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[maid]

Can we move the TV series art to the same folder as the file?

[kensn]

Or better yet can we have seperate art for Series, Season and Episode....

[MrHaugen]

Or better yet can we have seperate art for Series, Season and Episode....

This is important. And more so as we get more and more of this. Series art and Screen grabs is separate today. But there is no season art. In a perfect world several images should be added and differentiated. Episode, Season, Series, Banner, Backdrop, Artist, Cover. Just to mention the obvious one. One should also preferably be able to set the location of each of this.

Personally I would like:
- Episode Image in a Thumbanail folder under each Season
- Season as season.jpg under each Season folder
- Series as series.jpg under each Series folder
- Banner as banner.jpg under each Series folder
- Backdrop under Backdrop folder for each Series folder
- Artist images under Artist folder as artist.jpg
- Cover (audio albums and movie covers) as cover.jpg under Albums or next to movie file

I think that would cover the most, yes

[flac.rules]

+1 To all Haugen has to say

[BryanC]

+1

[Daydream]

I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the apparent brake put on implementing further the "scraping art" feature, but how would this be presented in Standard view? I mean how would you see you have all the art you're interested in (poster-banner-fanart-thumbs-series-season-artist, etc)? There are a few overlapping one-to-many relationships between art images and files. I'm not sure you can create views to see this, Standard view is horizontal one-line presentation of metadata (art & text) for each item. It doesn't fit. Or if one needs 10 views to inspect each art part, forget it.

I vaguely remember that somebody (Rick?) mentioned the idea of a metadata editor. I don't recall if it was for this but it would be good. You select one item of whatever kind - base item (episode, movie, etc) or let's say 'node' (Series, season... ahem, movie boxset) and you are presented with all the metadata for that item, whatever it is. Maybe build this into the (extended) Tag part of the screen to show multiple images?

[JustinChase]

In a perfect world several images should be added and differentiated.

Personally I would like:
- Episode Image in a Thumbanail folder under each Season
- Season as season.jpg under each Season folder
- Series as series.jpg under each Series folder
- Banner as banner.jpg under each Series folder
- Backdrop under Backdrop folder for each Series folder
- Artist images under Artist folder as artist.jpg
- Cover (audio albums and movie covers) as cover.jpg under Albums or next to movie file

I think that would cover the most, yes

I mostly agree, but I'd prefer if all the Season specific images went into an 'images' or 'metadata' folder, under each Season, instead of them all sitting next to the video files; and the Series specific images in a similar folder under Series; which in my case would be just one more folder next to the Season xx folders.  Also...

- Episode Image in a Thumbnail folder => [Episode Name].jpg (I actually don't mind the screengrab for each episode, but "official" images might be nice also)
- Backdrop under Backdrop folder  => backdrop.jpg for each Series (not another folder for this one item)
- Artist images under Artist folder as artist.jpg => I'm not sure what "Artist" it would pull for TV shows, so I don't think I'd actually want anything here actually, but perhaps I'm missing the point of this one.  (maybe you mean this to be just for music?)

Like this...

V:\TV\Archive\The Big Bang Theory
     \Season 01
          \The Big Bang Theory - s01e01 - Pilot.mkv
          \The Big Bang Theory - s01e02 - The Big Bran Hypothesis.mkv
          \The Big Bang Theory - s01e03 - The Fuzzy Boots Corollary.mkv
          \metadata
               \The Big Bang Theory - s01.jpg
               \The Big Bang Theory - s01e01 - Pilot.jpg
               \The Big Bang Theory - s01e01 - Pilot_mkv_JRSidecar.xml
               \The Big Bang Theory - s01e02 - The Big Bran Hypothesis.jpg
               \The Big Bang Theory - s01e02 - The Big Bran Hypothesis_mkv_JRSidecar.xml
     \Season 02
     \Season 03
     \metadata  (I could live without this folder also, if you'd prefer the images just sit next to the season folders)
          \series.jpg
          \backdrop.jpg
          \banner.jpg
          \series.xml

This would keep only the actual videos together in one folder, and stick all the associated metadata files together in a separate folder; which is 'cleaner' when browsing outside of MC.

[rick.ca]

I vaguely remember that somebody (Rick?) mentioned the idea of a metadata editor.

I find it hard to forget being tarred and feathered by the 'r'-phobic for a simple but brilliant suggestion.

That was a simple mechanism whereby a record type completely separate from the existing file records could be associated with any field value. For example, one of these "memo records" could be created for '[Artist]=[Bob Dylan]'. You would then create and assign fields (these, too, would be completely separate from the fields associated directly with file records) for whatever it is you want to record (date of birth, place of birth, biography, shoe size, etc.). I hadn't considered it originally, but those fields could include image URL's (local or external) and/or image containers. The idea was those records could be displayed in some sort of split view. They would would be displayed only for file records selected at the time, so would have little impact on the performance of the main database. While you would be able to view and edit these memo records in a separate view (e.g., a list of your favourite artists and their biographical data), they wouldn't be related to any associated media in the library (which is why I call them "memo" and not "relational" records).

In the case of series, such a feature would provide the means to display information about a series in records dedicated to that purpose—without having to resort to using Series-related fields. Doing the same for seasons would require the memo records to be defined by expression rather than simple field value. You could then define a record of '[Series]=[Boardwalk Empire] [Season]=[2]'.

Considering Notes might have encompassed something like this (before it morphed into I-don't-know-what), and we now have Relational fields, I think it's safe to say this is never going to happen. If there's a real need, I suggest lobbying for a much more direct solution. That might be the ability to display—in a synchronized spit panel—specified fields related to the records selected or displayed in the primary view. A special characteristic of the panel could be if a specified field contains a URL to an image, the image (rather than the URL) would be displayed. Then, with a primary view showing a list of episodes, this panel would show a poster and overview for the series of the selected episode(s).

[darichman]

Like this...

This would be fabulous. I would be very happy with that exact setup.

I find it hard to forget being tarred and feathered by the 'r'-phobic for a simple but brilliant suggestion.

Let's get him!

[Daydream]

This would be fabulous. I would be very happy with that exact setup.

I think you'll see division between users pretty fast. I don't store the art/metadata either as suggested by MrHaugen or by Justin. When it comes to this I'm a minimalist. I want everything without a complicated structure of files/folders as long as it doesn't brake compatibility with scrapers and the likes. If I don't have subfolders for seasons and everything still works fine so I'd be even more reluctant to understand creating any other folders for art or the likes. Everything in the same folder with the series files.

I don't like to repeat information either.

Code: [Select]

V:\TV\Archive\The Big Bang Theory
     \Season 01
          \The Big Bang Theory - s01e01 - Pilot.mkv

Already the Series name is in twice, and Season number is also twice. Why? All the tools in the world from Ember to MCM to Sickbeard & SabNZB can cope without that.

Back to the original problem, displaying this art/metadata for online retrieval, inspection & editing is key. I'd take a split view like Rick mentions, I'm just having trouble imagining it in action. Say left is split-Standard, right is split-Meta editor. You click something on the left, shows art and metadata on the right.
I wanna inspect and edit the art and metadata for a series. Where do I click on the left? Can the Standard view be made to show a grid-style with one row = one series (title)? I'm not an expert but I don't think it works like that. It's already at the point where I have to right click an episode and retrieve the cover art for the series.

Maybe a whole new screen somewhere is better (I'm just talking out loud, see what idea is better). Leave the standard view where it is, or some practices in MC will come to a head -> do I have boxoffice value on the right? But I want my expression field on the Standard half to calculate the value adjusted for inflation...! (or it may be just me, that wherever I turn my head around the forum, all I see are expressions).

[kensn]

I think a tag for Season Art would be fine.. Just a tag for me to fill in the Name.jpg.. not asking for much here... I don't mind taking the time to make Theater View look nice...

[rick.ca]

I'd take a split view like Rick mentions, I'm just having trouble imagining it in action.

This is why I referred to it as a "panel," without further explanation. It could be a lot of different things.

Given the nature of the data most likely displayed there, I was imagining a configurable pane that would present specified fields in rows rather than columns, perhaps in cells that would resize according to contents. It would show just one set of fields at a time, but the panel could scroll vertically to accommodate any number of fields and/or lengthy memo fields.

But that's just one idea. It might only work on large, wide monitors. It might be more practical to display the data in a pop-up (e.g., when hovering over the series field, show the series-related fields). That, of course, would be very similar to, probably in conflict with, the existing pop-up. So another possibility would be to roll this and the unrelenting requests to make the pop-ups configurable into one enhancement. Sort of an intelligent pop-up. Hover over an episode for an episode pop-up (what we have now). Hover over the series name (in the same episode record), and the pop-up shows a series poster, description and whatever other series-related fields have been created and specified for the pop-up. Same thing for Album- and Artist-related fields...

[JustinChase]

I think you'll see division between users pretty fast.

Yeah, I expect so.  History shows us that everyone seems to have pretty wildly varying opinions/desires from what I've seen over the years, which I actually think is pretty great.  It helps open everyones mind a bit more, I think.

I didn't mean to imply this is the only or best way; just a way handle some of my desires for separation of media from support documents.

I don't like to repeat information either.

Code: [Select]

V:\TV\Archive\The Big Bang Theory
     \Season 01
          \The Big Bang Theory - s01e01 - Pilot.mkv

Already the Series name is in twice, and Season number is also twice. Why?

I usually don't like to repeat information either, but

1) SickBeard doesn't give too many options to choose from, so folders weren't really a question
2) Folders make it easier to locate/backup/move/delete related files (outside of MC) more so than leaving everything in one big folder
3) Although repetitive, it's not really a 'problem' either
4) I don't really like extraneous files mixed in with my media.  If I want to look for a media file, I don't want to have to scroll thru/ignore/filter out the .xml and .jpg files.  I 'only' want the actual media files in their respective folders.  Music has no such additional support files necessary, so I don't have any folders in my Music folder, for example.
5) Should you ever experience a situation where you lose the folder structure, I always want pertinent information in the filename itself.  No matter where the files are stored, I will always know exactly which show that refers to

In the end, as usual, I think we would all agree that we'd like it to be customizable, since we know we wont agree on what's right/best/easiest for our needs.

[alspoll]

I think a tag for Season Art would be fine.. Just a tag for me to fill in the Name.jpg.. not asking for much here... I don't mind taking the time to make Theater View look nice...

+1, nice and simple for me to manage.

[MrHaugen]

1) SickBeard doesn't give too many options to choose from, so folders weren't really a question
2) Folders make it easier to locate/backup/move/delete related files (outside of MC) more so than leaving everything in one big folder
3) Although repetitive, it's not really a 'problem' either
4) I don't really like extraneous files mixed in with my media.  If I want to look for a media file, I don't want to have to scroll thru/ignore/filter out the .xml and .jpg files.  I 'only' want the actual media files in their respective folders.  Music has no such additional support files necessary, so I don't have any folders in my Music folder, for example.
5) Should you ever experience a situation where you lose the folder structure, I always want pertinent information in the filename itself.  No matter where the files are stored, I will always know exactly which show that refers to

In the end, as usual, I think we would all agree that we'd like it to be customizable, since we know we wont agree on what's right/best/easiest for our needs.

Exactly my thoughts as well. As you say, this should not be the most important discussion in this thread. The best way to deal with this is to allow each user to choose the correct path. The reason for this is that so many applications does place the files in so many different ways, that it would be impossible to make everyone happy. And there is not all of this applications that can customize it's output to the need of JRiver MC either.

[MrHaugen]

I need to bump this one.

I've finally taken the leap to MC17, and I'm experimenting with the TV Show art. On the server, this looks gorgeous, but there seems to be NO replication to my clients. If not, this thing is practically worthless for server/client setups. I mean, I could copy the art from "C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 17\Cover Art\Series" on the server, and sync it with my client. But this should really not be necessary, and I doubt that many even bother doing this.
And, no. I can't start getting all this art on my clients as well. Even if I had a keyboard and mouse, it would take MANY hours

Is there a way to sync this images from server to clients? And will this also be a problem for Artist art? That is my next project.

[Matt]

17.0.23 (10/25/2011)
NEW: Artist and series images work on a Library Server client (they will only work on a client after using the images at least once on the server).

Are you up-to-date on both machines?

[MrHaugen]

Was a bit to fast with the conclusion. I restarted the client now, and everything looks good Great! I hope that the changes is synced when I get new images from now on. Because I almost never close the client, only put it to sleep. I'll update some more images and check how it's handling things.

[MrHaugen]

I've tried several approaches now, and it seems like I have to restart the client to get the the new TV Show images. I've tried waiting a long time, synced changes manually. After making sure the images have been used on the server. It's not ideal.

Would this be something you could look at on a later time perhaps? I guess the same thing applies to Artist art as well. I also think it's a bit worrying that the images is placed under the user data folder, and not next to the TV Shows or in a separate folder. It's very easy to forget this images, which you might have used many hours to download. It can be a source of some frustration...