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[Neco]

The first is about cover art..   I know how to get it and set it up for individual files,  but  is it possible to  define a  "Series" or "Season" cover-art?   i.e  lets say I bought a couple Seasons of a show, and made video files for them..

In Theater View,  I wish to display by  Series  for my TV Shows.     So  for the initial view listing all the different shows,  I would like a unique  picture that represents that TV show.
Then in the sub-view which lists  selectable Seasons,  I would like a  unique  picture for each Season (i.e the box shot of the DVD for that Season, or something).
And then finally when it gets down to the file list,  I would still have those individual thumbnails  that we can set right now for each file..


The second is,  when I am in theater view, and I select a  Series,  I am shown a screen where it lists each Season.   I have them tagged simply as  digits (I should go back and add the "Season" pre-text I suppose)   but it displays my season in  reverse order ??   i.e  Season 2 is the first in the list, then Season 1..

I don't like that at all,  it doesn't make logical sense to me,  and I would like to change the sort order.   Is it possible?    I can't figure out how...

[MrC]

See this on Cover Art:

  http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

Re: Sort order, Tools > Options > Theater View > Video > and select the entry that you want to modify.  Probably you're referring to Shows > Season.  Select Season under Items to Show, and Season under Details.  Click the Edit button, and change the Sorting order.

Ask more if this doesn't help get you moving forward.

[Neco]

Thanks..   I read the Cover Art wiki before posting but I didn't really find anything that I (thought) answered my question.   So I'm not sure how to ask it in a better way...


With your advice, I got the season sorting to work the way I wanted though.

Just...so many options to mess with  ?

[MrC]

There is support for Series cover art, but not Season cover art.

Edit: Season art seems to be supported too.

Are you able to get Series cover art working?

[Neco]

Sort of?

I tried modifying the cover-art from the series listing in my thumbnail view (individual files are listed in a pane below that view),  but it changed all the files to the cover art I selected..   So I have to figure out how to set a "Series" cover-art without overriding the individual file thumbnails I guess.

I'm going to try following these instructions
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/TV_Shows_-_Series,_Seasons_%26_Episodes#Cover_Art

I wish we had independent options in MC to specifically control where cover art goes for  Audio, Video, etc..  That would help a lot because seeing the audio-only options has thrown me off a little as well.
In fact, the fact that different Libraries can end up sharing the cover art folder, bothers me as well  (once I moved it, an album cover for 2pac shows up, but that is from my friends library, not mine)

It would be nice to have more fine tuning options for Covert Art for sure..  including creating separate folders for different libraries 

[MrC]

I think you have to manually store the image file into the appropriate Series cover art sub-folder.  While you can automate this a bit, it may not be worthwhile to invest the energy into this unless you see yourself doing this frequently.

You can set different a cover art folder / library.  See Tools > Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder.

From your link, it appears I'm mistaken about Season cover art.  Just follow the instructions in the wiki article.

[Neco]

When I select the option  "clean cover art folder"  it warns that if multiple libraries share the same cover-art folder,  that "this could be dangerous"   and since it dropped that 2pac  album art from my friends library into the  new location I specified, I assumed that they all shared the same folder..   Perhaps I was mistaken and it just copied it over because it was there previously and those two libraries were sharing the same destination before..  No biggie

However,  I got the  "Series"  cover art folder to work, but so far,  Seasons  does not display the cover art for the Season, even though I named it as instructed on the Wiki..

i.e  I have

.Library Cover Art\Albums
.Library Cover Art\Seasons
.Library Cover Art\Series

and for testing I have done  \Series\Code Geass.jpg   which worked.   But if I do  \Seasons\Code Geass - Season 1.jpg   it does not show up,  it shows the file thumbnail from the first episode of Season 1 

I'm tinkering around trying to find out why but so far haven't had success..

[Neco]

Just an update.   I have not yet been able to find a way to get  "Season" cover art to display properly..

Is the Wiki incorrect, or has something been changed perhaps?

[MrC]

Just an update.   I have not yet been able to find a way to get  "Season" cover art to display properly..

Is the Wiki incorrect, or has something been changed perhaps?

I just tried it by adding:

   M:\Cover Art\Seasons\Mad Men - Season 1.jpg
   M:\Cover Art\Seasons\Mad Men - Season 2.jpg

and looked in Theater View > Video > Shows > Seasons > Mad Men and both seasons 1 and 2 cover art appeared correctly.

[kensn]

Make sure your tag in Season is just a number ie: 1 or 2 ect.. If you tag the Season like Season 1 the season cover art does not work..

Just saying..

Ken

[Neco]

typical..  I go to fix it so it reads more natural "Season 1" instead of "1",  and it turns out I needed to keep it that way the whole time...

Thanks guys, that worked..  It's a shame they set it up to work this way..   Hopefully they will add something in the future to pre-pend the word "Season" to the tag value.


Still got lots to figure out about Video  tagging and sorting though..   i.e   my current problem right now is,  while it separates my shows by Series and shows the Series Thumbnail (like it does with Audio Albums),  it collects all movies under one generic  Thumbnail and lists them there..

I need to find out a way to include my entire collection  (from a management and tagging standpoint) in the standard program view...  I will have to look into creating different  Views  under the Video tree I suppose.   Although it bothers me when I start setting up things to  exclude or include files like that,  because I don't want to miss something, or be unaware that I have something in my library or where it went...hrmm

Of course then I have to translate that to the Theater View too I suppose?    Although  "Movies" and  "TV Shows"  covers it basically,  I may want to  split it up further,  i.e   "TV Shows",  "Anime TV Shows", "Movies", "Anime Movies"  that kind of thing..

I'm assuming that's possible?    Figuring out how to make it work with tags  will probably be my biggest issue.

Thanks for all your help so far though,  I really love Media Center,  and it gets better every year.   Just wish I had the time to learn a lot of this stuff  before  


Although I have to admit, the biggest shock I got was looking at my library in my File Manager, and finding a crapton of  sidecar files for my MKVs.   I would have thought Media Center supported tagging  MKVS,  as they do have tagging specs for the container format  as far as I was aware.

[kensn]

"so it reads more natural "Season 1" instead of "1"... Yep me too... Fortunately I had the cover art working first so I knew this broke it...

When I first starting using this program is was not as fluent as it is now with the types of files you have. I have created Custom Library Fields to handle this, and still use them because of my Theater View setup I have spent time getting just right. One of the custom fields I have is called "My Sub Type", I populate that with TV, Movie, DVD Music Videos (dvd concert videos ripped to individual songs), Music Videos ect..

I can then setup a Theater View to just show My Sub Type in the view.

Ken

[Neco]

I just tested and confirmed a cheap  hack/workaround

You can name your seasons  "Season 1"  "Season 2" - "Season 10"  whatever.   You just have to reflect the exact value of the Season tag in the file name

in my example:

Drive:\.Library Cover Art\Seasons\Code Geass - Season Season 1.jpg

Allows me to tag the  "Series"  field as  "Season 1"   and it displays as  "Season 1" in the Theater View, with the proper cover art!


So just repeat the word Season, and you can tag your videos in this fashion.   Of course, looking up TV Info will probably be broke,  but you can just manually edit the search field back to the format it uses anyway.


But yes!   I did create a Custom Field in the options  "Media Genre"  and placed some default values I could choose from.

But when I try to create  filters with  "Set Rules for File Display"  it only shows the default fields  Media Center comes with,  not your custom fields!

I don't have time to play with it tonight,  but I know going deeper down into the category options I can start using my Custom Fields,  in expressions and such..  But I need to read up on Expressions first, and find a general resource for  what the most common/useful commands are and how to properly format them to do what you want..

However it would be so much easier if  users would be allowed to do the following,  under Theater View...

Create a new Category / nested Category   or whatever..  and in my case then select  "set rules for file display",  then set my filters  "mediatype is video"   "mediasubtype is TV Show"  "mediagenre is TV (Anime)"   and then I just add a "Series"  display,  that will list all  TV Show Series  from the  filter results of  "Video / TV Show / Anime (TV)"

But we don't have access to custom fields in that option window

[MrC]

Why not just change the Theater View stock Season category listed in Details under Shows from [Season], a stock field, to instead an expression:

  Season [Season]

This gives you the prefix "Season" and allows [Season] to remain strictly numeric.

But we don't have access to custom fields in that option window

I may not be understanding the issue, but your user fields are allowed wherever any fields are allowed.

[kensn]

Why not just change the Theater View stock Season category listed in Details under Shows from [Season], a stock field, to instead an expression:

  Season [Season]

This gives you the prefix "Season" and allows [Season] to remain strictly numeric.

That breaks the covers for me, I tried it. Set all seasons to single numeric, changed to expression in details.. Broke..

[MrC]

My bad.  I recall now that Series and Season artwork is keyed by using the stock [Series] and [Season] category.  I'd completely forgotten.

[kensn]

Neco

You can try this in your Advanced - File Caption

If(IsEqual([My SubType],TV,1),[Episode] - [Name],[Name])

It will put the episode # in front of the name like "1 - This episode". I like the look and the episodes are always in order...

Ken

[rick.ca]

It's a shame they set it up to work this way..   Hopefully they will add something in the future to pre-pend the word "Season" to the tag value.

Thankfully, there's little chance of anything like that happening. MrC has already responded by way of example, but perhaps an explanation would help. In MC (and any database application of it's complexity), it's important that each field be defined (i.e., the 'data definition') be as concise and possible and the data in a format suitable for it's most common use. That's important in an environment where the data could be used for any number of different things. While appending a constant to data might be a necessary workaround in other applications, MC's expression language makes it completely unnecessary. Leave your data in the most sensible, concise form and, if necessary, use an expression to add something to it, combine it with other data and/or reformat it to suit the circumstances. A data value of 'Season 1' is just a PITA if you want to display 'S01E01' or use the number in a calculation.

To illustrate my point (and Ken's), the attached screenshot shows just one of many possibilities—none of which requires the program to assume exactly how the user wants the view to appear.

But when I try to create  filters with  "Set Rules for File Display"  it only shows the default fields  Media Center comes with,  not your custom fields!

What you're likely looking at is a Rules for file display dialog that already has one or more rules set. If you add another, the values that appear in a drop-down with be only those that exist in the files that match the previous filters. That behaviour is often useful, but can also be a PITA when building a set of rules. The simple solution is to move the problem rule to the top of the list. This can be done using the editor that appears when 'Import/Export' is clicked (cut & paste the rule to the top).

[Neco]

I appreciate all those responses, and perhaps this is a matter of me getting what I want over time as I learn more about the program and using expressions.

I will take all the examples into consideration and try to learn from them.   With regards to your screen cap,  its a nice demonstration,  but looks downright ugly to me.   I don't want that kind of stuff in the File name captions.  But that is just personal opinion.

For me,  I like a simplisic nested navigation setup,  although too much nesting does become annoying.  I don't like having to scroll through 50 or 100 files for a big series.

But eventually my goal will be to have a setup that looks like..

Video > TV (Anime)
                        >Series
                               >Season
                                          >Episode

Video>Movie (Anime)
                          >List of all Movies grouped for Series (i.e Ghost in The Shell, Gundam, not scattered across the list) then sorted by Name or some such

Video> TV (Live Action)
Video> Movie (Live Action)

etc..


So that begs the question..  is there a really GOOD tutorial anyone has made on  using/learning the expression language?    "Read the Wiki"  doesn't satisfy me all the time,  because I learn by examples (vs. simple documentation),  and sometimes catered examples teaching a specific thing.

[Neco]

Making some progress,  I'm getting my custom fields to show up, where I complained they weren't, before.. Not sure why, maybe a hiccup.

[rick.ca]

With regards to your screen cap,  its a nice demonstration,  but looks downright ugly to me.

You might try to learn from that as well. I did say...

To illustrate my point (and Ken's), the attached screenshot shows just one of many possibilities—none of which requires the program to assume exactly how the user wants the view to appear.

What you might take from this is that if there's anything 'ugly' about a view you have configured for yourself, it's most likely your fault.

But eventually my goal will be to have a setup that looks like..

This is done simply by adding those items items as Categories. Those are most often fields, but can also be expressions, paths, search lists, etc.

So that begs the question..  is there a really GOOD tutorial anyone has made on  using/learning the expression language?

Since there isn't one, you'll be better served by accepting you don't need it. The configuration UI is rather clunky, but the bottom line is the Theatre View design is straightforward, consistent and flexible. If you can configure one view, you can configure any view. That doesn't mean there aren't tricks for doing some cool things, but those typically are not the sort of thing covered in a tutorial or wiki anyway. They're techniques shared by those who have made the effort to learn how to configure views the way they want them.

The problem most have is in deciding how they want a view to work and appear. You seem to be pretty clear about what you want, so I don't think that will apply to you. If you have a result in mind and are willing to experiment with the configuration UI, you'll quickly learn how it all works. Besides, many of the nuances cannot be readily understood without trying different settings and approaches, and examining the results. Even when you know what you're doing, it typically takes a number of trials before finding what works best in the circumstances. And isn't ugly.

[Neco]

I spent some time crawling through the Wiki, and you are right.  I probably won't need much help understanding it.

Some of my issues posted may seem nitpicky,  but it's all just a new process for me.

I did "start over"  with a blank view last night to try and build a Master View of my Library.   I actually got a lot of what I wanted out of it, but it was definitely confusing and some things didn't make sense..   i.e  Sort Orders set by using the File Pane  dropdown itself  did not seem to apply or stick,  but if I went back into the actual view configuration and "guessed" at where to put something,  it eventually  came up proper, the way I wanted.

So I guess I just need to get over those little things and unexpected behaviors  and I will eventually get better at building  filtered views.


However one thing bugs me, because I will have to alter the way I name my  Series titles within MC.    I can't use a colon ( : ) anymore if I want to have  series and season cover arts,  because  I can't have that character in actual file names    I resorted to using a dash ( - ) as a delimiter   but eventually I hope to figure out a way to replace the  dashes in a series name with a colon where appropriate in the Theater View or something like that.

I don't want anyone to give me an answer,  but to say whether or not it's possible would be good enough of a hint for me.

[rick.ca]

I don't want anyone to give me an answer,  but to say whether or not it's possible would be good enough of a hint for me.

The easy answer would be 'yes', but I'm not sure what the issue is in the first place. If the proper name of the series includes a colon (e.g., Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), then that is what [Series] should be set to by the meta data retrieval system. If that's not the case (e.g., your not using that system, or you don't want to use the proper name), there's nothing stopping you from changing the name, and you can add an auto-import rule to do so automatically. If, for some reason, you wish to change the the file pathnames based on this data, the program will automatically convert colons to underscores.

[Neco]

I'm not concerned what the actual filenames, etc are.   And although technically the series name may not have a :colon in it,  it makes it "prettier" for readability..

i.e

Mobile Suit Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeta (although I guess its really Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam)
Mobile Suit GUndam: Seed
Mobile Suit Gundam: 00
... Or any other Series with a number of shows branched from the same name

having the colon just looks prettier.  So I'd like to have it as an option if I can.

But again the actual filenames aren't really an issue, I can delimit them however because they rarely get touched, and re-importing data would be easy enough to create an expression for, etc.

The problem comes with the Cover Art for Series and Seasons.   Since the filesystem doesn't allow  colons and other certain characters in filenames,  I wanted to know if you could work around that.   Sorry if I confused you.

But  it's all good.   Because replies give me something to think about,  and I'm already seeing that a colon can probably be lived without..

That being said, I have a new question,  but I don't want it to get "skipped"  (apparently people on the Internet hate reading long blocks of text, despite that being what the Internet is made out of mostly)  so I'll post it below  

[Neco]

My other question..   And forgive me because this is a long post for what is probably a simple question,  but I am thinking out loud as I type...

I'm not sure of how to approach it / which is the best way possible..

I think I may have conflicting preferences?

On the one hand, I think  Name sorted list of my series would look nice.   But on the other hand,  I want them to appear in proper chronological order.

But the trouble seems to be,  if I want to "Group" series together and sort by date  -  what format would I use?   Episodes have different air dates, so in a "Series" view there is no consistent date to reference?
And also, if I start tagging for and sort by Groups,   anything that is non-grouped is  sorted outside of that,  so even if  Series  A, B, C, D  are not grouped but  E, F, G  do belong to a group and that group name comes before series A, B, C, D  alphabetically -  then I end up  with a non alphabetic sort order in the end..

I hope I explained that correctly.

---

I have an idea for a solution,  but I'm not sure how to begin constructing it..

I want to maintain a  Series  view  (both in  Media Center Library view, and the Theater View)  but  within the series,  I want another  "group" so that I can store all related  Series  under that single group, and then go down the tree further to view only those (and sorting those in chronological order)..

So I guess my idea is this..

Main View>  Alphabetical Name Sort  (example using various Animes)

Will list Series as normal,  but when a series is grouped,  it will have an entry for that group   Trigun, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop all have individual  listings, But also an entry such as  "Mobile Suit Gundam Series", which  when selected will expand into another "Series" View, which then lists all Gundam Specific shows, in whatever sort order I want,  and then I can pick a show from there, and select an episode, etc just like I was doing it from the main series display...

Basically a kind of  Nested series view??     I'm not sure how I would start building that..  if it involves tags other than the  Grouping tag, or if I'll need some other custom field setup..

I've been trying to play around with  Expression Language, but it turns out to be a little intimidating  in some respects..  Both because I make mistakes of assuming I can use an expression in a given place,  or I  find it hard to see what I am doing  because I have to type it all on one line in certain cases(it seems)

edit:So far I got MC Library View setup so I can either expand the tree into Series OR Grouping view, but not a nested type... will keep working at it..  I may have to just  build a Pane based view instead,  and manage it through text panes (seems easier to split up different views)  and only worry about fancy  thumbnail view setups for Theater View (I think it will be easier to build it for that too)

[MrC]

It sounds like you are working with a categories view.  Try a simple test, in a categories view.  Add a single expression as a category:

   Listbuild(1, \, [Series], [Season], [Episode] - [Name])&datatype=[list]

and see how that works.  It should give you the idea of how you can build a nested list.  Values that don't appy, such as [Series] for non-series video won't be added to the list.

[kensn]

MrC,

I believe Neco is working in Theater View and I really like the simplicity of your List View, but the cover art fails to show using it...

Or am I doing something wrong....

Ken

[MrC]

Right.  Currently, to get cover art for Series or Season, only the actual library field can be used.

But using levels of categories in any categories view (and this includes theater view) causes all levels to be the same in terms of drill-down.

So you have to chose one form or the other.  Having different views for series, movies, TV shows w/episodes helps the situation.

[rick.ca]

So you have to chose one form or the other.  Having different views for series, movies, TV shows w/episodes helps the situation.

I don't recall exactly how it works, but I assume you mean that a view defined with the Categories [Series] and (optionally) [Season] will work fine wrt cover art, but adding a 'Group' Category will break that. If so, there's nothing lost if the grouping is handled better using sub-menus. I find it normally is. Each sub-menu item can be defined in any way imaginable, as it depends only on the Rules for file display. And selecting an item from the second roller is no more difficult than selecting a Category—as long as there aren't too many of them. They don't need to be mutually exclusive and can be a mix of different types and purposes (e.g., Anime, TV, Sports; Current, Ended, Recent episodes, etc.). Or use both approaches—main menu items (under 'Video') for different 'types' (e.g., Anime and (other) Series), each using sub-menus appropriate to the circumstances.

Attached is a screenshot of my 'Video\Series' view. The 'Available' sub-menu item selected is restricted the unwatched episodes of the Series/Seasons I'm currently watching. Other sub-menu items are each for somewhat different purposes.

[Neco]

Thank you for the ideas, I will try them when I have some free time and report back what I was able to accomplish.

Also to clear up any confusion.  For the time being I have decided I will try and build these custom views in Theater View only.   Whereas before I was referencing things about both the Library View & Theater View,  and this probably confused the issue a little.   For the time being I have decided instead to use a  multi-pane based view for Library Management as it is just easier for me to build a comfortable view and navigate around in that manner.

All future questions will be Theater View related.

[Neco]

Have a random question.

I've been spending some time tagging my video files, and such,  and I was wondering what the  appropriate use of the "Sequel"  field  is?
I mean, how is the data supposed to be formatted,  what practical purpose can it be used for (in a filter or expression) based on the way the data is formatted..

If you have  Series X   and Series Y is a Sequel,  do you enter the name of  Series X  into the Sequel  field  under Series Y ??

[kensn]

I believe it is just a field to hold the name of the squeal if one exists, same as prequel... 
More of an information tag than a sorting one, at least that is how I use it.

Ken

[rick.ca]

...what practical purpose can [Sequel]/[Prequel] be used for...

As kensn says, it's difficult to imagine these being used for more than information. What's of more practical use is a field that can be used to group such 'movie series' together. I'm sure many use [Series] to do that, since the concept rarely applies to series—so that field is available for movies. Other choices would be to use custom fields [Movie Series] or the broader term [Franchise]. That would make sense as a grouping for something like Star Trek, which encompasses both series and movies.

A field used for grouping will naturally reduce the value of maintaining separate [Prequel] and [Sequel] references. The appropriate order of items within a group is normally just [Year], so it's easy to display the group as a series—assuming all the members exist in the library. A presumptuous assumption, perhaps...

I can't help myself. I've now changed my own library so 'Movie Series' is recorded in [Series], and [Franchise] is added as a series-related field (so changing one updates the data for the series). [Franchise] is list-type field consisting of the franchise name followed by an ordered list the members of the franchise as '[Name] ([Year])'. In a view, movies are grouped by 'Franchise' using ListItem([Franchise], 0) to extract the franchise name (the first item) from the list. The full ordered list can then be viewed for any member of the franchise—as illustrated in the screenshot. The list is complete, regardless of whether all members exist in the library. The list illustrated was very easy to create by cutting & pasting from a Wikipedia article. A more typical 3-4 movie series would be almost as easy to create manually (and certainly easier than recording [Prequel] and [Sequel] for each movie).

[Neco]

That's neat.  I may end up using something like that too.   I think it is kind of related to my earlier question about listing all my Gundam Stuff under one listing too.

I definitely was thinking about a custom "Franchise" or similar named  field for this kind of stuff.

[kensn]

I have to admit I use Artist and Album to view movies in Theater View. The Artist and Album Fields are populated with the movie name if there is no series of movies. If there is a series of movies, like Star Trek, The Artist is populated "Star Trek" and the Album is populated with the name of the movie "Star Trek V". I find that this relationship is handled by default in the views, and is grouped nicely.

Ken

[Neco]

I had considered doing that for a while too  (also using Track # for episode, since MC seems to have auto track filling options by list order, but not for video episodes )  but I thought it would be "bad practice".

It would probably bother me in the end, too.. knowing it was not done "correctly" 

However I can see why people would do this for sure.

[rick.ca]

I find that this relationship is handled by default in the views, and is grouped nicely.

I don't think this is a sufficient reason to 'borrow' a key stock field to a different use. Views are easily changed to accommodate any hierarchy and grouping desired. If that capability is used to it's potential, default/stock views quickly become irrelevant. Built-in behaviours (e.g., album grouping) might work well for the intended purpose, but they could also create unnecessary issues (e.g., due to improper application of 'album artist' or 'complete album' concepts). I felt borrowing [Series] for franchises might be worthwhile because that would allow fields like my [Franchise] list to be series-related. I don't think that will create any conflicts, but I won't commit myself to this until I've experimented with it for a while. Also, any special behaviours provided (e.g., cover handling or meta data retrieval) might be more applicable and likely to work using [Series] than [Artist] and [Album].

...using Track # for episode, since MC seems to have auto track filling options by list order, but not for video episodes.

It's not necessarily 'bad practice', but I would say this too is not sufficient reason to use a field intended for another purpose. Episode numbers are normally filled on import from the filename. Where that's not possible, the numbers can still be filled using a simple expression.