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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 19 for Windows => Topic started by: notred on April 01, 2014, 05:10:37 am
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Dear All
I am coming from Yadis (for Dune) management and a bit lost with JRiver...
I have several TV show with multiple episode files (2 or even 3 episode in the same avi or mkv)...
In Yadis, I had to name the file <TV show name> - S0XE0X - S0XE0Y - S0XE0Z.mkv and it was working perfefctly but JRiver does not seem to recognize this. I checked the naming convention and did not find reference to this case...
Any suggestion on how I should do this ?
Thanks for your help
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Take a look at the Carnac topic on our wiki, and then search for Carnac here.
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I'll do this asap, thanks !
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Search Particles there. You'll have to create N -1 particles, each with their own playback range. There are several threads here on Interact describing this.
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Ok, will do this.. I admit Carnac did not brought any relevant results from my understanding... ?
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Hopefully I'm understanding the issue correctly and I'd like to offer an alternate approach for consideration that could help.
I prefer to work with mkv for movies because the freeware tool, MKVToolNix (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/) has a simple mkv chapter editing function:
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge-gui.html#chaptereditor (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge-gui.html#chaptereditor)
One option you could take is to manually set chapter marks based on the video's time line to provide points of demarcation for individual episodes within the one video file. A manual exercise but if you're just dealing with a few episodes, it shouldn't be too bad.
As a sideline point of interest, chapters for movies can be found here:
http://chapterdb.org/ (http://chapterdb.org/)
The chapter files can then be imported into MKVToolNix and then saved to the mkv file.
You might be lucky if the episodes that you're dealing with are ripped from a tele-movie / mini-series DVD and chapterdb may have a chapter file already available so your job is easy.
Once you're viewing in MC, it's a simple matter of doing a right mouse click (context menu) in the display area while the video is playing and navigating to the chapter marks via the menu item "Jump To" - refer attached pic.
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Elegant out of the box proposition thanks.
However, not all the show I got are mkv (some avi as well) and more than accessing to the right part (first, second,....), it is the detection and display of Saisons I'd like to get neat and complete...
I did not get the time to check particules to see if it match my requirements though..
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MKVToolNix will do a quick transcode to MKV. It just repackages the container and does no compression, which is why it's so fast.
MC can do convert as well.
So, you've got options to explore.
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Hum, yes but no...
I will not convert scores of avi to mkv for the sake of being compatible with JRiver....
I admit it would be fine of Carnac to understand this multi episode thing...
Just look at the latest episode of HIMYM... it is a double episode... :(
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So, I think there's a bit of confusion here. What do you mean by "manage" and "recognize"?
MC will certainly support such files. It will play them. You can add them, and tag them manually however you'd like, so they'll show up in the right views as the right shows and so on. If you want them to sort in the right order, you'll just have to put the range of episodes they contain in the [Episode] tag, like:
[Episode] = X-Z
(Using your example from above.)
I do this often with shows like the finale of HIMYM that are two "separate" episodes, which really have basically the same metadata anyway. So, for that example, I'd just tag it as:
[Media Sub Type] = TV Show
[Series] = How I Met Your Mother
[Season] = 9
(if your file is named somewhat nicely, the above is probably already done).
[Episode] = 23
Then, I'd do the metadata lookup, to pull details about episode 23 from TMDB. Then, I'd change that episode tag to "23-24" just to be more technically correct.
However, it won't automatically recognize the kinds of file names you mentioned, because MC is built where generally each database entry (typically each file) is individual, and assumed to be a single "unit" of media. Carnac (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Carnac) doesn't know about those kinds of filenames, as it does with many others, so it will not automatically parse them properly. And, since it can only look up metadata for a single database entry (single file, again, typically) then you won't be able to get accurate descriptions and whatnot for the individual episodes (or choose them individually within Media Center's views).
Particles (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles), mentioned above, are designed to solve this. This is a bit of an advanced feature, but you can use Particles to "virtually" break-up single files into separate pieces. This would be much like astromo's suggestion of actually cutting them apart with MKVToolnix, but wouldn't alter the files themselves in any way. It is all done from within MC.
The idea of particles is that you tell MC that a particular file should be split up into these individual components (particles) which are then treated by MC as though they are separate files. For each particle added, you essentially tell MC to "only play this particular time range" within the file (27:42 - 55:15, for example). From there, you just need to tag them with [Series], [Season], and [Episode] and then MC will be able to look up metadata for each of them.
Particles can be created automatically if your files have chapter marks, but since you mentioned a bunch are AVIs, they probably don't (this is more typical with DVD and Blu-Ray rips). Assuming you don't have chapter marks, you would need to enter them manually, because otherwise it won't know where to start/stop each individual episode.
Once they're divided up into separate Particles, they'll work basically just like they're "real files" in Media Center, and you can run the Lookup TV Info tool on them to get the metadata. And, they'll automatically jump to the right spot when you play them back (and end at the end of the episode).
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As there is not much multiple episode in my collection, I guess manual tag update is probably the best way indeed.
Thanks for the clear explanation !
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Particles (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles), mentioned above, are designed to solve this. This is a bit of an advanced feature, but you can use Particles to "virtually" break-up single files into separate pieces. ... It is all done from within MC.
Particles can be created automatically if your files have chapter marks, but since you mentioned a bunch are AVIs, they probably don't (this is more typical with DVD and Blu-Ray rips). Assuming you don't have chapter marks, you would need to enter them manually, because otherwise it won't know where to start/stop each individual episode.
glynor, clear and comprehensive explanation as always. You're always a good read.
Noting your comment above, that Particles can be created automatically my understanding was dated in that regard. I see now from the wiki stub under sub-heading Instructions (as of 17.0.103):
From the build thread:
2. Changed: Stack members are allowed to have discrete Playback Info, Playback Range, and Bookmark values. 3. Experimental: It's possible to create a particle of a file that plays a certain title, subtitles, aspect ratio, playback range etc. (Stacks > Advanced > Create Particle...). 4. Experimental: Added Stacks > Advanced > Auto Create DVD Title Particles to create a particle for each title on a DVD (so individual titles are playable).
I was mistaken in thinking that creating Particles are a completely manual affair.
One for exploration on my part. Thanks for the insight.
This would be much like astromo's suggestion of actually cutting them apart with MKVToolnix, but wouldn't alter the files themselves in any way. It is all done from within MC.
Just to be clear, all MKVToolNix does is add chapter marks. The video is left intact. There's no cut or trim editing capability (that I know of).
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Just to be clear, all MKVToolNix does is add chapter marks. The video is left intact. There's no cut or trim editing capability (that I know of).
Sorry. I admit I didn't read your full set of instructions, because I know mkvmerge quite well.
But...
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No worries and ranks for that bit of Intel. Could come in handy.. ;)