Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[rjm]

I am of the opinion that MC's library management features for dvds are the weakest aspect of the JRiver product. Given the importance of dvds in a typical arsenal of media types, I think this should be addressed as a high priority.

I understand and acknowledge that dvds are an inherently more complex animal given their multi-filed and menued nature. I do think some important improvements to MC could be made nevertheless with a modest investment.

Specifically:

1) Importing a dvd should use the same approach as other media files. Currently, you have to drag the ifo onto the video tree.

2) MC should consistently calculate the total duration of the main movie and store it in the library. I have observed that MC sometimes does enter the duration and other times leaves the duration blank. This means that MC cannot be relied upon to give a total playback duration for media when the library contains dvds.

3) Ditto for total file size. At the moment, MC only records the size (typically few kb) of the ifo. And therefore MC cannot be used to keep track of total disc capacity used by media when it contains dvds.

4) Thumbnails should be auto-generated from start of main movie. At the moment, no thumbnail is created for dvds.

5) It should be possible to rename and/or move a dvd use library tags, just as you can for all other media. MC should be smart enough to move the VIDEO_TS folder when the related ifo is moved.

That's the basics. Then, if you wanted to get fancy, how about capturing some information about the dvd structure in the library so that we could give names to tags associated with dvd chapters and special features.

[MrHaugen]

I do not think that MC will ever be as good as the alternatives when it comes to DVD management as, let's say DVD Profiler 3.0. At least not for a very long time... It would be great, yes. But would probably take to much focus away from other important development tasks. Some of the simpler things you mention could have been done though. I would like an easier way to add cover art...

But I think it's a far better option to us an application like DVD profiler. You can make the DVD profiler launch DVD's directly in MC. At least that's my plan.

However you can stick a cover art to a image file today. Not sure how it would be done with VIDEO_TS folders and such though.
Here is a way to play images directly and also a hint to get cover art for the dvd's: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=40947.msg279468#msg279468

[rjm]

Thanks for the tips MrHaugen.

I do use Movie Collector from collectorz.com for cataloging dvd data, but have not heard of DVD Profiler. I will check it out.

I was not suggesting that JRiver do everything for dvds. I would be happy with the basics so we can have one master library for all of our media.