Movie Collector. Now this is nice.  It lets you import your info into the program and then intergrates with Windows MCE.  The way it works is very good.
With all of that said.  I would much rather stick with my beloved JR Media Center and DVD Profiler.  Can something like this be done?  Make the theater view of JR Media Center work with DVD Profiler or even the Server part of MY Movies?  This would rock!!!
Logged

fitbrit

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 4887
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2009, 11:42:44 pm »

The only other thing I'd like, is for MC to remember the stream selection in tags. I've posted this in the past, but I have some anime where the dub is better than the sub, and vice-versa. It'd be good if MC could remember which I've chosen, as the only way to do it currently is to set the global defaults in Haali.

Cheers

-Leezer-

I'd love to go a step further and see if MC can remember which filters to use per file. Perhaps if there were an "exception to the general file type filters rule" checkbox in the tags and then we could assign the filters for that file?
Another solution would be to be able to define our own filetype extension in MC under video and assign a new filter list to it. See my posts in this thread for a clearer explanation of my problem:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1130332

Logged

fitbrit

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 4887
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2009, 11:51:03 pm »

I agree with Glynor: Customising Media SubType would be invaluable.

I agree with Imugli that the tags under the thumbnails in Theatre View should be customisable depending on Media SubType for example.

I applaud your efforts and for listening to these repeated demands. Man, I'm so happy that I've chosena nd stuck with MC. (Yes, despite my occasional bitching about weird video filter behaviour!)
Logged

Daydream

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 771
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2009, 01:23:54 am »

Here goes my opinion. "What fields I want" is an approach that works for audio and pictures, not movies, clips, series and the likes. I may want 150 fields to begin with, should I list them? (no, I'm not talking about 20 custom fields for each "just-in-case" scenarios; real fields).

The metadata available for movies far exceeds what is available for music and pictures. I will never do it manually. It has to be imported. And that kind of import needs to be worthy since from the 150 fields available in various external sources, I don't want to match 15 I want to match everything that's out there, because that's why I'm running the import once and not 35 times as more fields become available.

Other things to consider: certain fields are not in the format that MC works with ("Cast" is a table in itself; audio streams - Dolby, DTS, etc - are checkmarks, etc). More. How will we edit the fields, should a particular need arise (space for the tagging editor on the interface)?. How will we see the fields (can't be Excel style rows and columns) - new skins ?

I appreciate that this matter was addressed so openly, and the proactive spirit JRiver has towards it. Just curios (and ready to help if able) how do you foresee the implementation.
Logged

stricko

  • Galactic Citizen
  • ****
  • Posts: 426
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2009, 02:02:40 am »

Interesting thread.

Picking up the point about external data sources, is there any capability in MC to import tags from text files. If anyone is familiar with MP3TAG, there is a capability to import various field values from text files. Really handy if you can't find a track listing for an album, copy/paste the track list from Amazon or somewhere, quick bit of text manipulation, and then imports it into whichever field(s) you want. I've been updating some video files with text largely taken from wikipedia, and an automated utility would be very handy. It may already exist, but I've just not spotted it before...
Logged

rick.ca

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 3729
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2009, 02:11:13 am »

Following is an abbreviated version of what I maintain in Personal Video Database and would likely import to MC.

I agree somewhat with what Daydream and others have said. I think my list illustrates there's no way this much information is going to be entered and maintained manually, nor is it going to be imported from external sources by MC. For what I want, the information can only be collected and managed by software designed for the job.

What I want from MC is the removal of anything that impedes the import of this information. There are a few issues. Standard fields that are applicable, but which can't be edited—as glynor points out. I can't remember exactly why, but I've had difficulty importing date fields in the past. And I think I hit on another issue as I made my list—list fields for credits need to preserve the original order of the list, rather sorting alphabetically. The other thing I need (or there's little point to any of this) is to have configurable means for displaying this information in Theater View.

Description:
Title (string)
Original title (string) - e.g., foreign title
Season (number)
Episode (number)
Date released (date)
Duration (number) - i.e., minutes
Genre (list)
Tones (list)
Categories (list)
Keywords (list)
MPAA rating (string)
Country (list)
Language (string)
Budget (number)
Box office (number)
Tagline (string)
Synopsis (memo)

Credits: (all list fields)
Producers
Directors
Writers
Actors (ordered list) - i.e., must be in original credits order
Composers

Review data:
User rating - e.g., IMDb
Rank (number) - e.g., IMDb Top 250
Awards (list) - e.g., Oscars
Review (memo)
Reviewer rating

User data:
Added (date) - i.e., the media
Updated (date) - i.e., the meta data
Viewed (date)
Viewed with (list)
Comments (memo)
Rating

Media information:
(some of this will be scanned directly by MC)
Video stream (codec, frame rate, bitrate, resolution, aspect ratio)
Audio stream 1 (codec, sample rate, bitrate, channels, language)
Audio stream 2
Subtitles

Logged

darichman

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1362
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #14 on: March 18, 2009, 06:53:23 am »

I think Rick's suggestions are pretty much spot on for my needs too. With a bit of tweaking you can get PVD and MC working quite well together.

I think it's definitely worth emphasising that if an actor field is added it needs to be (as Rick mentioned) ordered, and not automatically alphabetised. Automatic sorting is fine for panes etc, but any other part of the program (Tag AW, file list, track info etc) really needs to display in the specified order... otherwise you'll just get a list of about 30 people, many of whom will be minor roles.

I would also like to see something which makes use of the different "People" fields an an integrated way - Director, Producer, Composer, Actors, Writers - through a single combined field which shows me the person's name AND their role in the film (eg in a nested pane). This is useful when people have had multiple roles and you want to see their entire works without using multiple "People" panes.

     [Person]
> Sean Penn
      Actor
      Director
> etc

Clicking on "Sean Penn" would give me every movie he's been involved with
Clicking on "Director" would limit the results to films he's directed

Doable?

Oh... and at some stage down the track we'll need a pretty way to display all this new metadata you're adding in :)
Logged

Two Wire

  • Regular Member
  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 152
  • I'm a llama!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2009, 10:20:35 pm »

I agree with Rick.ca and Darichman. I think Personal Video Database imports all the movie and TV information one might want. I particularly like th way it structures TV Series and imports the data for all seasons. I would like to suggest taking a look here to see another approach for presenting this information
Logged

Two Wire

  • Regular Member
  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 152
  • I'm a llama!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2009, 10:25:30 pm »

My hyperlink did not work. Try this.http://www.treasure-cove.net/jukeboxtestdrive/. Click on one of the movie posters and go from there.
Logged

fitbrit

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 4887
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2009, 10:53:21 pm »

My hyperlink did not work. Try this.http://www.treasure-cove.net/jukeboxtestdrive/. Click on one of the movie posters and go from there.

Similar functionality inside Theater View in MC13 would be great!
Logged

Daydream

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 771
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2009, 11:54:48 pm »

I would doubt very much (personal opinion) that JRiver would bind any development for video metadata to any other program existing out there. That would create a level of dependency that's not required, may be not wanted, and most sure will create problems. So while it's not wrong to look around (the AV world is a very interconnected one), I wouldn't get too close to either existing solution.

And the question up top asks about fields not cross-compatibility. So I would think long and hard about a list of fields that would serve us best, in relation to the content we are going to work with, and the properties of such content. We need the fields first, in a manner that's universal compatible (or as close it can get) to the properties of movies/series/clips and the way they are presented to us.

If we have that foundation, then we can worry if this or that database, from here to there can be synced. To that end I'd like to know how can one talk to a MC dbase? Is it in the SDK? Do you have something like an application access layer that facilitates the read\write procedures? Questions for the devzone I guess.

So getting back, my list would look like the one below. I know it's not perfect, I only tweaked it considering 2-3 sources, not all that I intended. At least about one field (audio track) I'm undecided between my approach and rick's, when it comes around the additional audio streams (mainly languages vs. stream properties). I'm throwing my list in for brainstorming purposes. Also in my mind many fields are open to debate regarding the best type they should be, so I just added general ideas about what they should contain instead of the precise field type. What's already available in MC it's marked as such (hope I didn't mixed by mistake some of my own fields with the standard set)

General Information   
   Basic Information   
      Title
      Edition
      Original Title
      Series [Available]
      Season [Available]
      Episode   [Available]; Episode URL [also Available]
      Regions (2 sets - DVD, BR)
      Production Year
      Country of Origin
      Rating System (Film / TV)
      Rating
      Rating Details
      User Rating (not starred but numberic-decimal - i.e. 8.4)
   Release Information   
      Run Time
      Release Date
      Case Type
      SRP
   Genres (NOTE: Need to address Sub-genre, maybe more than 2 levels deep)         
   Studios         
   Distributors   (Note sure if the "Publisher" field is meant to cover this too; maybe not)
   UPC Code   [Available]
Features (some or many may be considered too much... or not)
   Scene Access (Chapters)   
   Trailers   
   Featurettes   
   Commentary   
   Deleted Scenes   
   Interviews   
   Outtakes/Bloopers   
   Gallery   
   Prod Notes/Bios   
   Multi-angle   
   Music Videos   
   THX Certified   
   Closed caption   
   Easter Eggs   
   Disc   [Available - "Disc #"]
   Box Set Contents   (NOTE: in case multiple titles that can be refered individually make up this boxset)
   Other features   
Video
   Screen Format (Pan & Scan, Full Frame, Widescreen)   
   Aspect Ratio (Note: need to mention if 16x9 Enhanced or not)   
   Video system (PAL, NTSC, SECAM)
   Codec   
   Bitrate   
   Resolution   
   Container   
Audio
   Main Feature Audio Tracks (Language drop-down list; multiple choices possible)
   Other Features Audio tracks (Language drop-down list; multiple choices possible)
   Codec   
   Bitrate   
   Channels   
   Resolution   
Subtitles
   Subtitles (Language drop-down list or multiple checklist; multiple choices possible)
Cast
   Name | Role (NOTE: Shouldn't they be in pairs?)   
Crew (multiple entries per filed)
   Director   
   Writing   
   Production   
   Cinematography   
   Film Editing   
   Music   
   Sound   
   Art   
   Other   
Overview / Review
Tag line
Awards
Notes
Comments [Available]
Trivia
Official web link   
Status (Seen, Owned, Wanted, Loaned, In Dire Need Of, A Kingdom For This Title, etc.)
Purchase information
   Date
   Place   
   Price   
   Currency


Logged

)p(

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 579
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2009, 01:45:08 am »

I agree with Rick.ca and Darichman. I think Personal Video Database imports all the movie and TV information one might want.


Actually I disagree. I would love to see jrmc connect directly to a movie database (imdb?). What I would like is to take for example the name field en let jrmc search the movie database. it returns a list of movies with names that correspond best with my search string...I select the correct movie from this list...jrmc then fills out my fields with the info from the movie database.

peter
Logged

rick.ca

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 3729
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #20 on: March 19, 2009, 03:05:34 am »

Quote
I would doubt very much (personal opinion) that JRiver would bind any development for video metadata to any other program...

I agree. I hope I didn't give the impression my chosen video database software should be integrated with MC or illustrates what or how information should be displayed. On the contrary, I'm saying MC cannot do what my video database software does, and it should not try. I can already export all of the information to XML, and import it to MC as a playlist.

Quote
And the question up top asks about fields not cross-compatibility.

True, but considering we can already add whatever custom fields we want, all that really matters is the availability of the field types necessary to do the job. We've identified one data type new to MC—credits. I've pointed out these need to be ordered lists. Darichman adds these should include roles as well as names. In my original post, I left this out, thinking it was perhaps going too far. But I've changed my mind—that information would be difficult to live without. Now rather than let this get too complicated when it comes to which data needs what field type...

Perhaps the allmovie way of presenting credits (example) illustrates a solution. It shows Cast and Production Credits on two separate tabs. Both are ordered lists in the form [Name] - [Role/Function]. Maybe all that's needed is a new ordered list field type, of which Cast and Production Credits. The consolidation of producers, directors, composers, etc. into Production Credits would present some import challenges, but the simplicity of the result has some significant advantages.

I suspect we're being asked this question because the developers are faced with the additional challenge of building some default views into Theater View. Each of these special fields could be presented on separate pages without any significant formating of the data. More importantly, everyone would understand it. Those who prefer not to put all the production credits together in one field would choose not to use Production Credits, and instead create multiple custom fields of the same type.

Expanding this idea a bit, an effective Theater View presentation of movie information would probably involve breaking it up into pages anyway. Those pages could be something like the groups set out in my original post: Description (the "main" or root page), Reviews, Cast, Production credits, Viewer data, Media information. It might be better to have an overview page serving as a the main/root page. This could be populated with key default fields that most users would use, even if they don't care about (and don't bother collecting) most of the other information. This way, most users would be satisfied and, as this develops, understand what each other are talking about. In other words—a basic common structure is used, even if movie fanatics are making heavy use of custom (or rarely used standard) fields.

So, I suppose I should make this amendment to my original list:

Overview:
Title (string)
Year (from Date released)
Season (number) / Episode (number)
Duration (minutes)
Genre (list)
MPAA rating (string)
Tagline (string)
Director (first named)
Stars (first 3 named actors)
IMDb rating
Reviewer rating
User rating
Viewed (date)
Logged

rick.ca

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 3729
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #21 on: March 19, 2009, 03:40:25 am »

Quote
...jrmc then fills out my fields with the info from the movie database.

No one could possibly disagree. But what database? Even if JR were willing an able to negotiate a commercial arrangement with IMDb or allmovies, many of us would not likely be satisfied. Unlike JR, users are relatively free to gather publicly available information for their personal use. I use very effective movie database software to gather information on this basis from a number of different sources.

Perhaps I should try a more positive view. If JR can find a reasonable source for movie information and integrate that with MC, that would be wonderful. But they will still need to provide a comparable degree of flexibility in handling movie information as they do with music and photos. That mean providing all the field types, data handling and display options necessary for users' "custom" movie data—even if a fixed automatic-download-from-the-database solution is provided.
Logged

Two Wire

  • Regular Member
  • World Citizen
  • ***
  • Posts: 152
  • I'm a llama!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #22 on: March 19, 2009, 11:29:48 am »

Quote
would doubt very much (personal opinion) that JRiver would bind any development for video metadata to any other program existing out there. That would create a level of dependency that's not required, may be not wanted, and most sure will create problems. 

I agree with this and I was not suggesting any form of dependency. A template already exixts to import the data from Personel Video Database. I think Darichman may have developed this. So, whatever JRiver decides to do should not impact from what source this data is colected. Someone will just create a new template if necessary.

However, JRiver is looking for suggestions to display the movie meta data it will collect (depending upon what the forum members come up with). What form of template are they going to use?. What will it look like? There have been many suggestions to improve the Theater View interface and JRiver has made advances to that end. Now we have an opportunity to take this another step foward. My vote would for it to take the form of something similar to that as shown by the link above. If not, I would hope the skinning engine would allow us to do so.

Just my $.02 worth
Logged

rick.ca

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 3729
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #23 on: March 19, 2009, 06:20:42 pm »

Quote
There have been many suggestions to improve the Theater View interface and JRiver has made advances to that end. Now we have an opportunity to take this another step foward.

I don't know if you're suggesting otherwise, but I think we have to accept any step forward is going to be an extension of the considerable amount of work that has gone into the Obsidian skin so far. I don't see that changing, just going a step further for video. In other words, presently, for all media types, a single file is the "end of the line" for Theater View navigation. You can configure that so it looks similar to your example (i.e., an array of posters). I'm assuming all we're talking about here is the ability to display more information at this point for video—perhaps in the form of a number of different pages of information that can be selected for viewing.

My suggestion to the development team is forget about cosmetic issues and focus on resolving the new technical issues the display of movie information introduces. That is, the display of ordered lists (credits) and memo fields (descriptions, reviews) which will vary greatly in length, together with collections of more "traditional" field types—and provide efficient and "pleasing" transitions between these pages, and other movies. Hopefully, the existing configuration interface can handle this without significant change. I'm assuming these extra "video information pages" would just be additional "levels" in the Theater View configuration, to which users could add whatever fields they want. With that much in place, most users would get most of what they want, without having to resort to skin modifications.
Logged

Lasse_Lus

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 999
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #24 on: March 19, 2009, 07:11:13 pm »

so many fields !  :) what am i missing here ? I create my own fields
Logged
MT5FR

JimH

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 72380
  • Where did I put my teeth?
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #25 on: March 19, 2009, 07:14:20 pm »

so many fields !  :) what am i missing here ? I create my own fields

Please wait a few builds.  Good things are coming.
Logged

darichman

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1362
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #26 on: March 19, 2009, 07:22:36 pm »

It seems that we can glean the following from the posts so far...

1. Many people would like a capacity for MC to directly import its own data from an online database. This could be commercial (imdb/amg) or proprietary (an upgraded version of MC's own YADB). This isn't absolutely necessary, as long as there aren't any limits to users importing their own data.

2. If this were implemented, keeping in mind people's varied needs and tastes for information, users should still be able to import data manually from whichever alternative source they wish (my movies, PVD etc etc) and any barriers to doing so should be minimised.

3. People have many different tastes for which fields are important. Decide on some standard fields (many of the posts above have some good suggestions) but keep in mind that many users will do their own thing according to their individual needs.

4. Optimising special fields to be compatible with standards used by comparable software and online databases. Eg. coupling of actors to role, ordered lists etc. Some of these fields (actors, awards etc) are often tables.

5. Optimising theatre view navigation of files and display of metadata.

As far as point 5 goes... here's what I'd like to see...
  • Whatever choice is made here, please provide users with some functionality to specify which fields they'd like to show, and in what order. Many users will still use custom fields
  • Showroom is looking pretty spiffy. What if a variant were made showing 1 row, with thumbnails at poster dimensions, and metadata displayed below? This would provide a cool 'cover-flow" style functionality with information to boot
  • It would be good to access a full page file info template on any file from any view. With the press of a button, or shortcut key, or from the menu. It would be great if this template could be customisable

Logged

darichman

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1362
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #27 on: March 19, 2009, 07:27:11 pm »

I guess it's important to consider how any changes you make in relation to video will impact on other areas (audio, images etc). Why not take this opportunity to create a customisable "File info" template, which is usable for any media type in any view (theatre view or otherwise). The idea would be similar to track info templates, but dynamic in the sense that the info displayed depends on the type of file. Currently we can't display "track info" for video (as the video playback uses the display window).

If users could create and modify "File Info" templates (in a simple way - which fields do you want to display? And in which order? Where do you want the poster to be displayed? If we're playing back music, do you want a visualisation?) and then establish some simple rules for which template would be displayed for different types of files... we'd have a really robust and individualised way of showing relevant information from anywhere in the program and for any type of media (would be really useful for music and photos as well as video)

For example:
If [Media Subtype] = Film   , show Film Template
If [Media Subtype] = TV    , show TV template
If [Media Subtype] = Music , show Music template
etc

Ideally I'd like to see this not limited to the Media Subtype field - users could theoretically use any fields to create rules...

Just an idea, and sorry, I guess we are getting a bit off-track from the original question.
Logged

JimH

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 72380
  • Where did I put my teeth?
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #28 on: March 19, 2009, 07:28:56 pm »

Just an idea, and sorry, I guess we are getting a bit off-track from the original question.
No, you're very much on track.  Thank you for the details.
Logged

Lasse_Lus

  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 999
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #29 on: March 19, 2009, 07:39:21 pm »

darichman, really nice thinking  :) i hope you  involve documents in "other media", some kind of report view would be fantastic
Logged
MT5FR

jmone

  • Administrator
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 14409
  • I won! I won!
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #30 on: March 19, 2009, 07:44:23 pm »

Here is my own take on Video Meta data and it is actually based on the "type" each is.  I currently use the "Genre" field to split my collection up as follows:
  • Movies:  The suggestions for the meta data is covered in the post above but it need to apply to singles files (eg an AVI or MPG), a collection of files (eg DVD Structure), or a disk image (eg an ISO).  Ideally, I'd see that a user would need a way to identify that it is a movie and that MC would pull down the relevant meta data from an on-line services and then display in T'View
  • Home Movies:  To me the meta data here is a bit like what we have for pictures.  Obviously there is no on-line service to help so I'd want to put in Dates, Location, Subject etc
  • TV Recording:  The meta data now collected from the EPG is pretty good
  • Music Video:  The meta data for this will be like that for what we have now for music.  Again I'll need to be able to tell MC that a particular file / group of files (eg DVD Structure) / iso is a music video and Ideally MC will then get the meta data from an online service.  As the source of these files may even be a TV recoding we need the ability to change the type to Music Video
  • TV Series:  As identified above many will have colletions of TV series and the relevant meta data has been identified in earlier posts.  Again these could be individual files / group of files (eg DVD Structure), or an ISO

I'm sure there are other types that need their own Meta Data structure and treatment!

Thanks
Nathan
Logged
JRiver CEO Elect

darichman

  • MC Beta Team
  • Citizen of the Universe
  • *****
  • Posts: 1362
Re: Video metadata fields
« Reply #31 on: March 19, 2009, 11:32:04 pm »

Here is my own take on Video Meta data and it is actually based on the "type" each is.

Yes, I agree that establishing that any type of file can theoretically relate to a "movie" is important. You mentioned ISOs which aren't actually video. This highlights the difficulties inherent in limiting organisational structure to "file type"...

The suggestion I proposed would take this into account to an extent - you can create any custom fields to establish whether what you're talking about is a "movie" or not. Or if you prefer you could use the [Media Subtype] field to select "movie".

I use two Type fields: [Type 1] & [Type 2] ,  which establish the medium that the file belongs to. These two fields underly my entire database structure, and I've found you can organise pretty much anything (see below) this way. This is completely independent of file type and media subtype (which I don't use).

[Type 1] is very broad, [Type 2] is much more specific...

[Type 1] ... [Type 2]
Music... Album, Single, Compilation, Charts, Classical Album, Film Soundtrack, TV Soundtrack, Game Soundtrack, Music Video, Concert, Sheet Music, Misc Tracks
Film... Feature Film, Short Film, Trailer, Posters, Special Features, Scripts
TV... TV Episode, Trailer, Poster, Special Features
Theatre... Concerts, Live Theatre, Scripts
Game... Roms, Game Footage, Cinematic Scenes, Trailers, Game Art, Screenshots
Comedy... Stand-up, Comedy Album
Artwork... Classic Art, Digital Art, Photography
General Interest... Funny Pictures, Video Clips, Instructional Videos, Lectures
Print... Calendars, Art Books, Comics, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Magazine, Scripts, Poetry
Personal... Photos, Home Videos, Articles, Academic Records, Birth Certificates, Census Records, Service Records, Memorabilia etc etc

Notice that
1. many Types transcend file type
2. files can belong to more than one [Type 1] and more than one [Type 2]
3. [Type 2] values can belong than more to one [Type 1]
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up