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[tcman41]

I noticed that I don't have sidecars being generated for all media when it is imported and info button applied, why is this?

Also how can searches be done via sidecars?

thanks

[glynor]

The sidecars are useful for two things:

1. Metadata exchange.  The sidecars are XML, and allow you to "port" metadata associated with a file from one machine to another, or to other applications (by parsing the XML), for file types that don't contain embedded tags (or where the tagging isn't very robust or standardized, like MKV and MP4).

2. Backup.  Just like embedded tags for your music files, this allows you to rebuild that valuable data should your Library (the MC database) get completely hosed.  This is unlikely because MC does automatic backups, but if you have a catastrophic hard disk failure (and you didn't move the default backup location off of your C drive), you could be in trouble.  This is a valuable fallback position, just like embedded tags in other media types.

If they annoy you, you can disable their generation here:
Options > General > Importing & Tagging > Store tags in external sidecar files

One thing I use them for, is to allow MC to be a front-end (metadata manager) for the streaming video Library on our corporate Intranet.  So, I have a number of Lecture capture systems that record seminars and events around campus.  These save to a location on the SAN, which is then monitored by a copy of MC via Auto-Import.  The Tag On Import rules allow the system to automatically parse metadata from the filenames and whatnot, and then the sidecar XML files are generated.

Our webserver has some JavaScript that reads the XML and autogenerates a "corporate YouTube" based on the [Genre], [Series], [Season], [Keywords], etc tags in the XML files, and allows me to simply tag the files in MC when I need to change the Title of a seminar or add a category or whatever.

At some point, I'd like to fix these scripts to access the MC database directly via MCWS instead, but that's going to require learning some ASP.Net stuff, or hiring a better JavaScript programmer.

By the way... If anyone here is good with JavaScript, and expert-level with MC, and looking for a little side-gig, PM me.  The webserver is just IIS (it is internal only so who cares), though if we "fix" it, it would be nice to be able to handle our external site too.

[tcman41]

The sidecars are useful for two things:

1. Metadata exchange.  The sidecars are XML, and allow you to "port" metadata associated with a file from one machine to another, or to other applications (by parsing the XML), for file types that don't contain embedded tags (or where the tagging isn't very robust or standardized, like MKV and MP4).

2. Backup.  Just like embedded tags for your music files, this allows you to rebuild that valuable data should your Library (the MC database) get completely hosed.  This is unlikely because MC does automatic backups, but if you have a catastrophic hard disk failure (and you didn't move the default backup location off of your C drive), you could be in trouble.  This is a valuable fallback position, just like embedded tags in other media types.

If they annoy you, you can disable their generation here:
Options > General > Importing & Tagging > Store tags in external sidecar files

One thing I use them for, is to allow MC to be a front-end (metadata manager) for the streaming video Library on our corporate Intranet.  So, I have a number of Lecture capture systems that record seminars and events around campus.  These save to a location on the SAN, which is then monitored by a copy of MC via Auto-Import.  The Tag On Import rules allow the system to automatically parse metadata from the filenames and whatnot, and then the sidecar XML files are generated.

Our webserver has some JavaScript that reads the XML and autogenerates a "corporate YouTube" based on the [Genre], [Series], [Season], [Keywords], etc tags in the XML files, and allows me to simply tag the files in MC when I need to change the Title of a seminar or add a category or whatever.

At some point, I'd like to fix these scripts to access the MC database directly via MCWS instead, but that's going to require learning some ASP.Net stuff, or hiring a better JavaScript programmer.

By the way... If anyone here is good with JavaScript, and expert-level with MC, and looking for a little side-gig, PM me.  The webserver is just IIS (it is internal only so who cares), though if we "fix" it, it would be nice to be able to handle our external site too.

Hmm, most all of my movie and tv files are .mkv, i have about 600 tv episodes and 200 movies, I just selected all of them and did find info, it was done in no time. After that I just turn on media server and then watch the tv shows and movies on my two big screens tv's in the house.

Really have no need to port to another computers, I also backup everything both MC18 libraries and media on external computers.

interesting to know though

thanks

[mschneid]

A couple of more questions for this old thread.

So, the sidecar files will allow me rebuild a library of mkv and other video files and keep all of the tagging information.  Does it also rebuild the coverart that goes with those files and match them properly?  I use the standard tags of MC and don't have any user defined tags.

I have two indepdent machines.  They have identical Audio directory and file structures that are maintained by synching.  I do tagging on one machine and so to update the library on the second machine I just save a copy of the library and then reimport on box 2 and change the output settings for the different audio hardware.

However, they now  have different video libraries with different drive assignments and I would like to keep everything in one library  (WAF)

It seems to me in half hearted attemps to do this in the past, I was required to manually assign video TS type files to their cover art.

Is there anything I am missing that could make my process cleaner?