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[Sesam]

The additional sidecar.xml files created for videos create quite a bit of clutter, and it appears there is no way to have the tags embedded.

Doesn't at least some containers like .MP4 and .MKV technically support tags? Wouldn't it be possible for MC to tag those files directly instead of creating sidecar files? And if so, any plans on including this feature in the future? 

[glynor]

I'd like to see native MP4 and MKV tagging as well.

Unfortunately, the biggest issue is performance.  Adding tags (to a MKV file, for example) typically requires remuxing the entire video file, which means it could take 1-5 minutes on average hardware to write tags to a single large BluRay rip, for example.  On slower hardware, it could take 10-15 minutes.  Plus there are a variety of risks to data integrity (making sure things like various streams stay synced and whatnot).  As frequently as MC updates tags here and there in normal usage, obviously these things couldn't be done "on the fly" as it does with MP3 and FLAC files.  The performance required is an order-of-magnitude off of what would be required.

Another issue is that there is no well defined "ID3-like" standard that is widely agreed upon by the software industry for video.  So, MC could store its own tags in some file types (it would take a bunch of work because MP4 and MKV, for example, use very different systems for storing tags), but these tags would not work well in any other applications except MC itself.

So, this would be of limited utility and would be difficult to implement well.

Perhaps some day, but for now, the sidecar files are a reasonable alternative.  If they did implement it, I'd love to have the ability to manually "push" the tags into the files (via Right-Click > Library Tools > Update Properties from Library), but keeping it "always in sync" would probably require the sidecar files for the foreseeable future.

Unless Hendrik can really work some magic here, anyway.

[Hendrik]

Some file formats and muxers reserve a bit of space for additional tags, so that you can get away without remuxing in some cases, but in general it is indeed a problem.
Its not something I'm particularly eager to chase after, since it would require *a lot* of work and testing to make sure we don't change the actual playback of the files in any way at all in this process.

[AndrewFG]

Some file formats and muxers reserve a bit of space for additional tags, so that you can get away without remuxing in some cases, but in general it is indeed a problem.
Its not something I'm particularly eager to chase after, since it would require *a lot* of work and testing to make sure we don't change the actual playback of the files in any way at all in this process.

I am recalling my memory of the specification without actually looking it up, so please correct me if I am wrong, but I think that MPEG4 is allows the tags boxes to be written at the end of the file. Or??

[jmone]

.......  MP4 files will be tagged directly.  Other video files only get their sidecar files updated.

This is an old quote from the Beta forum from years ago in a thread on what Video Files are directly tagged by MC. 

[glynor]

I think MC does some kind of MP4 tagging, I just don't know the details, and they often aren't useful.

But it is pretty limited (if done at all ) and doesn't include everything like the Sidecars.

[jmone]

Personally, I like sidecar files anyway as it is a consistent method for all video types (incl BD's etc).... though we are missing sidecars for particles  

[glynor]

Agreed.  I want (optionally enabled) Sidecars for other file types, especially Documents.

[6233638]

If we're talking about expanding the sidecar functionality, I'd like the option to set up files like folder.jpg or perhaps an associated PDF file to be treated as sidecars for audio files, so that changing a folder name inside Media Center will also move them, rather than leaving orphaned files in the original location.
 
It would also be nice if XML sidecars could be hidden by default.

[rpalmer68]

Personally, I like sidecar files anyway as it is a consistent method for all video types (incl BD's etc).... though we are missing sidecars for particles  

Ah, finally a mention of particles in 2014

Stay on the horse Nathan, hopefully we'll get them looked at again eventually...

[Sesam]

Some file formats and muxers reserve a bit of space for additional tags, so that you can get away without remuxing in some cases, but in general it is indeed a problem.
Its not something I'm particularly eager to chase after, since it would require *a lot* of work and testing to make sure we don't change the actual playback of the files in any way at all in this process.

Remuxing would be very time consuming, but yea why I started this thread is because I had been doing some research and it appeared to be possible to tag MKV and MP4 files without remuxing, so that would definitely be something I would be happy to see possible in the future .

Agreed.  I want (optionally enabled) Sidecars for other file types, especially Documents.

Agreed, this is a more pressing matter. I would particularly want to see this possible for Blu-ray/DVD .ISO files