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[audunth]

Hi,

After updating to the newest version (17.0.71) MC suddenly changed the coverart for most my TV series. Looked like thumbnails from the video at first (even if make thumbnails is turned off in options), but after looking closer, it seems it's downloaded from somewhere. I had a separate cover (used the DVD covers) for each season, now each episode has it's own coverart. And even worse, Scandinavian series now has English episode names, or English episode names behind the Scandinavian in parentheses.

Also, most episodes now have (TV 14) behind the name and year when I hover over them.

Why has MC done this automatically without asking me?? And where can I find a setting to turn off or configure this behaviour?

[Bengi010]

Same Thing happened to me.  MC 17 has a new feature that pulls movie and TV info off the net.  It's not supposed to overwrite the data we have but it does.  To turn it off go to Tools> Options> Library & Folders> Configure Auto Import and uncheck "Get Movie & TV info"

I'm not 100% on this but I think it will solve the problem. 

You can restore your library if you have backups predating the change, but then immediately have to go change the auto import setting again before it starts redownloading stuff.

[audunth]

Thanks. I thought the options under configure auto-import only related to auto-import, not when you manually import a file, or even worse, to existing files in the library when not importing anything!

[Alex B]

I have not seen this happening to me. I have background auto-import disabled and I don't have the "Get Movie & TV info" option enabled. I have a lot of manually linked cover art that do not follow the standard naming convention. I would be quite unhappy if the cover art links would disappear or change or my preferred file tags would automatically change to something else.

Regarding backing up & restoring library data, in addition to copying library backup files to a safe location, I export selections of my video library as MPL playlists to have quickly and easily usable backup files of the library data. For example, I have an MPL file for each TV series in the series root folder. The sidecar XML files are not the same because they are automatically updated to contain the latest changes and thus cannot be used for backing up older data.

I attached a screenshot of my "Babylon 5" series folder. The highlighted MPL file contains all library data of the complete 5-season TV series and some additional files.


Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachment.

[gvanbrunt]

Just speculating but I think in the past there were no episode covers so MC displayed the series one etc? With the new version during the import it pulled the missing ones down. So essentially it did not overweight but it did change what was displayed previously.

[audunth]

Nope, I had downloaded and added the season DVD coverart myself, the season art was not provided by MC. Like I do with everything I import. When I import a Blu-ray for example I use Google Images to find the Blu-ray cover art manually with no automation at all involved. That way I can see which movies in my library are Blu-ray rips just by looking at the cover.

Alex B: This is the first time it's happened to me too. I've always had the find cover art option checked because when I import music I like MC to automatically find the CD cover. I've never had MC find cover art for video files either. The Get movie & tv info was also checked because I didn't know it was there and obviously it came checked as default when it was introduced not too long ago. Anyway these options should only concern AUTO IMPORT since that's the section they're under in the options. I don't like auto import, never have, so I always import everything manually by selecting it in Explorer, right clicking it and selecting Media center -> Import.

MC should clean up the options and put only the options that concern auto import under auto import and make another category called importing where they put the options that concern all importing!

It's cool that MC adds information about a movie/episode, just don't change the name or mess with the cover art I've taken the time to add myself!!!!! If I need that done, I'm perfectly capable of selecting files, right clicking and selecting "find/correct name" or "add cover art" (options that are not there but should be).

[phalanthus]

Nope, I had downloaded and added the season DVD coverart myself, the season art was not provided by MC. Like I do with everything I import. When I import a Blu-ray for example I use Google Images to find the Blu-ray cover art manually with no automation at all involved. That way I can see which movies in my library are Blu-ray rips just by looking at the cover.

Alex B: This is the first time it's happened to me too. I've always had the find cover art option checked because when I import music I like MC to automatically find the CD cover. I've never had MC find cover art for video files either. The Get movie & tv info was also checked because I didn't know it was there and obviously it came checked as default when it was introduced not too long ago. Anyway these options should only concern AUTO IMPORT since that's the section they're under in the options. I don't like auto import, never have, so I always import everything manually by selecting it in Explorer, right clicking it and selecting Media center -> Import.

MC should clean up the options and put only the options that concern auto import under auto import and make another category called importing where they put the options that concern all importing!

It's cool that MC adds information about a movie/episode, just don't change the name or mess with the cover art I've taken the time to add myself!!!!! If I need that done, I'm perfectly capable of selecting files, right clicking and selecting "find/correct name" or "add cover art" (options that are not there but should be).

 
+1

[Matt]

Could you explain what metadata you had filled in for the files that got changed?

The automatic lookup tool only engages for files without metadata, defined as follows:
Movie: a filled description, actors, or director
TV: filled description or actors

I think we need to expand that definition, but I'm not certain to what.  Maybe if there's something in 'Image File' it should not get metadata?  This could be a problem if a download included a sidecar image, since there would then be an image but no metadata.

[JustinChase]

Could you explain what metadata you had filled in for the files that got changed?

The automatic lookup tool only engages for files without metadata, defined as follows:
Movie: a filled description, actors, or director
TV: filled description or actors

I think we need to expand that definition, but I'm not certain to what.  Maybe if there's something in 'Image File' it should not get metadata?  This could be a problem if a download included a sidecar image, since there would then be an image but no metadata.

I would suggest that if a field contains data, it not be overwritten, if a field is blank, it can be overwritten.

If any of the fields that the scraper can get data for are blank, then go get that data.

Of course, I still prefer a fully customizable scraping option dialog, as discussed in other threads.  But for the current issues with this, I think the above should be fairly easy to implement, and should stop all the "you changed my data" threads.

[Matt]

I would suggest that if a field contains data, it not be overwritten, if a field is blank, it can be overwritten.

Good idea.

Next build:
Changed: When looking up movie & TV information automatically as part of auto-import, fields with existing data will never be overwritten (manually running the tool will overwrite existing data).

[audunth]

Yep, seems it did replace my coverart and added metadata for my videos without description/actors/director. Had to restore an earlier backup of the library to get it back the way it was. Thank God MC backups automatically

But why did MC do this without me running an auto import? I have no folders in the auto import watch list...

Thanks for the change, Matt, will avoid this from happening again if I select Get movie & tv info for new imports

[Matt]

But why did MC do this without me running an auto import? I have no folders in the auto import watch list...

Auto-import is a tool that does many things.  It finds new media, does library maintenance (finds changes, fixes broken links, etc), it can get cover art, analyze audio, build thumbnails, and now get video metadata.

It can be turned off completely in Options > Library & Folders, but I would not recommend this.

[audunth]

Another question: In the new build, auto import will still look for and download a TV episode's metadata if the description and actors fields are empty, right? So now I can just add whatever data I want myself and then run an auto import to get the rest if I leave description and actors empty, right?

By the way is it possible to add series/season art for TV series, or is it coming in a future build?

[MrC]

Auto-import is a tool that does many things.  It finds new media, does library maintenance (finds changes, fixes broken links, etc), it can get cover art, analyze audio, build thumbnails, and now get video metadata.

Maybe its time to rename this?  I'll toss in Otto Worker.

[icstm]

just to confirm, is there a solution to the OP?

As I understand it and as the situation I face.

Series covers are covers, but season are not, they look like thumbs. Can we please have covers?

thanks!

[MrHaugen]

Was not the rule set to the following?

If empty: Write fields
If not empty: Keep old values (never overwrite. Except for the Name field and one other I don't remember)

This could be the reason why the OP have some troubles.

I think the reason for this was......
People might name their series or movies with small variations. And this can lead to trouble later on. For instance automatic background images, who depend on the names. If there is no exact name hit, the closes one will be used, and the name will be overwritten. IF this is a mistake, and the wrong movie or series is selected, you can correct this by manually selecting the right series and movie. If you select the series, a unique code will be saved, and this should never get overwritten again.

The artwork for each episode is downloaded as screen captures. This is a standard used by the automatic meta data scraper. If you want to change this you'll have to convince JRiver of making some customizations to the system

This is all done for automation in mind, and there can occur some bad hits. This is however less work for those that want an automated system vs those that need everything to be 100% on the first hit. At least in theory

[icstm]

OK, but what is happening with Seasons?
There is no media associated with a season, only with an episode.

[MrHaugen]

Correct. There are no relational meta data specifically for Seasons or TV shows, or images for Seasons yet. This is something I miss as well. Both season images as well as season and show overview (if they exists?). We do not have any way of showing relational meta data for anything but the bottom level of media today though. So there would have to be done something there. Season covers should probably be easier to add I think. They are ready and available on TVDB for grabbing.

[icstm]

Exactly! I have them through MediaBrowser and MB and MC are both grabbing the same thumbs for episodes and covers for series. They differ on seasons, where MC is showing a thumb, rather than a cover.