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[koupa]

As the title says I'd like to separate tagging information from the files. Especially from video files. I like to keep my folders clean from unnecessary files. You write directly in to the folders the sidecar and the poster of the movie. Maybe an option to put them in my homefolder.

[jkauff]

As the title says I'd like to separate tagging information from the files. Especially from video files. I like to keep my folders clean from unnecessary files. You write directly in to the folders the sidecar and the poster of the movie. Maybe an option to put them in my homefolder.

I've been asking for this since four versions ago. I don't know why, but JRiver continues to ignore the request. Doesn't seem like it would be a technical issue.

I get around it by limiting MC's access to just my backup drives so that the main drives are unaffected.

[JustinChase]

I have also asked for, and continue to hope for this to happen.  I want ONLY my video files in my video folders.

MC already puts audio cover art and TV season and series art into a separate folder.  I see no good reason to not at least allow us to do the same with sidecar and thumbnail/art files.  In fact, it seems like it would be easier on MC to just handle all art/sidecar files the same way; putting everything into the user designated "Cover Art" folder.

[Yaobing]

Not sure about cover arts.  For sidecars, they are called sidecars for a reason.  What purpose does it serve to save a sidecar file in a central location?  Might you as well just turn off sidecar writing?

[JustinChase]

Not sure about cover arts.  For sidecars, they are called sidecars for a reason.  What purpose does it serve to save a sidecar file in a central location?  Might you as well just turn off sidecar writing?

What purpose does it serve to keep them next to the video files; that can't be said of keeping them in a central location?  Why would you equate separating them from video files to not having them at all.  I like that they exist, and keep my tagging information, so my MC experience is better.  I would not want to go without them, that would make MC much less useful.  I just don't want to see them cluttering up my folders.

For me, I keep videos in a folder called Videos.  (I keep music in a folder called Music, and pictures in a folder called Pictures)  I do this to keep my media types separate.  When I look in the video folder, I want to see video files, not other types of files.  It not only doesn't help me to have non-video files in the video folder, it makes it far more difficult to find and assess what videos i have when i have to scroll through all the extraneous non-video files.  I end up with 3 files for every 1 video.  That causes me to have to scroll far more often that should be necessary when browsing files outside of MC.

Keeping non-video files out of the video folder also makes auto-import easier, as I don't have to choose what file types to include or exclude in the Video (or Music or Pictures or Documents) folder(s).  Also, if I'm tagging lots of tiles, and I happen to make 2 changes to tags before the first change is written, MC can see that as applying to a separate file, and I often end up with sidecarfilename(1) as an orphan file, and often as the only file left in a folder where the tagging has moved the file I actually care about, and the delete empty folder after moving doesn't work, because the folder isn't empty.

I propose a better question would be, What purpose does it serve to save a sidecar file next to the video file?  Why is that ok for video files, but not okay for Audio files, which is how MC has operated since forever.  That works great.  If I want to analyze/deal with cover art (or video series and season artwork), I go to the designated folder for cover art.  The fact that MC only keeps series and season art for video files here, but not other art for videos has often confused me.  I don't see any benefit to filling my VIDEO folder with non-video items.  It just feels wrong, and makes my life more difficult than it needs to be, for no benefit that I can see.

I would also argue that keeping non-audio files with audio files is also wrong, and the associated pdfs and other non-cover art for audio should also be stored in the central location, but that is for another day.

[Yaobing]

What purpose does it serve to keep them next to the video files; that can't be said of keeping them in a central location? 

The purpose of a sidecar is the same as the purpose of writing tags inside an audio file.  If you don't want the tags to be written to the audio files (as some people say they don't want their media files to be messed with), you turn off tag writing.

The contents of a sidecar file are all in MC's database.  Having them in a central location is like duplicating the database which not only is not necessary but also creates extra overhead.  On the other hand, just like writing tags directly to audio files, sidecar files exist for portability purpose.

[Yaobing]

I propose a better question would be, What purpose does it serve to save a sidecar file next to the video file?

As I mentioned in my last post, the purpose is the same as writing tags to audio files, for portability.  The purpose it not to keep your tagging info, as we already have database files to keep your tagging info.

[JustinChase]

What purpose does it serve to keep them next to the video files; that can't be said of keeping them in a central location?

As I mentioned in my last post, the purpose is the same as writing tags to audio files, for portability.  The purpose it not to keep your tagging info, as we already have database files to keep your tagging info.

I think you may have missed the point of this request. 

sidecar files are good.  i like and want to keep them.

sidecar files being stored in the same folder as the video files is bad, I don't want them there.  I want sidecar files, but I want them in a central location, NOT next to the video files; for the reasons I've given previously.

[Hendrik]

Sidecar files in a central location = The MC Database.
You might as well just turn them off at that point.

[JustinChase]

Well, I liked that i could update on my laptop, then update from tags in the server and propagate those changes to the server, very easily.  I can't backup the laptop library, then update the server library as other things get updated.

Oh well, off it is then, thanks.

I'll just go through MUCH more work to keep libraries in sync.

[tij]

Well, I liked that i could update on my laptop, then update from tags in the server and propagate those changes to the server, very easily.  I can't backup the laptop library, then update the server library as other things get updated.

Oh well, off it is then, thanks.

I'll just go through MUCH more work to keep libraries in sync.

You can use remote access from laptop to your server to update tags there.

[JustinChase]

You can use remote access from laptop to your server to update tags there.

That's not the issue.  The issue is that I have/maintain 2 libraries, 1 for laptop, 1 for the server.  For various reasons, the server/client model doesn't work well for me, so 2 libraries is how I work.  With the sidecar files, I can force update from either machine after I've done tagging, then update the other from the tags, and it's fast and easy.  Without the sidecar files, I have to backup and restore a library, which changes more than the tags, so isn't a good solution for me.

I know better than to press JRiver when they've made it clear they aren't interested in my thoughts, so I'm stuck with tons of annoying files all over, or an un-fun update process.

Such is life.

[koupa]

For 20 years I use separate discs for music, personal data and system. The reason is obvious. I don't want anything to happen on my files. I have a disc for importing stuff. Everything first goes there, then gets edited and when it's 100% ready goes to the appropriate disc. No program has write access to these discs, only read. Why JRiver be an exception? Why add stress to a disc?

[koupa]

That's not the issue.  The issue is that I have/maintain 2 libraries, 1 for laptop, 1 for the server.  For various reasons, the server/client model doesn't work well for me, so 2 libraries is how I work.  With the sidecar files, I can force update from either machine after I've done tagging, then update the other from the tags, and it's fast and easy.  Without the sidecar files, I have to backup and restore a library, which changes more than the tags, so isn't a good solution for me.

I know better than to press JRiver when they've made it clear they aren't interested in my thoughts, so I'm stuck with tons of annoying files all over, or an un-fun update process.

Such is life.

No problem with that. They can add a setting to choose where you want the extra metadata stored. For example Adobe Bridge creates subfolders with the same name for thumbnails under %Appdata%. Not in my library. Do the same.

[Manfred]

I have no issues with side files. I don't use any subfolders. E.g. I have 2165 video including side files in one directory on one 10 TB disk. It generates absolutely no problems , it has very low query times and if you have .mkv file you must not search for the .xml.
I don't use windows explorer for exploring, I only use MC library functions.

[glynor]

With the sidecar files, I can force update from either machine after I've done tagging, then update the other from the tags, and it's fast and easy.  Without the sidecar files, I have to backup and restore a library, which changes more than the tags, so isn't a good solution for me.

I think the issue is in how it would actually work. MC would have to scan (and effectively, auto-import) the special "centralized folder" and, more importantly, be sure that the [Filename] metadata in the sidecar is always maintained properly and matches an actual file on disk (ProTip: Right now it doesn't. If you move the files, even within MC itself, the [Filename] tag in the sidecar does NOT get updated until you do a manual Update Tags from Library command on the files.)

And all of that would need to be separate from the existing Auto-Import system (which only needs to worry about the sidecars if they have changed and it doesn't need to look for source files separately). Orphaned sidecar files and mismatched [Filename] tags in the sidecars would throw it all out of whack.

Keeping them in a "tags" (or something) subfolder of the directory of the file, I think, might be reasonable. Keeping them all in a central location is, as the others mentioned above, just making a very, very fragile and inefficient second database.

[Gedeon]

Very difficult to see a change in the actual approach. Not even NFO compatible options.

It's not easy to make JRiver work with other programs. And sidecar files with video files don't really help a lot.

Just enjoy what you have now and don't expect too many changes or evolution. Like last five years or so.

Sorry to say this but that's how I perceive this product right now.

[marko]

(ProTip: Right now it doesn't. If you move the files, even within MC itself, the [Filename] tag in the sidecar does NOT get updated until you do a manual Update Tags from Library command on the files.)

I was sure they fixed that some time ago now... will need to check...

Update
Yup, definately correctly updates the sidecar Filename info when the file is moved. The manual update is no longer necessary. Fixed at the end of March last year.

26.0.39 (3/23/2020)
9. Changed: When renaming a file that has a JRiver Sidecar, the new sidecar file will be updated to reflect the new file path.

[jkauff]

I have no issues with side files. I don't use any subfolders. E.g. I have 2165 video including side files in one directory on one 10 TB disk. It generates absolutely no problems , it has very low query times and if you have .mkv file you must not search for the .xml.
I don't use windows explorer for exploring, I only use MC library functions.

It hadn't occurred to me before, but perhaps JRiver folks think we live in MC like the user quoted above. If you do that, you never see the sidecar files.

I think all of us who complain about the .xml and .jpg files being stored with the .mkv files (for example) are using Explorer or other file manager programs to work with our media files and folders. I have movies spread across 5 multi-TB drives, in roughly alphabetical order. When a drive gets full, I have to redistribute the movies. I can't imagine trying to do this within MC. With a dual pane file manager, it's easy as long as I don't have to deal with extraneous files.

Now that MC is making access to MakeMKV available, I'm wondering if this would be a good time to provide an option to write the metadata as Matroska tags. For me, that would get rid of almost all of the sidecar files.

[Manfred]

. I can't imagine trying to do this within MC.

Yesterday I moved 5 TB media files from drive S to drive T. Using MC Lib Tool Rename, Copy... it took around a minute to configure it, start moving the files and MC ensures then data integrity. (Side files get also automatically moved).

[glynor]

Update
Yup, definately correctly updates the sidecar Filename info when the file is moved. The manual update is no longer necessary. Fixed at the end of March last year.

Nice! I've been wasting time then!

[glynor]

I can't imagine trying to do this within MC.

I can't imagine trying to do any major file reorganization outside of MC.

[marko]

^^ Ditto

[jkauff]

Ok, maybe I'm dumb. Let's say you've got movies A-F on Drive 1 and it's getting full, so you need to see how much space just the "F" movies are taking up. You look to see if Drive 2 (movies G-J) has enough space to take the "F" movies. It doesn't quite, so you check how much space the "J" movies are taking up, and whether you can move them to Drive 3 (movies K-N). That will work, so you move the "J" movies to Drive 3 (which becomes "J-N"), then move the "F" movies to Drive 2 (which becomes F-H). Drive 1 is now "A-E".

I use a dual-pane file manager so I can see the source and the destination drives simultaneously. I realize buying some larger drives would help (which I've done with my backup drives), but for now I occasionally need to shuffle movie files around.

How would I accomplish this internally in MC? In any case, my file manager gets used for lots of non-media file tasks, so it's my preferred tool.

[comox]

How would I accomplish this internally in MC?

I'm also a dual pane file manager power user, but I never ever use it to manipulate files already in MC. To do so just asks for trouble.

Try this to see if it works for you.

Show 2 views in Split View. Set one view to the source folder in MC Drives & Devices\Explorer and the other split view to the destination folder. You can conveniently copy or move files, create and move folders, and even see everything in the hierarchy if you turn on "Show Files in Subfolders".

What this doesn't do well is show available drive space so you might want to keep your file manager open to monitor space.

[jkauff]

I have duplicates of all my media files. The backups are stored on a few large (8TB) external drives, and that's where I point my MC libraries. My originals are stored on smaller, mostly internal drives, so that's where most of the moving happens.

I wasn't aware that MC stores all the metadata in a database. I'll stop MC from creating the side files, and I'll no longer have the browsing problem.