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Author Topic: Add Video sub category to the tree??  (Read 4070 times)

dharmashawn

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Add Video sub category to the tree??
« on: November 15, 2013, 07:01:42 pm »

So you get Home Movies, Files, Movies, Shows...

I am looking to add at least a couple of custom sub cats
Video
       Concerts
       Bass Lessons

Is there a silly easy way to separate these from my main category's like Movies or Shows??       
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glynor

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Re: Add Video sub category to the tree??
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2013, 10:22:29 am »

Absolutely.  A little background...

The individual items in the Tree on the left (such as Shows, Movies, and Home Videos) are called "Views".  Views, like everything else in MC, are driven by the file metadata contained in the file "tags".  Each one of the choices under Audio, Images, and Video in the Tree are Views, including the Audio, Images, and Video items themselves.

To see how they are constructed, select one of them in the Tree, right click, and choose Customize View.

There are a few main choices in this dialog:

1. View As - This determines the type of view: Categories, Panes, File List, or 3D.  The main ones you'll use are probably either Categories or Panes.  Categories are the style of View used by the default Video\Shows and Audio\Artists views, while Panes are the style used by the default Audio\Panes and Video\Files views.  File List just hides the Panes\Categories area and shows a flat listing of files, and 3D is a fancy view.


The default Shows view uses the Category view style.

2. Show Categories In This Order - Here you select which panes or categories you want the View to use.  Any fields you add that are used by your MC Library here will show up in the right-hand content are of MC, at the top above the File Listing (if the file listing is showing).  So, for example, the default Audio\Panes View uses [Genre], [Artist], and [Album].  The default Video\Files View uses Location, Media Sub Type, and File type.


3. Set Rules for File Display - This is the "search" that MC does to determine which files will show up when you select that view in the Tree, and which ones won't be (will be filtered out).  Note that, in most cases, the Views are hierarchical.  These filters "trickle down" to from the parent Views (the ones nested "higher up" in the Tree) to the children Views (those further down).  In other words, the reason that only Audio files appear when you click on the Audio\Artists view in the Tree is because the Audio view itself has a filter that says "only show files where [Media Type] is Audio".  If you wanted this view to show all files except those by the artist ABBA (because they stink), you could add a [Artist] is not ABBA filter to the Artists view, and then songs tagged with ABBA in the [Artist] field would vanish and no longer be visible there.

The default video views are filtered by the [Media Sub Type] field.  So, the Video\Movies view is full of movies, and not other random video files, because they are tagged with [Media Sub Type] = Movie.



You can make your own views.  You can make your own Top-Level Views (like Audio, Video, and Images) if you want, you can make new views that sit with Files, Shows, and Movies, and you can nest views-within-views.


Here's my main TV Shows view.  See how there are additional views in the tree "below" the TV Shows one?

You can use this to sub-filter your files (my Kids one shows only TV Shows where [Genre] = Child, for example) or to just provide alternative organizations of the same content (my New TV Shows view sorts the newest things to the top).

So, there are lots of ways to do what you want.  How you do it would probably depend on your own tastes and the files you have (and how many of each there are).  One pretty good method might be to:

1. Tag all of the Concert videos as:
[Media Sub Type] = Music
[Artist] = the artist or performer (and any other relevant musical fields you want to fill out).

2. Tag all of the Bass Lesson videos as:
[Media Sub Type] = Educational
[Genre] = Bass Lessons

Then, make two new views underneath Video in the tree and filter them so that:

  * The "Concerts and Shows" view you make filters out everything except [Media Sub Type] = Music.

  * The "Educational" view filters everything where [Media Sub Type] is not Educational, and then you add a [Genre] category or pane to the view.

There are essentially infinite ways to get MC to show different views with different filtering schemes.  Play around with it a bit and ask when you have further questions.
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connersw

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Re: Add Video sub category to the tree??
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2013, 11:27:28 am »

Great write up Glynor.  How do you nest views in Standard View Trees?  I was not aware you could do that.

For the OP:  Regarding your Bass Lessons, one trick I use for my Media Sub Type Educational videos is using the Series, Season, Episode tags since it gives me a better Theater View. 

For example, for my Kelby Training videos, I have the Genre: Photography; Series: Kelby Training; Season: Winter Sports Photography; Episode: Lesson 1, 2, etc.

I created a Video Library View shown below.  Then in Options -> Theater View -> Items To Show I added Library Item From Standard View.  I took it a step farther by adding Cover Art to my Seasons and Series folders (C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 19\Cover Art).  Now it pulls up just like I was browsing through episodes of a TV Show.     
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dharmashawn

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Re: Add Video sub category to the tree??
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2013, 08:13:23 am »

Sorry for the late reply, but THANKS SO MUCH!!!! You guys are super helpful around here. Keep up the good work.
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