ooOOOoooh ... pictures an evarthang! <G>
Took copious notes - I did however stumble across another kludge fix that might just work better for me ... keeping in mind that the movie types and file locations would have to be modified to match your own system's peculiarititties ...
- Stripped one of the movie sidecar XML files of everything except a title placeholder (<Field Name="Filename">)
(e.g. "GENERIC_MOVIE_mkv_JRSidecar.xml")
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<MPL Version="2.0" Title="JRSidecar">
<Item>
<Field Name="Filename">D:\MKV Rip\GENERIC.mkv</Field>
<Field Name="Producer"></Field>
<Field Name="Last Skipped"></Field>
<Field Name="Compression"></Field>
<Field Name="Bitrate"></Field>
<Field Name="Bit Depth"></Field>
<Field Name="Genre"></Field>
<Field Name="IMDb ID"></Field>
<Field Name="Actors"></Field>
<Field Name="FPS"></Field>
<Field Name="Director"></Field>
<Field Name="Stack Top"></Field>
<Field Name="Channels"></Field>
<Field Name="Description"></Field>
<Field Name="Keywords"></Field>
<Field Name="Bookmark"></Field>
<Field Name="Stack View"></Field>
<Field Name="Media Sub Type"></Field>
<Field Name="Skip Count"></Field>
<Field Name="Date"></Field>
<Field Name="Name"></Field>
<Field Name="Sample Rate"></Field>
<Field Name="Get Metadata Info"></Field>
<Field Name="Duration"></Field>
</Item>
</MPL>- Created a short placeholder GENERIC.MKV file to simulate the video I want to add to the MC catalog and parked that in a "working" directory.
To add a movie not physically located on the MC machine:
- Copy and rename the "GENERIC.MKV" placeholder video file to the movie title I want to add.
(e.g. "Aliens.MKV")- Copy and rename the stripped "GENERIC_MOVIE_mkv_JRSidecar.xml" file to match the new video placeholder file so it associates correctly in the catalog.
(e.g. "Aliens_mkv_JRSidecar.xml")- Change the <Field Name="Filename"> in the new XML file to match.
(e.g. "<Field Name="Filename">D:\MKV Rip\Aliens.mkv</Field>")- Copy those two new edited files to the directory MC has flagged for video "watch".
- MC automatically adds a generic catalog entry and cover with the movie title (e.g. "Aliens" again for the test) under the genre "UNASSIGNED" in the catalog. There IS a slight delay before you'll see the new entry added.
- Edit the "Media SubType" tag to "Movie" in the tag window. I also added that tag to the DEFAULT listings using the "SHOW ALSO" feature to save a couple clicks. MC WILL FAIL the internet lookup if that tag isn't updated.
- Right click on the new movie cover and click GET MOVIE AND TV INFO and tada! Lookup commences and all catalog data is added.
Sounds maybe a bit complicated, but it's actually pretty easy, and should get easier with practice. The placeholder video MKV files do take up some disk space. My current "placeholder" movies are around 1.5 meg each, but I'm sure I can trim that substantially. Even so, what's another few hundred meg in four (or more) gigs of storage?
Here's the results, showing the ALIENS example, Notice the movie length (apparently not flagged for lookup) and file size (the generic placeholder video):
All I did after the INFO lookup is add "DVR" to the title to flag the location. I'll think about my options there, but saves having to load DVDs just to get a catalog entry (which I can't do with the DVR/TIVO), and everything's in one place. Kept my fingers crossed and did a couple more titles using the same process, and MC didn't get upset about recycling the same placeholder video file for each new title. I also played some with the CSV export to EXCEL and that should work well for a paper catalog. I can add flag and sort fields to the worksheet for location and anything else I've a mind to, but a basic alphabetical listing is kewl for that.
** Maybe that's another feature for the developers ... a print catalog that we can just check off fields, select a template and sort order, and let er rip.
AND ... you backroom coders ... feel free to incorporate a similar process for adding titles to the catalog ... I'm sure yall could come up with a MUCH more elegant solution. In the meantime, I'm gonna give this a go and see how it flies.
PS ... can I get rid of the background image in the movie info popup? I assUme that would be a fairly simple edit in the "Blue Steel" skin, but I haven't gotten into that side of things yet. A solid color would be much easier for my tired old eyes to read ...)