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Author Topic: stacking - disks & views  (Read 1781 times)

Bizarroterl

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stacking - disks & views
« on: April 14, 2012, 01:32:06 pm »

I'm moving from XBMC to MC, and there are a couple things I'm trying to do that have me stumped.

In XBMC you can have multi disk movies appear as a single disk by how you name them.  I figured out how to do this is MC using the stacking feature.  The only issue is I can't figure out how to control the sequence the stacked disks are played.  How do I do that?

In XBMC stacking is how you have a group of movies appear as a submenu in your library.  Instead of all 6 star wars movies appearing individually in the main list you can have them appear as Star Wars & when you select Star Wars you then see a list of the 6 movies.  How can I do this in MC?
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rick.ca

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2012, 08:17:30 pm »

Stacking doesn't have the same purpose in MC—it's primarily for maintaining different file versions of the same media. There is a Play Stack command that could be used to play stacked files/discs, but it's only available in Standard View. The only practical solution I've found is to mux multiple-file videos together into one MKV file.

Stacking is not a good solution for grouping related items. To group by movie series or franchise, use the same method as for anything else (i.e., Genre, Year, Director, Rating, etc.). Tag the files with the value you want to categorize by—in this case, using [Series] or a custom [Movie Series] or [Franchise]. Then include that field in your view as a Category.

If you expect this to work exactly like XBMC, you're SOL. But in addition to being much more flexible, the MC way is not so bad for things like this. In Theatre view you have the choice of using one view or two for movies. Using one view with a [Movie Series] category, you would first see a category list of all movie series. To view other movies, you would select 'All Movie Series' to view a list of all movies—whether a member of a series or not. Or you could use the expression-type Category If(IsEmpty([Movie Series]), [Name], [Movie Series])—to include other movies in their own series of one so they appear in the category list. I prefer to use two views. My primary view does not attempt to group by [Movie Series]. In most cases, the movies are named so series appear together anyway. I use a supplementary view that includes only movie series, and is grouped by [Movie Series].

You're free to ask—as some others have—for some special treatment for movie series in Theatre View. But Theatre View already has a simple and effective mechanism for grouping—Categories. Grouping by series and the need to do so are no different than for other Categories. It's up to the user to decide how to configure views in way that serves their needs and preferences best. I find that usually comes down to finding a comfortable balance between the number of categories used in a view versus the alternative of adding additional views. Adding category which won't often be used or doesn't logically fit with other categories used isn't a good choice when a more logical, dedicated view can be only a few button presses away.

I do see some merit in an addition mechanism for grouping files—one which expand/collapses groups of files in place in the file list—much like stacking does. That would offer more choice in how things are done, but it's not required because grouping is otherwise impossible. And there are already many such things in MC that most users aren't even aware of, or don't use because the number of such options makes the whole thing to difficult to figure out. In any case, even those who can't agree on how important this is probably will agree it won't even be considered until the next time there's a major overhaul of Theatre View.
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Bizarroterl

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2012, 03:20:28 pm »

Rick,
When you state "Movie Series" do you mean the Series tag?  I can see how that will give me what I need to consolidate those (at least until I actually try it).

What I see when I stack 2 disks for a movie (when in Theater View) is exactly what I want - the 2 disks appears as one movie.  Are you saying there's no way currently in Theater View to control which disk plays first?  Is it fair to say that even if it did, with no one actually using it we don't know if it would even be able to track the location properly for pause & resume later?

Ah, I see it - Movies series is a custom.
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Bizarroterl

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2012, 05:04:42 pm »

Rick,
Thanks for the expression.  I added that to the Video/Movies/Name as a detail and I'm getting exactly what I want.

Now all I need is to overcome the stack issue.  :)
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rick.ca

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2012, 05:17:43 pm »

Quote
When you state "Movie Series" do you mean the Series tag?

No, I meant a custom [Movie Series] field, rather than the stock [Series] field, which is intended for TV Series. But You should be fine using [Series], as long as you can respect the fact includes both TV and movie series. Doing so offers the advantage of using series-related fields for values that are/should be the same for all members of a series.

Quote
Are you saying there's no way currently in Theater View to control which disk plays first?

It's been a long time since I tried, but I believe the problem is it will play only the "top" of the stack. And if that's all that's showing (i.e., the files are stacked), there's no way to play the other parts. So the only choice is to not stack and play the files consecutively (which may be awkward, unless you've somehow grouped them so you can use 'Play All'), or eliminated the issue entirely by muxing the files into one.

I know stacking seems to be the perfect solution to handing multiple file media. I suppose the reason previous requests have been ignored is it can easily conflict with the primary purpose of stacking. Those who have stacked portable versions of videos with the originals would be unhappy about Theatre View automatically playing both. I think a simple solution would to have it only play stacks consisting of files with consecutive [Disc #], but...
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Bizarroterl

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2012, 05:52:16 pm »

Thanks for the help.  I was wondering if there is a way to control the sort at a second level. I have movies sorted in ascending order (defaults to Name, apparently) which is what I want.  With the IsEmpty expression I can "push" the collections I set up to another level, so now I can see Dirty Harry Collection and selecting that I see the individual movies for Dirty Harry.  I would like to sort these by ascending date.  However if I change the sort it affects both levels, not just the one.
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rick.ca

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2012, 09:30:39 pm »

Or you could use the expression-type Category If(IsEmpty([Movie Series]), [Name], [Movie Series])—to include other movies in their own series of one so they appear in the category list.

It sounds like you're doing this. If you sort the File List by date, each category (being either a single movie or a movie series) will sort correctly, but when selecting 'All' the files need to be sorted alphabetically. You can't do that exactly (because the same thing can't be sorted two different ways), but you can sort in the same order as the categories, and then within a category, by date. Create an expression field [Movie.Sort] using the same expression plus [Date]...

If(IsEmpty([Movie Series]), [Name], [Movie Series]) [Date]

...and sort by that. In an 'All' listing, it may be disconcerting to find movies that are members of a series but don't have a title that starts with the series name seem to be out of place alphabetically. If that's an issue, you can change the file caption for movies to...

If(IsEmpty([Movie Series]), [Name], [Movie Series]:) [Name]

This won't help the one remaining problem, however. Such movies will be difficult to find in the 'All' list, unless the viewer knows they're members of a series and listed that way.

If all this seems like an unnecessary PITA, I would have to agree. That's why I use a separate view for movie series. ;)
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CountryBumkin

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2012, 04:36:29 am »

Rick's method is probably better but I'm too lazy to try to understand using expressions. What I did was to use the Series and Episode tags already built in. I just put all the Star Wars movies under the Series "StarWars" and set the episode numbers "1, 2, ..." in the order to display. Then I create a view in Theater View for "Movie Series" and it displays the SarWars, Bourne, Harry Potter, Dirty Harry, etc. as one title/series under the main movie roller, which when clicked on opens up to all the movies in that specific series. Since the Media Sub type is Movie, using the Series and Episode tags doesn't mess up TV series and episodes.







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Bizarroterl

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Re: stacking - disks & views
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2012, 10:36:55 am »

Further testing with stacking -

I think I was able to get a 2 disc movie (Cleopatra) to start on the correct disk - possibly by using the disk tag.  1st thing I noticed was that the duration displayed was wrong - it was for only one disk.  I then played (well FFWD'd) the movie and once it got to the end of the 1st disk that was it.  No automatic continuation to the second, no prompt, and no way to manually start the second disk.  Looks like I won't get what I want that way.

I hate to have to remux disks into one file, but it appears Rick is right.
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