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[tjobbins]

Hey all,

I have some movies which I have stored as two files, a 'part1' and 'part2'.  Is there a way to get these two files to play as if they were a single file - playing both parts in the right order - which works in both Standard View and in Theater View?  I want to see one entry for the movie in my views in Standard and Theater modes, on which I can click Play and have the two files added to Playing Now in the right order, as if I'd manually highlighted two files and hit Play on them both at once.

I thought that maybe Stacking the files would work.  This does at least give me the option - in Standard View only - to "Play Stack".  But that's a buried right-click-menu option; just hitting Play will only play the top file, and in Theater View (my usual method of watching stuff), there's no option to Play Stack at all.  Worse, once they're stacked, the second file seems to become inaccessible - hitting play on the single stack entry will play the top stack file only, and I can't see the second part at all from Theater View (and only from Standard if I Expand first.)  If I go to Playing Now, it does show the Stack icon on the file it played, and hovering over it says "Stack of 2 items" - but as it only queued one file, that doesn't seem to help at all.

The files have Media Sub Type set to Movie, and currently I have both parts named the same, e.g. "North by Northwest".  To differentiate the parts I've tagged them Episode=1 and Episode=2 and also Track=1 and Track=2. I gave both files the same name (rather than adding a 'Part 1' to the end) so that Get Movie/TV info would work OK on both parts.  I used Episode to differentiate the two parts as that seemed most logical, but then I tried Track as well just in case that helped with stacking.

Am I doing something wrong with the stacks?  If not, what's the point of them exactly?  I would think that Play Stack should be the default play option for stacked files, and that this should work in Theater View.  Am I misunderstanding their purpose?

I suppose there might be a way to do this by throwing Episode into my view schemes as well - perhaps treating every movie like it was a TV Show with multiple episodes?  But I only have a few two-parter movies so I would want to avoid complicating all my scheme setups, and would not want any setup that made the majority single-file movies any more work/clicks to play.

If there isn't a way to do this in MC currently, I'd strongly push for this as a very useful additional feature - maybe a "Meta Entry" option, decoupling the library entry from the physical file, allowing an entry in the library database to specify multiple files to be treated as one (though, again, isn't that what stacks are for?)

If it can't be done in MC yet, I suppose I will need to manually go through each of the movies and join the separate files together into a single new file using an external program (and that's another MC feature request: video support in the Media Editor!  Or at least, basic "stitch" and "split" options.)  Any recommendations for a quick and easy (and preferably free!) external program to join two AVIs, if that's the only way?

Thanks!


Tom

[syndromeofadown]

A quote from me

To view my movies I use fields 'name' and 'installment'. Installment is a user field.

For the 'name' field of my movies i just enter the name of the movie.

For the 'installment' field of my movies I enter Disc 1, or Disc 2, or Disc 3, etc for DVD rips and
I enter Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 for other video types.

Part 1, Part 2, etc is for movies cut into multiple parts, not sequels. Sequels have different names.

For 95 percent of my movies the installment field is either Disc 1 or Part 1 because most movies don't have multiple parts.

I use this system with categories, album thumbnails, and theatre view.

from here
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=73320.0


In theater and category views I have a sub view for each media sub type and view like this
TV Show-->Series-->Season-->Episode
Movie-->Series-->Name-->Installment
Music Videos-->Artist-->Name-->Installment

Hopefully helpful

[syndromeofadown]

i suppose i should add that if you set up your views correctly you will have the choice of playing parts individually or consecutively.
In categories I actually view my movies by Series-->Name and in the split screen thing is where I have Installments.
If I want to play all installments i choose Play on the  'Name' and all installments begin playing in order.
If interested i can take a screenshot and attempt to explain better.

[tjobbins]

i suppose i should add that if you set up your views correctly you will have the choice of playing parts individually or consecutively.
In categories I actually view my movies by Series-->Name and in the split screen thing is where I have Installments.
If I want to play all installments i choose Play on the  'Name' and all installments begin playing in order.
If interested i can take a screenshot and attempt to explain better.

Thanks a lot, that is helpful.

I'd be very grateful if you could show a screenshot of your Theater setup for your Installments system and explain how you've configured that.  I'm still a little unsure of all the possibilities of Theater View.

I've just tried out a system which I think is the same or similar as yours, and I basically have it working but it's not perfect.

I am using the standard field [Disk #].  I assigned all movies a Disk# of 1, and then individually changed [Disk #] = 2 for the second part of my two-parter movies.

In Theater View, I have the following views:

Video (Category Grouping, Secondary Roller)
->  Movies  (Library Item,  Rules for file display:  [Media Type] = Video ; [Media Sub Type] = Movie)
  ->  Name    (Library Item, Column:  Name)
  ->  Director (Library Item, Columns: Director, Name)

This provides the right functionality, but not quite the right appearance.

The remaining issue is that the movies don't display with the correct List Style.  Because I have to group by Name in order to get one entry per two part movie, the list style used is the grouped one, that just shows thumbnails and name, not the extended movie info tags.  I only get that info if I select a movie name to drill down to the individual files, and therefore I only see the movie info for one movie at a time.

This is best shown with screenshots.

So this is my original Director view, without a grouping on Name.  You can see that Family Plot appears twice, once per part.  But I get the correct view, showing the movie info on the right alongside the list of movies:



And this is the updated Director view, with Name added as a second group column.  Now I get just one entry per two-part movie ("Family Plot" shows just once).  But I don't get the movie info, just thumbnails and names - to get the movie info I'd have to select a movie from the list, at which point I'd see the movie info for only one movie at a time:



And finally this is my Theater View setup:




Have you managed to solve this problem?  Does your setup handle the two-part movies while still showing them with the correct List Style, showing movie info alongside the list of all movies?

A final point is that, possibly unlike your setup, Disk# is not part of my Theater View view setup.   It's the fact that I now group by Name that means I get one entry for a two-part movie.  What you can't see in my screenshot above is that I am using Disk# for sorting -  in Standard View I configured a Sort preset which sorts on Name, then Disk#.  I saved that preset, and then in Theater View I'm able to select that sort preset for the sorting on Name.  This ensures that Disk# is used to always play the two-part movie in the order of Disk#.

But you seemed to be saying that Installments was actually part of your Theater View view, whereas Disk# is not part of mine.  Mine has only Name as a grouping, and Disk# is only used for sorting.

EDIT:  But actually, the sorting doesn't seem to help.  I just tested it out by changing the Disk#s on Family Plot, reversing them, but whatever values I have for Disk# in my two parts of "Family Plot", hitting Play on the single entry always plays them in the same order!   In other words, the custom sort I put in doesn't seem to do anything.  And therefore the values I have for Disk# seem completely irrelevant - it's the fact that I'm grouping by Name that means I get one entry for the two part movie, but the order of those two ports appears to be decided by the filename or some other value out of my control!?

Theater View is still quite confusing to me, we really need some proper documentation on these options..  (the Wiki entry barely covers anything)

Thanks in advance!

[syndromeofadown]

Does your setup handle the two-part movies while still showing them with the correct List Style, showing movie info alongside the list of all movies?

No Sorry. Your updated view looks the same as mine, but I don't think its a problem i think its an improvement.
I would rather browse with only covers with no text. Then when I do want movie I click on a movie to get larger text.
I can't think of anyway to view how you want. Lots of smart people here though. someone may have a solution.

you seemed to be saying that Installments was actually part of your Theater View

There used be be a theater view setting called something like 'custom file caption'.
It allowed you to customize the text under the media icons. This is where i added Installment for movies, Episode for TV, etc.
I just noticed it is not there any more and has been replaced by 'Customize file info panel'.
At first glance a bit confusing but Its actually very nice.

I just re-customized my theater view to the same functionality i used to have.
Im still viewing by Series-->Name
To integrate installment i did as follows.

I went to tools\Options\Theatre View\Appearance\Customize file info panel\
then in the file info panel GUI :
set Template = Movie
Left clicked in fields and added Installment
Moved Installment to the top of the list
Installment style = title
show = always show

Now when select muti disc sets "Disc 1" "Disc 2" ect is shown at the top of the page.

You could try the same thing with Disc #

Note  that in 'set rules for file display' i sort by series-name-installment so that when i play a movie set it is played in the correct order.
And it does play in the correct order.