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[sKiZo]

Just now getting into the video side of things here. Lots of old DVDs ripped from cable that are getting converted to MKV format to play from the computer to the big screen, but ...

I've also got a lot of commercial dvds that I'd like to be able to catalog but not store on the hard drive.

And, I also just got a Magnavox DVR that I plan to do any new rips to, and that can store something like 350 titles per terabyte.

Old meets new, I guess.

So ... it'd be nice to be able to track all these using just the MC front end. Is there any way to add a catalog entry manually without the media being imported? Be nice if I could add a title, have MC pull all the goodies like cover and such from the internet, and then just manually add the physical storage location of that title ...

[MrC]

MC stores an entry in the library when it sees a new CD, DVD, or BD.  You can create a view or smartlist to see these — they are not shown in the default views.

Either method involves setting the Limit database modifier to include the CD database in the Rules for file display.

[sKiZo]

OK, so MC will do the lookup for movie info and store that to the database if I shuffle the commercial DVDs into the drive with MC running. I'll have to play around with it a bit and see if I can figure out that "smartlist" thing. Any special tricks to building the smartlist?

Unfortunately, this doesn't cover the new movie rips I'll be storing on the Magnavox. It's a TIVO kinda thang. No network capabilities, so I can't set it up as a client that MC will be able to see. Right now, my only option for cataloging that is to print an EXCEL sheet with title numbers and (eventually) hard disk numbers. Be nice if I could manually enter a title in MC and have it lookup and store the catalog info with a flag field where I can point to where the movie is actually stored.

The Maggie is a neat little box BTW ... got it's own little fan club over on AVS. Comes with up to 1tb storage out da box, but you can increase that with an outboard dock with a bit of minor surgery.

http://content-cdn.walmart.com/ip/Magnavox-1TB-HDD-and-DVD-Recorder-with-Digital-Tuner/20710259

I suppose Plan B is to go with another database program like Movienizer for the stuff not actually stored on the MC machine ...

[MrC]

Instead of a smartlist, this might suit your needs better as a new view.  Configuring a smartlist is almost identical to step 3c below.

1. Add a new view by selecting View > Add View > Add Library View...
2. Select the Empty View type, set the Location to (Root) and set the Name to something like Physical Media (your choice here).
3. Configure the view as shown in the screenshots, by
      a. Selecting the view type under View As - set it to Panes
      b. Adding new fields by clicking Add.  The first category shown is an Expression category.  Select Expression, and include the expression shown in the screenshot (code below for easy copy/paste).  The others are just stock fields you Add one at a time, in the order you want.
      c. Setting the Rule for file display - see the attached screenshot.

Code: [Select]

ifelse(
  isequal([Media Type], Audio), CD,
  isequal([File Type], bdmv), Bluray,
  isequal([File Type], ifo), DVD,
  1, other
)


[sKiZo]

ooOOOoooh ... pictures an evarthang! <G>

Took copious notes - I did however stumble across another kludge fix that might just work better for me ... keeping in mind that the movie types and file locations would have to be modified to match your own system's peculiarititties ...

- Stripped one of the movie sidecar XML files of everything except a title placeholder (<Field Name="Filename">)

(e.g. "GENERIC_MOVIE_mkv_JRSidecar.xml")
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<MPL Version="2.0" Title="JRSidecar">
<Item>
<Field Name="Filename">D:\MKV Rip\GENERIC.mkv</Field>
<Field Name="Producer"></Field>
<Field Name="Last Skipped"></Field>
<Field Name="Compression"></Field>
<Field Name="Bitrate"></Field>
<Field Name="Bit Depth"></Field>
<Field Name="Genre"></Field>
<Field Name="IMDb ID"></Field>
<Field Name="Actors"></Field>
<Field Name="FPS"></Field>
<Field Name="Director"></Field>
<Field Name="Stack Top"></Field>
<Field Name="Channels"></Field>
<Field Name="Description"></Field>
<Field Name="Keywords"></Field>
<Field Name="Bookmark"></Field>
<Field Name="Stack View"></Field>
<Field Name="Media Sub Type"></Field>
<Field Name="Skip Count"></Field>
<Field Name="Date"></Field>
<Field Name="Name"></Field>
<Field Name="Sample Rate"></Field>
<Field Name="Get Metadata Info"></Field>
<Field Name="Duration"></Field>
</Item>
</MPL>

- Created a short placeholder GENERIC.MKV file to simulate the video I want to add to the MC catalog and parked that in a "working" directory.

To add a movie not physically located on the MC machine:
- Copy and rename the "GENERIC.MKV" placeholder video file to the movie title I want to add.
(e.g. "Aliens.MKV")
- Copy and rename the stripped "GENERIC_MOVIE_mkv_JRSidecar.xml" file to match the new video placeholder file  so it associates correctly in the catalog.
(e.g. "Aliens_mkv_JRSidecar.xml")
- Change the <Field Name="Filename"> in the new XML file to match.
(e.g. "<Field Name="Filename">D:\MKV Rip\Aliens.mkv</Field>")
- Copy those two new edited files to the directory MC has flagged for video "watch".
- MC automatically adds a generic catalog entry and cover with the movie title (e.g. "Aliens" again for the test) under the genre "UNASSIGNED" in the catalog. There IS a slight delay before you'll see the new entry added.
- Edit the "Media SubType" tag to "Movie" in the tag window. I also added that tag to the DEFAULT listings using the "SHOW ALSO" feature to save a couple clicks. MC WILL FAIL the internet lookup if that tag isn't updated.
- Right click on the new movie cover and click GET MOVIE AND TV INFO and tada! Lookup commences and all catalog data is added.

Sounds maybe a bit complicated, but it's actually pretty easy, and should get easier with practice. The placeholder video MKV files do take up some disk space. My current "placeholder" movies are around 1.5 meg each, but I'm sure I can trim that substantially. Even so, what's another few hundred meg in four (or more) gigs of storage?

Here's the results, showing the ALIENS example, Notice the movie length (apparently not flagged for lookup) and file size (the generic placeholder video):



All I did after the INFO lookup is add "DVR" to the title to flag the location. I'll think about my options there, but saves having to load DVDs just to get a catalog entry (which I can't do with the DVR/TIVO), and everything's in one place. Kept my fingers crossed and did a couple more titles using the same process, and MC didn't get upset about recycling the same placeholder video file for each new title. I also played some with the CSV export to EXCEL and that should work well for a paper catalog. I can add flag and sort fields to the worksheet for location and anything else I've a mind to, but a basic alphabetical listing is kewl for that.

** Maybe that's another feature for the developers ... a print catalog that we can just check off fields, select a template and sort order, and let er rip.

AND ... you backroom coders ... feel free to incorporate a similar process for adding titles to the catalog ... I'm sure yall could come up with a MUCH more elegant solution. In the meantime, I'm gonna give this a go and see how it flies.

PS ... can I get rid of the background image in the movie info popup? I assUme that would be a fairly simple edit in the "Blue Steel" skin, but I haven't gotten into that side of things yet. A solid color would be much easier for my tired old eyes to read ...)

[MrC]

Good work.  Some other users create dummy entries in the MC database in a similar fashion, for cataloging and tracking purposes.

Thinking about this... I might just write myself a New Movie Entry script that takes as an argument maybe a Title, or IMDB URL, or other, and auto-creates an entry.  I hadn't really thought much about using MC to catalog movies I've watched, but I just might...

[sKiZo]

Be sure to post back the results in this thread ...



Just did a few more and this is actually quite easy ... In case you're wondering where I got the XML template file, I totally stole that from a REAL MKV movie that I added to the catalog. Very pleasantly surprised to see that MC was able to do the whole MKV movie import with no snags or intervention on my part. Wasn't sure how that would work as the MKV format has some strange internal tagging that I'd rather not have to deal with.

Also ... I was able to trim the generic MKV placemark video to the bare bones. How's THIS for small?



Basically a file header with no frames. Not sure how - I was just clicking around in Free Video Dub and got lucky. Total movie length is .056 seconds, so be prepared to watch fast. <G>

The file DOES work in MC. I parked copies of both the generic MKV and XML files I'm using here if anyone's interested.

http://www.brainfartz.com/images/Stereo%20Stuff/htpc/mc-stuff/Generic.mkv

http://www.brainfartz.com/images/Stereo%20Stuff/htpc/mc-stuff/Generic%20Movie_mkv_JRSidecar.xml

Seeing they're just placeholders, the actual movie format of the new record doesn't matter. Have fun!

[sKiZo]

One other fiddlybit not worth a whole new thread ... any way to force a two line title in the catalog view under the cover thumbnail? I figure the "DVR" tag I'm putting on the "phantom" catalog entries would show up a lot more if I could put that in a second line.

[MrC]

I don't believe so.

For thumbnail text in Std. View, multiple lines are supported.

[sKiZo]

Latest version ...



Note the first line in the description for easy browsing. I'm also adding that info in the COMMENT tag so I'll have it in a separate column when I export to EXCEL for my paper catalog. I may do a custom tag for that later, but for now that's working. I also need to add a tag for HDD number when I go to multiple drives on the Maggie DVR.

So far I've added around 50 DVR titles using the same 1k MKV marker video and XML renamed for then individual titles. I do that in a working directory and just copy the pair into the "watch" directory and let JRiver do it's thing. Couple minutes per title, start to finish. I think I got me a system. wOOt!

One annoying little fiddlybit - my tired old eyes have "issues" with the semi-transparency of the description popup. Can I force that to opaque? Haven't been able to find anything in settings for that.

Well ... make that two ... can I limit the number of actors on the internet lookup? Really don't need to know who played goblin #42 in The Deathly Hallows. Keywords are also useless to me - can I just get rid of those?

Thanx for letting me bend some ears here ...

[jctcom]

This thread is pretty old.  But I am interested in doing the same thing for my DVD's and Blu-Rays.

I was wondering if there is a way to import from my existing database(s)?  I don't really relish re-entering over 2000 titles by hand?

My most complete movie database is MyMovies which as the ability to export all titles to an XML file.  Is there an easy way for me to import these into MC?

I can export Movies and TV Series separately if that helps.

Thank you.

Carl.