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Why are DVD extras limited to a single directory?


Sludge Vohaul

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Sludge Vohaul

Hi,

 

DVD extras are supposed to be stored in the 'extras' (or maybe 'specials') directory. 

I am wondering whether there is any deeper meaning behind this (the only explanation I've found was to be more compatible with other applications using this naming schema).

I personally think this is more a limitation than a feature - imagine a DVD with some interviews, trailers, deleted scenes and background information.

 

With emby one ends up with this structure:

 

Some Movie (2016).mkv

extras/Interview Actor A.mvk

extras/Interview Actor B.mkv

extras/Deleted Scenes Scene Title A.mkv

extras/Deleted Scenes Scene Title B.mkv

extras/Trailer Theatrical Trailer.mkv

extras/Behind The Scenes Title A.mkv

extras/Behind The Scenes Title B.mkv

 

Everything is in one big bucket, one never knows what the extra is about, unless one writes the extra type into the filename.

Wouldn't it be better to allow multiple extra directories (maybe the names being predefined), for certain extra types, like this:

 

Some Movie (2016).mkv

Interviews/Actor A.mkv

Interviews/Actor B.mkv

Deleted Scenes/Scene Title A.mkv

Deleted Scenes/Scene Title B.mkv

Trailers/Theatrical Trailer.mkv

Behind The Scenes/Title A.mkv

Behind The Scenes/Title B.mkv

 

For those who need the compatibility with other apps there could still be an 'extras' directory, where one could symlink the extras in the other directories, or simply use this directory only.

 

Is this a bad idea?

 

--

sv

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PenkethBoy

Plex does it that way or did when i was testing it out - and to be honest its a PIA - the only benefit was IIRC they treated the diff dir slightly differently in the presentation - but as there is no metadata for them that i know of the benefit was minimal - Season 0/specials are much more worthwhile :)

 

One thing you can do is before you add them to the library is update the title field with the file name - which Emby will read (because it has nothing else for movie extras)so when you look at the extra's in Emby at least the name will mean something - rather than some random title you get with makemkv - assuming you use that to rip your dvd's - it can be done with a batch file and i run it from my pc on a network directory and 20 files done in a couple of seconds :)

 

Not saying its a bad idea just a differnt way of looking at things which is why i dropped plex - to inflexible for me :)

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Spaceboy

This is pointless, you have to name the extras by hand when ripping discs so why not name them as what it actually is and have them all in one directory

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Koleckai Silvestri

For movie extras, I looked to see if they have their own metadata on TMDB.org. If they do then they go into their own directory and everything gets added to a collection. It is a much better presentation in my opinion. More work but a better presentation.

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Sludge Vohaul

Yes, Plex does it

 

Plex does it that way or did when i was testing it out - and to be honest its a PIA - the only benefit was IIRC they treated the diff dir slightly differently in the presentation - but as there is no metadata for them that i know of the benefit was minimal - Season 0/specials are much more worthwhile :)

 

Yes, having multiple directories (the Plex way) is not really useful, as long as you cannot treat them differently. That's where some sort of metadata must get involved (and of course some sort of different presentation one day, too).

I haven't found a way how to add metadata in the UI nor in the sources, so I suppose there is none for extras.

 

But IMO the multiple directories are necessary for some sort of (future) automation.

Imagine one could add metadata (like Interview, Deleted Scene, ...) to each extra file through the UI. And now imagine a DVD with 20+ extras all in one directory. Do you want to add the metadata manually? I do not. I would want a functionality allowing to map a directory to a meta-information. This way, when a movie directory is imported the extras would get automatically tagged.

 

 

Supporting additional directories is a possibility.

It's only half of the job. Supporting multiple directories is a one-line change in the code, but what then? Without the mentioned metadata support the benefit is rather limited. What one would really need is a configuration menu where users could map their individual directory names to items from the ExtraType enum (n:1). Then all tagging magic could happen automatically in LibraryManager.FindExtras().

And then, someone brave enough would still have to design and implement some stunning visual representations for the now distinguishable extra types :)

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I don't see why we would need multiple folders for what you want.  What's the difference between multiple files in one folder and multiple folders with one file if they are to be presented in the interface the same way?

 

Metadata is a separate issue and could be provided with a single folder as well.

 

So, is what you really want better metadata for extras even if they are in the same folder?

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PenkethBoy

If extras were to be treated differently then probably the simplest way is to have a simple naming convention - no need for mapping function etc

 

default is none with no or minimal nfo/xml file

After the (yyyy)(zzz)

e.g. for zzz with nfo

Interview (int)

behind the scenes (bts)

 

you get the idea

 

One folder less management

 

Finding or generating metadata is the challenge

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Sludge Vohaul

I don't see why we would need multiple folders for what you want.  What's the difference between multiple files in one folder and multiple folders with one file if they are to be presented in the interface the same way?

The difference is usability and sort of elimination of information redundance. After ripping the disc with makemkv, one ends up with titleXX.mkv files, which one has to rename these files. imagine you have a disc with 10 (and that's not so unusual) inteviews. Why would I want to name the files "Interview Actor A.mkv", "Interview Actor B.mkv", "Interview Producer.mkv"? I want them to be in the "Interviews" directory and call them "Actor A.mkv", "Actor B.mkv" and so on. Should I ever get sick of those interviews, i'd do a find . -type d -name Interviews -exec rm -rf {} \; without having to parse any filenames in "extras".

But IMO the more important point is usability. As it's already a PITA to rename the titleXX.mkv files accordingly, why would I as the user want to assign the metadata tags manually through the UI? This can do the application if it knows which directory (i.e. the files in this directory) should be assigned which tags.

 

 

Metadata is a separate issue and could be provided with a single folder as well.

Well you still end up with 20 files under "extras", with 10 being Interviews. How do you assign the "Interview" tag to these files automatically?

 

So, is what you really want better metadata for extras even if they are in the same folder?

Yes. The folder is only a means to an end (sorry don't know the English word - German "Mittel zum Zweck"), to automate the initial tagging of the extra files. If you have a way to automate tagging of files located in one folder I am all ears. (oh well, one could of course introduce pattern matching on file names like "Interview*")... Edited by Sludge Vohaul
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Sludge Vohaul

If extras were to be treated differently then probably the simplest way is to have a simple naming convention - no need for mapping function etc

 

default is none with no or minimal nfo/xml file

After the (yyyy)(zzz)

e.g. for zzz with nfo

Interview (int)

behind the scenes (bts)

 

you get the idea

 

One folder less management

 

Finding or generating metadata is the challenge

It surely would also be a possible way, but IMO it is ugly to have the metadata type (or a marker or whatever) in the filename, and the directory based approach would make life easier for users coming from a Plex background, as no changes would be required (though it is no rocket science to script the renaming).

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PenkethBoy

It surely would also be a possible way, but IMO it is ugly to have the metadata type (or a marker or whatever) in the filename, and the directory based approach would make life easier for users coming from a Plex background, as no changes would be required (though it is no rocket science to script the renaming).

Well another way is put the metadata in the mkv file - simple example that bugs me with Specials for TV is that if the special does not have any internet metadata so equivalent to a movie extra Emby pulls the Title name into the title field - and because makemkv puts in something useless related to titlexxx you end up with extras with all the same title - so i have a routine that changes the title in the mkv - i do this before adding to emby as otherwise its a major PIA to get emby to accept the change. So modifly this to add extra info for movies is easy - its on my list to see what emby will pick up for movies - just not hit the top of my list yet.

 

So essentially you could name the files what every you like and add metadata to the file that emby recognises and populate with meaningful info

 

As i said in the other thread i have a list of things to automate etc

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Sludge Vohaul

Haven't got so far yet :)

I have the Tripods TV show collection which has some bonus material. In Plex the following naming is sufficient:

Season 01/Tripods - s01e01.mkv

Specials/Tripods - What Ever Title You Want - s00e1.m4v

 

(I store all extras as mp4).

I'll add the TV Shows dataset to the Emby jail and see what Emby imports...

 

I also thought about adding metadata to the extra files, but somehow I think it is just not worth it. I mean there is this "Deleted Scenes" bonus item on the DVD saying "Bud Spencer smacks the other guy really hard". Which metadata tag should I add except the title and extra type (of which I am not sure into which tag it should go to)?

I could script it one day as all extras are in the appropriate directories, but what for? It just gets more and more complicated...

 

Btw, I do tagging of m4v files with AtomicParsley for the kids so that their movies are nicely tagged on the ipad for offline use. Can send you the CLI params if it helps you.

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Koleckai Silvestri

Television Specials/Extras do have metadata and their own individual NFO files. The key would be if the Metadata provider, i.e. thetvdb.com, actually has information on them. For an example, here is the Specials for Doctor Who (2005) - http://thetvdb.com/?tab=season&seriesid=78804&seasonid=26260&lid=7

 

The issue with movies is that the providers rarely have Extras data assigned to the actual movie so it can be hard to link up without manual work. I guess it all depends on how much effort you want to put into things.

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PenkethBoy

couple of things

 

i use Filebot to rename all my TV episodes - pick whole directory - makes match from online data - click rename - all 26 episodes done in 20 secs :) - has lots of other features etc

 

i am experimenting with Mkvmerge as it allows a xml file to be "imported" to the mkv file i.e. virtually anything thats in the emby nfo - i just need to do a bit more testing

 

https://matroska.org/technical/specs/tagging/index.html gives you the long list of possible fields

 

works great across my network - second or so for each file - for just title update

 

i prefer things complete if its needed and easy to automate etc and the intention is that any rebuild will be quicker because of it - have to test this to verify etc

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Koleckai Silvestri

I may be mistaken, but as far as I am aware Emby doesn't read metadata from within MKV files. Only MP3 and other Music files.

Edited by Koleckai Silvestri
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Sludge Vohaul

i am experimenting with Mkvmerge as it allows a xml file to be "imported" to the mkv file i.e. virtually anything thats in the emby nfo - i just need to do a bit more testing

 

https://matroska.org/technical/specs/tagging/index.html gives you the long list of possible fields

Is there a list of tags (for different formats) Emby supports available somewhere?

When tagging the movies for the kids for IOS, I ran into a problem with the movie description, which, though correctly written to the m4v file, was truncated on the IOS devices. I then found out, that the text had to be written to the "longdesc" and not to "desc" tag.

Edited by Sludge Vohaul
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Sludge Vohaul

I may be mistaken, but as far as I am aware Emby doesn't read metadata from within MKV files. Only MP3 and other Music files.

Which would answer my question for supported tags :)

On the other hand, it might be supported one day....

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PenkethBoy

I may be mistaken, but as far as I am aware Emby doesn't read metadata from within MKV files. Only MP3 and other Music files.

it reads the title from the file for TV episodes at least - if other metadata is not available - there is an order of precedence applied that luke mention in a thead a month or two ago

 

iirc - title in the file is before filename

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Sludge Vohaul

if you find it let me know would save a lot of time for me :)

Well i'd say Koleckai Silvestri is right - a quick search through the sources for "longdesc" reveals only audio related code.

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PenkethBoy

post-134563-0-78262100-1476750673_thumb.png

 

Specials directory from Babylon 5

 

first few files are listed online

 

rest are not and the title you see is the junk Makemkv puts in when you rip the disk

 

post-134563-0-96308800-1476750825_thumb.png

 

example - title from mkv does not match file name

 

yes you can manually change it but when you have 10-1000's of files like this well ....

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PenkethBoy

if it doesnt read anything more than the title - fine i will deal with it differently - just not had time to work though things yet

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PenkethBoy

Well we do support embedded metadata within videos. We could also do an nfo file for these.

excellent - any metadata???? - there are a lot of potential standard tags for MKV - not researched mp4 and all the others yet

 

sorry dont understand about nfo - do you mean separate file so does not break things with other apps - Kodi etc?? 

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