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[macdonjh]

Is Media Center Library Tool Rename, Move, Copy the best way to make copies of part of my media collection to an external USB drive?  I tried a test and copied a single movie file.  The video file was copied, but not the .jpg cover art file, nor the sidecar file.  I didn't see any check boxes for "copy all files in the directory" or some similar language.

[marko]

Two helpful options are right there, beneath the "Action" dropdown menu...

[macdonjh]

Two helpful options are right there, beneath the "Action" dropdown menu...

That's exactly what I was looking for, but didn't see.  I guess I'll have to look again.

[macdonjh]

Here's what I see, in MC28, when I select Tools -> Library Tools -> Move, Copy, Rename and select Copy from the drop-down menu:

[macdonjh]

Any suggestions?  The "copy sidecar" check-box isn't a new feature, is it?

[blgentry]

Yes, it's a new feature from 29.0.20

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Release_Notes_MC29

Brian.

[macdonjh]

Excellent, that explains why I don't see it. Thanks to everyone for helping out.

[macdonjh]

I should ask: does the "copy sidecar files" feature also bring cover art along? My Library is set up so Movie cover art is a file within the folder where the movie is saved.

[blgentry]

You might want to investigate the Handheld Sync feature of MC instead.  This feature is designed to copy part of your collection to a handheld device like a music player.  But it can be used equally with a hard drive instead.  This feature is driven by a playlist that you make.  The playlist is synchronized to your "external device" (in this case your hard drive).  This might be what you are looking for.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Sync_Handheld

Best of luck.

Brian.

[macdonjh]

Now THAT is a good idea.  I never thought of using Sync for that purpose. 

I'm still curious, though, does the "Copy Sidecar Files" check box also copy cover art (and any other files associated with the video file)?

[blgentry]

In my brief experiment, using MUSIC files (not video), the COPY function of RM&C does *not* copy any files other than the media files themselves.  I tried it with and without the sidecar checkbox.  Both ways it *only* copied the media files.  No cover art, etc.

I hope that helps.

Brian.

[Matt]

The function to "Move all non-imported files" is Move specific.  Maybe it could be expanded to "Include all non-imported files" someday and work with move or copy.

[macdonjh]

I made a small trial using Sync Handheld.  Only the video file was synced to the USB drive.  My theory about the cover art file is it is a separate file in the same folder as the video file.  With my music files, cover art is included in the file tag.  I don't know why the sidecar wasn't synced.

Comment: it was funny how long Sync Handheld took to read the USB drive and get ready to sync.  There were something like 15k files on it.

I also did a small trial with a couple of movies.  I did a "Windows drag-and-drop" of two movies, sidecars and cover art files.  Then I <imported> the files into a Library.  Finally, I used Rename, Move, Copy to reorganize the files into my standard file structure.  That seemed to work. 

A couple of questions: when a sidecare file is created, is it always given the same name as the video file?  Similarly, if Get Cover Art is used, is the .jpg file also always given the same name as the video file?  If both of those answers are yes, I think I can used that drag-and-drop then R-M-C method efficiently.

[macdonjh]

macdonjh Jr came home for a visit and brought his USB drive with him.  He wiped the drive before I could try anything to get his Library working the way he wants it.  I finally had some time and did a simple "drag and drop" copy of one movie using Windows Explorer.  I then used Move, Rename, Copy to put the movie in a sub-folder according to how we keep our media files organized.  Finally, I created a Library which read only that USB drive.  Everything worked. 

Next I tried dragging and dropping five movies at the same time.  The difference here is a couple of the movies have trailers with them and MRC would have created individual sub-folders for those which is not the way they are currently organized.  Not that it's wrong, just different. 

Finally, I tried an even simpler drag and drop: the folder structure including four or five movies.  Then I Imported them to the Library.  It seemed to work, so I copied all our movies that way.  The View looked the way I expected it to and I checked a few movies and they played just fine.  So simpler is better.

What I don't know is what I did differently than macdonjh Jr.  He said his View was all messed up and many of his movie files wouldn't play. 

Thanks again to everyone for helping me out.