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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 25 for Windows => Topic started by: dnavratil on April 07, 2019, 02:49:41 pm
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New user David here. W10 Desktop, 16 gb ram & 500 GB SSD. I have a massive collection of Movie files and CD files on External HD's! What file naming format is easiest to use on MC25? Alot of my movie files have the name of the movie and year released Example Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and audio file cd's are named Artist - CD Name! Will these work well with MC25? Thanks for any help - DN
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I use a movie file name of "[Name] ([Year]).ext", which is pretty standard naming, and that works very well. The only time it fails is when two movies with exactly the same name come out in the same year. I have no idea why they do that. It seems silly. So, using your example: "Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).mkv" (or mp4, avi, whatever) would be perfect for nearly all movies.
For audio files, really the most important issue is that the tags in the file are correct for [Album], [Artist], [Album Artist] if required, as for compilations and multiple artist albums, and [Track] which is track number, [Disc] for multi-disc Albums, and [Name] which is track name. Then MC will be able to work out what the files are. I have pretty much settled on; "[Disc]-[Track] - [Name].ext" for audio file names, with each Album in its own sub-directory below an Artist sub-directory. So my full path is typically;
"Drive:\Music\[Artist]\[Album]\[Disc]-[Track] - [Name].ext" for single Artist Albums
"Drive:\Music\[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]\[Disc]-[Track] - [Name].ext" for Albums with one main Artist, but some guest Artists. Read in the Wiki about "Album Artist and Album Artist (Auto)".
"Drive:\Music\(Multiple Artists)\[Album]\[Disc]-[Track] - [Name].ext" for multiple Artist Albums and Compilations. This can be set up by MC once you have imported and tagged the file correctly.
Some people go all out and completely define what a file is in its filename, such as "[Artist] - [Album] - [Disc]-[Track] - [Name].ext", and that can be useful because MC does not look at sub-directory names when it imports new files. But if the tags inside the files are correct, that doesn't matter too much, once it has been imported. MC does rely on good file names initially during the import process though, so reasonable file names is a good start.
If in your CD example "CD Name" means Album name, then your naming isn't going to provide unique file names within a directory, so you need to add more information. I suspect that your example meant "[Artist] - [Album] [Name].ext" though. I hope so.
Perhaps if you provide some more real examples you use for audio files, including the full path, we could comment further.
Bottom line, your file naming will work in MC, with the caveat about audio files above, but you may have some issue with the first import correctly identifying them. You have been using a bunch of other media library managers, so your files must have some good tagging by now!
As you learn MC you will understand how to use MC do mass file renaming to make them work better. Not that the filename matters all that much after the initial import, because MC relies and works on tags. Have a look in the Wiki for the "Rename, Move, and Copy Files" function.
PS: The notation I am using, for example, [Album], just means the field named "Album" in MC. So it means [Field Name].
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I appreciate your advice and time explaining it. I do have all my CD Audio files tagged w ID3.2 info with cover art.