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Save artwork and metadata within media folders - pros, cons and questions


Starlionblue

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Aphid

I am not sure how where we save our data affects how often we must download data from the 3rd party providers. Especially when we also cache much of that data.

 

Being able to save metadata separately from the media is useful for developers, as it makes it easier to delete everything and force a clean scan.

 

I think the default should be to store metadata outside of the media folders though, as, as ebr notes, it prevents there from being side effects from running MB over a users media collection, which is less likely to cause "wtf" moments when a user clicks through the setup wizard and later finds a load of stuff in their file system that they did not put there.

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Starlionblue

I am not sure how where we save our data affects how often we must download data from the 3rd party providers. Especially when we also cache much of that data.

 

Being able to save metadata separately from the media is useful for developers, as it makes it easier to delete everything and force a clean scan.

 

I think the default should be to store metadata outside of the media folders though, as, as ebr notes, it prevents there from being side effects from running MB over a users media collection, which is less likely to cause "wtf" moments when a user clicks through the setup wizard and later finds a load of stuff in their file system that they did not put there.

 

Very good points.

 

In light of this, there should perhaps be a mechanism built into MBS to migrate back and forth. This would remove the need to re-download from third party providers in case a user wants to go from local metadata to central or vice versa.

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Tolerant

Ok.. read this thread but have to say I am still a bit confused. I recently did a full rescan of my movie collection with Media Center Master to have it pull the latest info for everything and any missing people images etc. I knew, because it has an option to reuse ID's that I would not have to manually "fix" any of my movies that might end up wrong on an original scan.

 

However.. I also went into Media Browser 3 (Server UI) and enabled the "save metadata to media folder" option and refreshed there for "missing meta data" elements.

 

The problem.. now all of my desscriptions are missing in Media Center Master for my movies. If I go back to MCM and refetch the info is back, and then if I go to MB3 and refresh that item, the description is gone again in MCM.  What would be the proper way to resolve this issue? I enjoy using both programs but need a way for them not to fight over my metadata. :(

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Starlionblue

Ok.. read this thread but have to say I am still a bit confused. I recently did a full rescan of my movie collection with Media Center Master to have it pull the latest info for everything and any missing people images etc. I knew, because it has an option to reuse ID's that I would not have to manually "fix" any of my movies that might end up wrong on an original scan.

 

However.. I also went into Media Browser 3 (Server UI) and enabled the "save metadata to media folder" option and refreshed there for "missing meta data" elements.

 

The problem.. now all of my desscriptions are missing in Media Center Master for my movies. If I go back to MCM and refetch the info is back, and then if I go to MB3 and refresh that item, the description is gone again in MCM.  What would be the proper way to resolve this issue? I enjoy using both programs but need a way for them not to fight over my metadata. :(

 

I'm working on the assumption that MB3 and MCM are incompatible at this point. You can use one or the other.

 

Much as I have been an ardent supporter of MCM in the past, I have now abandoned it completely. MB3 works better with its own fetcher. Also the backdrops fetched have tended to be of higher quality.

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They are compatible, but

 

Historically we have been duplicating several metadata fields in multiple xml elements in order to keep lots of different programs happy. For about six months I've been telling the developers that I wanted to clean our metadata and remove the duplication. Then a month ago I let them know I'd be making the change. description is one of the fields that is no longer duplicated. I received no response from the developer of mcm, so I cannot speak to it's timeline about updating. I know metabrowser has already made the changes. (If any, I'm not sure fatal was affected at all).

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Tolerant

I'm working on the assumption that MB3 and MCM are incompatible at this point. You can use one or the other.

 

Much as I have been an ardent supporter of MCM in the past, I have now abandoned it completely. MB3 works better with its own fetcher. Also the backdrops fetched have tended to be of higher quality.

 

But but... I have a lifetime license for MCM lol. It fetches uTorrent files for shows just dandy, keeps them all nice and neat without my having to go find them. Movies I won't torrent, too much disturbs me about that. So in theory I could just take off my collection of movies out of MCM and let it worry about tv shows.  But unless I am missing something, I don't (as of yet) see a way to have MB3 move a SCR to a \SCR\ folder and a DVDRip to a \DVDRIP\ folder... or BRRIp to \BRRIPS\  etc..  With 5 physical hard drive locations and various "quality" types of files seperated until better comes along.. I guess I am stuck with a semi-unique problem.

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Tolerant

They are compatible, but

 

Historically we have been duplicating several metadata fields in multiple xml elements in order to keep lots of different programs happy. For about six months I've been telling the developers that I wanted to clean our metadata and remove the duplication. Then a month ago I let them know I'd be making the change. description is one of the fields that is no longer duplicated. I received no response from the developer of mcm, so I cannot speak to it's timeline about updating. I know metabrowser has already made the changes. (If any, I'm not sure fatal was affected at all).

 

Well I can understand there is no single standard for every one single program, as nice as that would be. But MCM does allow people image locations to be either MB2 Or MB3 and or a custom path to that location. So at least in that respect he was trying. I haven't seen a post from "Pete" in awhile on the MCM site.

 

I guess in the end I don't really mind which program can look into my \MOVIES\DVDRIP\ section, "see" a  "Movie Title (2014)" folder and rename "Movie title (2014) XViD AC3-Group.avi" and then fetch the data and images for it.. as long as its consistent. I am usually the one moving the finished file into a folder closely or properly named, dropping it into the proper path for that "quality" of file and at that point telling MCM to fetch and rename it.. Still a bit foggy headed on having MB3 do the "I see it, gonna fetch and rename it and the folder" aspect of it.

 

If I were to NOT store data with the media.. would that allow both programs to still view the media files with their own perspective files properly so that they both function without "eating" each others data?

Edited by Tolerant
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Tolerant

Interesting concept, although with the Box Set Collections addon and getting the Poster images as well as the backgrounds for them, and the logo's for films/shows in my media library.. it's just a bit confusing as to what should / shouldn't be enabled and or stored where to make this all work without programs fighting. I have not even begun to try to use my WD TV Live SMP's media library as of late because of all the switching between MB2 to MB3 and MCM issues creeping up as I try to make this switch over. If I didn't have 5 physical hard drives with about 10 media paths for various type quality rips, this would be a bit simpler perhaps.

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Starlionblue

Interesting concept, although with the Box Set Collections addon and getting the Poster images as well as the backgrounds for them, and the logo's for films/shows in my media library.. it's just a bit confusing as to what should / shouldn't be enabled and or stored where to make this all work without programs fighting. I have not even begun to try to use my WD TV Live SMP's media library as of late because of all the switching between MB2 to MB3 and MCM issues creeping up as I try to make this switch over. If I didn't have 5 physical hard drives with about 10 media paths for various type quality rips, this would be a bit simpler perhaps.

 

Time to invest in a ReadyNAS?  :D

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Tolerant

Time to invest in a ReadyNAS?  :D

 

I have a Seagate GoFlex NAS drive hooked up to a Netgear router.. can't say I am super impressed by either. 8-10 gigs of hard drives should be enough, but when I have to reboot my GoFlex every so often because it gets "lost" it has left a bad taste in my mouth about NAS in general. It seems as soon as you buy anything these days it is already outdated and or not supported in a short time and the companies have moved on to some other product to part you an your money. :(

 

I am still wondering about just trying to get MCM and MB3 to play nicely. I don't mind MB3 grabbing logos and other images, but there doesn't seem to be a separate box to enable one or the other, its metadata AND images. Then of course what this thread is about should I not being saving metadata in the local folder for each movie, would that solve my issue or just create more problems if for example I delete a movie then have to hunt down the metadata / images that go with it.. :(

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Starlionblue

I have a Seagate GoFlex NAS drive hooked up to a Netgear router.. can't say I am super impressed by either. 8-10 gigs of hard drives should be enough, but when I have to reboot my GoFlex every so often because it gets "lost" it has left a bad taste in my mouth about NAS in general. It seems as soon as you buy anything these days it is already outdated and or not supported in a short time and the companies have moved on to some other product to part you an your money. :(

 

I am still wondering about just trying to get MCM and MB3 to play nicely. I don't mind MB3 grabbing logos and other images, but there doesn't seem to be a separate box to enable one or the other, its metadata AND images. Then of course what this thread is about should I not being saving metadata in the local folder for each movie, would that solve my issue or just create more problems if for example I delete a movie then have to hunt down the metadata / images that go with it.. :(

 

I'd describe your setup as "NAS Lite" at best. A proper NAS is orders of magnitude better both in therms of performance and feature. The NAS functionality on a router is a nice-to-have extra, not a core functionality. On a proper NAS, you have DLNA, FTP and web servers, user account controls, backup engine and tons more.

 

I've had my ReadyNAS NVX for three or four years, and a ReadyNAS NV+ for five or six years before that (and I even managed to sell that on). Of course the feature set is somewhat locked on purchase (though feature updates do come out), but I can change the hard drives to higher capacity "on the fly" without having to transfer data out and back in. I think I upgraded the drives in my NV+ three times over five years, 300gig to 1tb to 2tb.

 

Regarding MB3 and MCM, I think we're in somewhat early days yet., I think Peter at MCM may well update some stuff to make MCM play better with MB3. I encourage you to bring issues up the MCM forums and/or tracker.

Edited by Starlionblue
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Tolerant

Thanks Starlionblue, I have posted over there.. but its kinda like Pete is MIA and Doug is catching up on the posts. Not sure what is going on in that respect. Hopefully someone will sort out a solution soon. In the meantime I guess I just need to refetch using MCM and not let MB3 do metadata for now but it seems limiting that way. Ironic how I was trying to avoid these sorts of issues and spent so much time on it that I have just ended up with even more time being required. Silly me. ;)

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Tolerant

well you could just disable our providers and have mcm handle it all i suppose.

 

This got me thinking... if I click on Movies, TV Shows, Collections.. then for each set the metadata types OFF except for Images and Backgrounds.. then enabled the server to allow internet providers ON ... would that allow me to update missing images without changing any of the actual metadata file structures?

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trusselo

I am having an issue with local metadata not taking precedence wasn't sure if i should start a new thread.

 

I see this issue because of "American Dad!"

background

IMDB and thetvdb and the torrent community diagree on the season numbering scheme

 

IMDB and the torrent community agree that current season is 9 , thetvdb and few others agree that it is currently season 10

 

the divergence happens @ season 1 where imdb and torrenters think there is 23 and tvdb thinks 7.

 

for auto-downloading and auto-naming to work, IMDB's metadata must be followed. Since MediaBrowser cannot do this I have MediaCenterMaster (which auto-downloaded the show) to fetch metadata forced from IMDB.

 

This metadata is copied with the TV show over to my TV folder upon completion. 

 

\TV\American Dad!\Season 9\

 - American Dad!.S09E01.Steve and Snot's Test-Tubular Adventure.mp4

\TV\American Dad!\Season 9\metadata\

 - American Dad!.S09E01.Steve and Snot's Test-Tubular Adventure.xml

 

In mediabrowser server, classic and android, it tells me that the episode name is " Love, A.D. Style " which is the s9e1 on thetvdb (not what is in my local metadata)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Item>
	<ID>1</ID>
	<EpisodeNumber>1</EpisodeNumber>
	<SeasonNumber>9</SeasonNumber>
	<FirstAired>9/29/2013</FirstAired>
	<EpisodeName>Steve and Snot's Test-Tubular Adventure</EpisodeName>
	<Overview>Steve and Snot create two clones so that they can have a date to a school dance, but things do not go as planned.</Overview>
	<filename>/mcm_generated_1395626893_3BBA7C61FE18C36BB965B5C8A6D50716021CB7DE.jpg</filename>
	<VideoAspect>1.782:1</VideoAspect>
	<VideoBitrate>385000</VideoBitrate>
	<VideoCodec>x264</VideoCodec>
	<VideoCodecType>H.264</VideoCodecType>
	<VideoCodecRaw>AVC</VideoCodecRaw>
	<VideoFileSize>78289180</VideoFileSize>
	<VideoHeight>404</VideoHeight>
	<VideoLength>22</VideoLength>
	<VideoLengthSeconds>1292</VideoLengthSeconds>
	<VideoQuality>Good (DVD)</VideoQuality>
	<VideoWidth>720</VideoWidth>
	<AudioBitrate>99360</AudioBitrate>
	<AudioChannels>2</AudioChannels>
	<AudioCodec>AAC</AudioCodec>
	<AudioCodecRaw>AAC</AudioCodecRaw>
	<AudioFrequency>48000</AudioFrequency>
	<AspectRatio>1.78:1</AspectRatio>
	<MediaInfo>
		<Video>
			<Codec>x264</Codec>
			<FFCodec>H.264</FFCodec>
			<BitRate>385000</BitRate>
			<Height>404</Height>
			<Width>720</Width>
			<FrameRate>23.976</FrameRate>
			<Duration>22</Duration>
			<DurationSeconds>1292</DurationSeconds>
			<ScanType>Progressive</ScanType>
		</Video>
		<Audio>
			<Codec>AAC</Codec>
			<FFCodec>AAC</FFCodec>
			<Channels>2</Channels>
			<BitRate>99360</BitRate>
			<Language></Language>
		</Audio>
	</MediaInfo>
	<VideoHasSubtitles>False</VideoHasSubtitles>
	<Type></Type>
</Item>

 thoughts ? ideas ? questions ?

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Tolerant

I am having an issue with local metadata not taking precedence wasn't sure if i should start a new thread.

 

I see this issue because of "American Dad!"

background

IMDB and thetvdb and the torrent community diagree on the season numbering scheme

 

IMDB and the torrent community agree that current season is 9 , thetvdb and few others agree that it is currently season 10

 

the divergence happens @ season 1 where imdb and torrenters think there is 23 and tvdb thinks 7.

 

for auto-downloading and auto-naming to work, IMDB's metadata must be followed. Since MediaBrowser cannot do this I have MediaCenterMaster (which auto-downloaded the show) to fetch metadata forced from IMDB.

 

This metadata is copied with the TV show over to my TV folder upon completion. 

 

\TV\American Dad!\Season 9\

 - American Dad!.S09E01.Steve and Snot's Test-Tubular Adventure.mp4

\TV\American Dad!\Season 9\metadata\

 - American Dad!.S09E01.Steve and Snot's Test-Tubular Adventure.xml

 

In mediabrowser server, classic and android, it tells me that the episode name is " Love, A.D. Style " which is the s9e1 on thetvdb (not what is in my local metadata)

 

 thoughts ? ideas ? questions ?

 

Thought:

I watch Bar Rescue, Scene thinks its Season 4 but its only Season 3 which is reflected on thetvdb.com among others. It is nice that we can pick our fetcher in MCM but it does require my renumbering episodes before I fetch from thetvdb.com for this and a couple other series. It was a hope eventually there would be a process to auto-change incoming episodes up/down in number to match what we think they should be but it has not happened. I find TVRage and TheTVDB to be more accurate (when people don't go messing around) with what a series/episode really is. SO I guess that makes me wonder is there no way to set which fetcher's we pull this info from on a series basis like MCM (and if not, maybe eventually)? I am still new to MB3 so there are so many questions I have yet to even discover.

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The Tvdb is the only TV Series metadata source we currently use.  However, the framework for adding others is there and would be quite easy - as long as they are publicly available, API-based, free sources.

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trusselo

well i seemed to have fixed the issue with your help.

 

In Media Browser Metadata editor, i went to 'American Dad!',

deleted the non-existent Season 10 and the un-aired Season 9 episodes (all incorrectly named anyway)

Went back up to "American Dad" @ show level, and "Locked the item to prevent future changes". (whole show)

Saved

Clicked Refresh.

 

BAM. ALL episodes and seasons, show my local metadata.

 

seems that option: "Locked the item to prevent future changes" is misleading with the future part, should read "lock item to prevent online information from being applied and taking precedence over local metadata"

Edited by trusselo
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trusselo

The Tvdb is the only TV Series metadata source we currently use.  However, the framework for adding others is there and would be quite easy - as long as they are publicly available, API-based, free sources.

but what happened to "local metadata is king?" or was that images only? (make sure to read my post above regarding American Dad!)

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but what happened to "local metadata is king?" or was that images only? (make sure to read my post above regarding American Dad!)

 

It is, but if we're talking about mcm then this is potentially related

 

http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/5957-save-artwork-and-metadata-within-media-folders-pros-cons-and-questions/?p=89078

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