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[piccirilli]

Hi folks. 
I'm looking into a specific feature before diving into the world of JR.  Heard some very good things about video development.
 
I have a growing collection of music DVDS ripped to a library, now over 100 titles.  I have them ripped in MKV format.   I'm in need of jukebox player, which is normally available to 'audio only' libraries: tagging for genre categories, playlists, shuffle play, etc...
Does JR MC16 have the native or plugin capacity for doing this for Music Videos? It's fine if there is no capacity to recognize individual chapters, although that would be ideal.  I've been looking for this feature for years, and surprisingly no one has done this.
Anyone?

[kensn]

I can tell you what I have done. I took all my Music DVDs and ripped them into individual chapters as MKVs. MC allows you to set tags for videos using external "sidecar" xlm files. I set the artist and album tags for these and use the DVD cover art for the files. This way they will function pretty much like an Audio album. In the Theater View I have set up they show the cover, when the cover is selected it shows the individual "tracks" and they can be added to the playlist. So I can cue up multiple videos from different DVDs this way. The only drawback is the Audio level may change from video to video.

The sidecar files and Library will hold any Tags you want, even custom ones you specify.

Ken

[rick.ca]

Just to clarify... The fact meta data for file formats for which tags are not yet supported may (i.e., optionally) be stored in sidecar files has no bearing on the original question. The MC "library" (JRiver's term for "database") records the filename and all the meta data about the file. A sidecar file can be a means of exchanging meta data with other applications, but otherwise serves no purpose. With the necessary information recorded in the library, MC will be able to handle them in exactly the same way it does other files.

You might not find default views very accommodating of music videos—unless you're happy with them being classified with other video types. But both Standard and Theatre View views are completely configurable. It's possible to include them wherever you want them to appear (e.g., along with audio of the same artist), create a separate child view, or a completely separate root view just for music videos. There's a standard field [Media Sub Type]—for which accepted values include "Music Video"—that can be used to specify which views include these files.

[piccirilli]

Rick,
Great News! I'm already sold.
To clarify, one can create a separate view and/or combine music videos with audio only files of same artist. Obviously this is not the standard view, but will this be difficult to accomplish?  And will it treat the MKV video files the same as .flac files, with features such as creating playlists, etc?  Currently I do not have my music MKV's broken down into chapters, but will do if necessary.

[MrC]

When you create views, smartlists, etc., MC can be configured to select the type of files to include/limit.  The views created under Audio, Video, etc. are by default limited to that data type, but you can override these as you see fit.

[rick.ca]

Currently I do not have my music MKV's broken down into chapters, but will do if necessary.

You'll probably have to do that. MC is rather fussy about maintaining a 1:1 file:record relationship. You could set a playback range corresponding to one chapter, but that's all. I would expect a chapter menu to be available in the OSD of a playing video, but I assume that's not what you want.

I've never understood the purpose of chapters, but they're obviously useful for things like concert videos. It would be nice if MC could create pseudo files for chapters so each could be tagged separately. But I suppose it's not much trouble to split a video into separate "track" files based on chapters. I believe that's what others do, but you might want to wait for them to comment—before going to work on your 100 files.

[kensn]

As with a Music DVD, where each chapter represents a song, as with an album and its tracks, if each Music DVD is ripped into seperate songs then it can be treated "easily". The same difficulty would be experienced if Audio albums were one long track.

Since I was pretty new at MC I just set up my Music DVDs like I did for Audio Albums. Then in theater View, what I use 99% of the time, I can cue up Audio and video files from the same list View without having to navigate around. I am sure there is an expression to do it also... but being new to MC, I knew how audio worked so I applied it to Music DVDS as well...

Also with them ripped into individual songs I can apply ratings to them and have them show along with audio in a Favorites view....

[rick.ca]

The same difficulty would be experienced if Audio albums were one long track.

I'm not familiar with how it works, but I understand MC has the ability to handle the tracks of a single-file album using a Cue Sheet. We might wonder why it should not be able to do the same thing with a video file and it's Chapter data.

BTW, I would expect a DVD ripper might have an option to write chapters to separate files. But what tool does one use to convert an existing rip (like piccirilli's MKV rips) to separate track files? Hmm. I wonder if the chapter information that would have to be present in the MKV file is even in the same format as a cue sheet...

[kensn]

Here is the View i get in Theater View Under my Music Dvd and Video. This shows what I get after i select the artist
[

Then selecting R30 - Disc 1

[csimon]

To clarify, one can create a separate view and/or combine music videos with audio only files of same artist.

I have hundreds of music videos and use MC to catalogue them along with my music files, but note that my music videos are individual files (AVIs encoded with xvid and MP3).  I play them via DLNA using the PlugPlayer controller app on an iPad and a WDTV live media player box.

It is indeed possible to create one view that contains both audio and video files, so that you can drill down by an artist and get both types of media in the same list. But in practice this might be more trouble than it's worth.  Because to index them in the same views, you have to make sure that all the items are tagged in exactly the same way.  It depends how complex your tagging is, but if you've used things like Album Artist, Album, Disc #, Genres, or any other arbitrary category that you like to order your audio by, your video files would need to have the same tags.  In other words, you will have to tag your video with Album Artist, Album, Disc #, etc, and they would have to be individual files and not one DVD with separate chapters. If you have a whole DVD that relates to one artist then you could indeed treat this in the same way as an "album" but you won't get individual tracks listed until you actually play the DVD file and get a list of its chapters.

I don't combine them, I have separate sections for audio and video, because my browing requirements for them are different.

[kensn]

I have several views. I have a favorites view that does mix single music dvd rips, and single music videos with audio, one that just has single ripped Music dvds and single videos (pictures i posted), a music dvd view that has all the DVDS ripped as Video_TS. and of course several audio views.

As to the posters question, can it be used as a video Jukebox... sure...and I am really impressed at the speed in which the video tracks are started.

Ken

[rick.ca]

I would expect a DVD ripper might have an option to write chapters to separate files. But what tool does one use to convert an existing rip (like piccirilli's MKV rips) to separate track files?

Can anyone answer this?

[JustinChase]

Can anyone answer this?

I haven't used a DVD ripper for a while, but for already ripped MKV's, mkvtooknix includes mkvmerge, which will allow you to split MKV files quickly and easily, without having to re-encode

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html

I've only used it to split a couple of files, but you can pick from a a few selection criteria, XX minutes from beginning/end, enter points on the timeline (00:45:00 will split the file at exactly 45 minutes into the video), and at least one other option I can't remember right now.  It split a 3 hour file in about 2 minutes I think.

I don't know if it will auto-split at chapters, but I would be surprised if it didn't.

I think convincing Matt that cue support for MKV is beneficial to the masses would be a winable proposition.

I think many would find it useful to "auto-split video at chapters", like a music cue sheet, and one won't have to do any remuxing

[rick.ca]

I don't know if it will auto-split at chapters, but I would be surprised if it didn't.

Be surprised.

I asked after checking mkvmerge—having recently being told it split files—and finding it does not.

[piccirilli]

I am very impressed this program will jukebox my music videos, albeit learning the ropes to get it organized the way I like.  Not a huge deal if I can't get my MKV's to break out into separate chapters (songs). However I recall seeing discussion about this on the avsforums. I'll start with a couple of files in the library and see how it goes..The main thing though, is being able to categorize these videos and tagging them the way I like. This is big.
 With this potential and native support for Madvr, a nice built in player to play movies, there is no reason for me to continue using Media Portal and WMC. 

[MrHaugen]

there is no reason for me to continue using Media Portal and WMC

No. No reason at all :-) It just takes a little time to get used to the basic configuration needed. After the basics is in place, you'll have a ocean of possibilities with MC16.