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[Z0001]

Hi

When MC grabs metadata for TV Shows including the Episode frame cover art, is it also supposed to grab the series and season art, or do I need to do this separately and manually and save in a Series and a Seasons folder in the Cover Art folder?

Thanks

[jmone]

Mmm I have Series and Eps coverart but I'm not sure you can also have Season Coverart with MC at present (could be wrong).

[rpalmer68]

I've always had to manually get the Series and Season cover art.

Under your cover art folder create  "Seasons" and "Series" folders.

Then put your artwork in these folders, with the following naming;

Series:  Just use the same name as you used in the Series Tag. Eg: "Game of Thrones.jpg"
Season: You must tag the season with just the season number "1", "2" etc.  Then in the Seasons folder you put "Game of Thrones - Season 1.jpg" and "Game of Thrones - Season 2.jpg"

Hope this helps

Richard

 
 

[jmone]

So with the two MC functions of "Coverart --> Get from Internet" and "Get Movie and TV Info" pull Series, Season and Eps Coverart?

[rpalmer68]

So with the two MC functions of "Coverart --> Get from Internet" and "Get Movie and TV Info" pull Series, Season and Eps Coverart?

Nope

The stuff that is already in the "Series" folder seems to be TV series art that MC grabs for use with the EPG/TV recordings not for imported stuff.

In fact looking at the folder I'd say MC just downloads a set of art from J River somewhere as a lot in there are shows I've never recorded!

[jmone]

Mmm I seem to get:
- "Coverart --> Get from Internet" = Generic Series Coverart and this is shown in the likes of Theater View just fine, while
- "Get Movie and TV Info" = Specific EPS Coverart from TVDB

I have no idea how to auto get Season Coverart

[rpalmer68]

I have no idea how to auto get Season Coverart

Let your fingers do the walking.... find it manually......

[tls62dk]

Yes, I believe the only way at the moment is to create the Season art manually. I have Series art, Season art and episode art all displayed in Theater View.

I will find the Season art manually and copy it to my Cover art folder into a separate "Seasons" folder. Filename I use is e.g. "Family guy - Season 1.jpg".

I is there an easier way to do this?

[MrHaugen]

TV Show art is retrieved automatically if it's found on TVDB. Season images are NOT. You can add them manually. That's the only way (within MC and without plugins). If you don't add it manually, screen shots from episodes will be used instead.

I've been asking for JRiver to add Season art to the scraper for a long time. But there's been no addition to meta data or images added for lots of months. Perhaps a year. I really hope this will get some focus soon. The scraper is so close to being good enough for most people. Today it's just good enough that most people don't bother with alternatives imo. And that is not the same thing.

[JustinM]

+1
Thx for the clarification guys...  Isn't the Series artwork most important to have?? Its the easiest to find, while MC is hunting for episode artwork which rarely exsist?!?! 

-The Audio/Videophile in me loves JRiver... Though as a Media Center, my family struggles with it.. and Sadly, I could never install it on my parents htpc. I truely hope when J river starts development on MC19, they push for main stream.. EG: Intiuitive, user friendly, Low maintainence, and pretty!  Till then: My Parents/Friends can do without, My family can suck it up, and I'm gonna go enjoy some killer tunes and fix the dame artwork!

(sry 4 off-topic rant)

[RussellS]

TV Show art is retrieved automatically if it's found on TVDB. Season images are NOT. You can add them manually. That's the only way (within MC and without plugins). If you don't add it manually, screen shots from episodes will be used instead.

I've been asking for JRiver to add Season art to the scraper for a long time. But there's been no addition to meta data or images added for lots of months. Perhaps a year. I really hope this will get some focus soon. The scraper is so close to being good enough for most people. Today it's just good enough that most people don't bother with alternatives imo. And that is not the same thing.

Is there any particular reason why season coverart is not scraped. It just seems a bit strange to me that if you are going to have a season view in TheaterView then why not automatically import the images for it. I completely agree with you regarding the scraper being almost there but not quite. Just seeing screen grabs instead of proper season artwork just looks a little unfinished.


Russell

[MrHaugen]

I guess it's just on JRiver's list of things to do.

TV Show covers was added first, because it was in every view. Season views was not added before recently view changes/modifications. So, not many would see them anyway. That's why I think JRiver only focused on adding the underlaying support of adding images manually. It was not before they did a small rewamp of the views in theater view, that seasons got some focus. And by this time, the scraper was almost complete. So I guess it just haven't gotten up the priority ladder in these OSx porting times. And I remember there was some talk about bandwidth restrictions from the tvdb site, and that might also be a factor why they have not pursued this topic.

I still think it's a shame though. Good artwork are quite pleasing to the eye, and it also gives you good info without looking a rather dull captions. It would make the theater view experience more whole imo.

[JustinM]

... Good artwork are quite pleasing to the eye, and it also gives you good info without looking a rather dull captions. It would make the theater view experience more whole imo.

+1
I'm sure in time, It will come  (I'm just surprised on how low it is on the priority list)
WishList:
- more/cosmetically improved display views (more=>toggle view=>list, double spaced list, wall, grid)  EG: TV Show list with TV Show Banners.
- more/cosmetically improved theater view skins...

I'll propose a new default Theatre View (roller) menu layout shortly..   (can't hurt)

[RussellS]

I must admit I didn't realise the season view was only recently added. I've only been using MC since late September last year so that feature was already present so I assumed it had been there since much earlier.

Personally, I'm not too bothered that it isn't automated. However, I think these things should have a good 'out-of-the-box' experience for users who may not have the same technical knowledge as the rest of us to get these things working. The only reason the rest of my family find MC so easy to use and aesthetically pleasing is because of the bits I do manually like adding season artwork, creating TheaterView views and correcting the occasional incorrect movie coverart.

I like to imagine how it would work if there was noone doing these things in the background. However, the other way of looking at it is that if it wasn't for me then the rest of the family wouldn't be using MC anyway and would still have a pile of DVD's and CD's sitting in the corner of the room and a standalone DVD player and a CD player.

As you say, hopefully automating the season covers will occur at some stage but I'm sure there are more important things above it on the list.

[connersw]

When you add the Season Cover Art, is it adding that same Cover Art to all the episodes?  I would like to keep the Season Cover Art for just the Season folder and the screen shot clips for each episode, but every time I try to add cover art for the Season, it filters it down.  Same thing with folder cover art in disk view.  Is there a way around this or is it better in MC 19?

[MrC]

How and where are you adding Season artwork?  Same question for your episode artwork.

[connersw]

In Standard View under the Video -> Disk pane.  I'll right click on the Season, and I have tried both Cover Art -> Add From File and Quick Find.  I have the image I want for the season cover art both in the series directory Season folder saved as "folder.jpg" and in a Season folder I created in the J River/Cover Art directory saved as "Series - Season X.jpg"

To get the Episode artwork back to the screen capture images, I am selecting them all and right clicking Get Movie & TV info.

[MrC]

Have a read of:

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

The Add from File and Quick find commands set each file's artwork (i.e. per-audio album, or per-movie title), not season or series.

[connersw]

Thank Mr C -- I've read through the wiki before, but it doesn't really answer my question.

I understand that cover art is being set for each file. What I'm asking is if there is a way to set cover art for a folder (and only the folder -- not the files in it)?  Basically, from disk view, I would like it to look the way it does in Windows Explorer (except without the manila folder around the image). 

[MrHaugen]

No. It's not possible to connect images to folders. MC works only well with tags. You need to drop the whole thought of folders and base your collection on tags to do what you want. The best part about it is that this is default behavior in MC. Try using other views than the disk view. It's only meant as an organizing view.

[connersw]

That's unfortunate that it's not possible. 

While I agree that there are better views when dealing with Audio, Movies, and TV shows, I still find the disk view better for grouping other content like Home Videos, Images, short video clips etc.  Even in another view, like Keywords for example, if I were to have all my home videos from a trip to Hawaii properly tagged with "Hawaii" as a keyword, I would still like to be able to assign a particular cover art image to that grouping.

[MrHaugen]

By adding certain cover art to the file that is shown as the first one in the stacks you should be able to trick the program into viewing it as a folder with a specific image. I think. At least if you view this in theater view. I'm not certain how it would look in standard view, but you can probably make the same views there.

[kensn]

In theaterview I have:

Top level - Series artwork for the series :Cover flow
Child level - Season artwork for the season : Cover flow
Child level 2 - TVDB episode cover art for each episode : file view

Took a bit of manipulating to get it though....

Ken

[icstm]

From previous experience, JRiver is not so good at adding the season artwork, as that has to go into a special folder.
How did you do it?

I cheat, i get JRiver to make Ep1 for each season of each series the Season artwork (this picture can be stored with the video).
This way you get the correct behaviour for series and seasons, and for all episodes except the first.

[connersw]

By adding certain cover art to the file that is shown as the first one in the stacks you should be able to trick the program into viewing it as a folder with a specific image. I think. At least if you view this in theater view. I'm not certain how it would look in standard view, but you can probably make the same views there.

Thought this trick might be the ticket for most, although not all, of my needs.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work consistently in theater or standard view, and I can't determine the logic MC is using.  In standard view, if it it is not showing the cover art of the first file, I can hold the cursor over the folder, and it will eventually turn to the first file with the appropriate cover art.  Unfortunately, it will not stay there.  Likewise, in theater view, it just chooses a random image to choose first.  This include in Shows -> Season view where I have the first episode tagged with the season cover art.  For most it shows correctly, but for some seasons it will randomly show the screen capture cover art of a later episode.  Very frustrating that this can't be controlled.  Using cover art and visually being able to find files quickly is very important to me.

[icstm]

I see you are also using the first Ep trick.
So then I agree with what you say, as that works for about 90% but not all shows.