One File in Two Libraries

[BruceDavid 3]

Hi,

I am using Emby on Win 10. I have several libraries created. One of which is Movies which uses as a content type, "Movies." Another is Music Videos which uses as a content type "Mixed Content."

I have a directory on my computer called "Movies" and the content from there is showing-up nicely in the Movies library.

I have another directory on the computer called "Music Videos" and the content from there is showing-up nicely in the "Music Videos" library. This content is mostly short form music videos.

But, there is some content that I would like to have in both libraries. This would typically be music movies such as "The Last Waltz," "Let It Be, " Stop Making Sense," etc.

I know that I can have a library pull content from multiple directories so i created a new directory on my computer called "Music Movies" and put the music movies in that directory and set each of the "Movies" and "Music Video" libraries to pull content from that directory.

That is working fine with one caveat. The content from the Music Videos directory and from the Music Movies directory, while both in the same "Music Video" library, are in separate directories.

For example, in the Music Videos directory on the PC, I have a directory called Beatles and in that directory I have a number of short-form music videos. In the Music Video library on Emby, I have a directory called Beatles and the short-form Beatles videos are in there. But, "Let It Be" which is in the "Music Movies" directory on my PC, while in the Music Videos library on Emby, is not in the Beatles directory in the Music Videos library.

Ideally, the Music Videos library would be arranged by artist, with each artist having its own directory and in that directory would be all of the videos related to that artist, both short-form and movies. The issue that I face is that I don't know how to do that while at the same time having the music movies ("Let It Be" in this example) also show-up in the Emby Movies library.

Is it possible to achieve what I want (which, to put it succinctly, is have a single video file (rather than a directory) populate two libraries)? If so, how?

Thanks, I appreciate the help.

Best,

Bruce

[Abobader 2941]

Hello BruceDavid,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[GrimReaper 3266]

17 minutes ago, BruceDavid said:

Hi,

I am using Emby on Win 10. I have several libraries created. One of which is Movies which uses as a content type, "Movies." Another is Music Videos which uses as a content type "Mixed Content."

I have a directory on my computer called "Movies" and the content from there is showing-up nicely in the Movies library.

I have another directory on the computer called "Music Videos" and the content from there is showing-up nicely in the "Music Videos" library. This content is mostly short form music videos.

But, there is some content that I would like to have in both libraries. This would typically be music movies such as "The Last Waltz," "Let It Be, " Stop Making Sense," etc.

I know that I can have a library pull content from multiple directories so i created a new directory on my computer called "Music Movies" and put the music movies in that directory and set each of the "Movies" and "Music Video" libraries to pull content from that directory.

That is working fine with one caveat. The content from the Music Videos directory and from the Music Movies directory, while both in the same "Music Video" library, are in separate directories.

For example, in the Music Videos directory on the PC, I have a directory called Beatles and in that directory I have a number of short-form music videos. In the Music Video library on Emby, I have a directory called Beatles and the short-form Beatles videos are in there. But, "Let It Be" which is in the "Music Movies" directory on my PC, while in the Music Videos library on Emby, is not in the Beatles directory in the Music Videos library.

Ideally, the Music Videos library would be arranged by artist, with each artist having its own directory and in that directory would be all of the videos related to that artist, both short-form and movies. The issue that I face is that I don't know how to do that while at the same time having the music movies ("Let It Be" in this example) also show-up in the Emby Movies library.

Is it possible to achieve what I want (which, to put it succinctly, is have a single video file (rather than a directory) populate two libraries)? If so, how?

Thanks, I appreciate the help.

Best,

Bruce

In your folder structure, where is your Music Movies folder located? Is it nested in any of those two folders? In theory, what you're trying to achieve is possible as long as your Library paths include same-level folders, no nested ones. 

[BruceDavid 3]

Hi,

The paths are as follows:

F:\Video\Movies

F:\Video\Music Movies

F:\Video\Music Videos

Should I arrange them differently to achieve my goal?

Thanks.

Best,

Bruce

[GrimReaper 3266]

Just now, BruceDavid said:

Hi,

The paths are as follows:

F:\Video\Movies

F:\Video\Music Movies

F:\Video\Music Videos

Should I arrange them differently to achieve my goal?

Thanks.

Best,

Bruce

No, those paths are okay. Upon re-reading (and re-reading... and re-reading) your post (and it took me a little to wrap my mind around it ), I'm still not sure whether I got it right: does Let it be show in your Music Video library at all, in main Library view? 

[Luke 36997]

How many emby libraries have you created, and what folder paths did you add to each one?

[BruceDavid 3]

Yeah, I know it's a bit confusing : )

So, to try to make it clearer:

PC DIRECTORY                                                  EMBY LIBRARY

Movies -----------------------------------------------------------Movies

Music Videos ------------------------------------------------Music Videos

Music Movies -----------------------------------------------Movies and Music Videos

But, I want to organize the Library, "Music Videos" by artist, that is, separate directories, for Beatles, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, etc. and have all of the videos for the artist under the artist's directory.

The issue that I have, using the Beatles as an example, is the following:

In the Music Videos PC directory I have a directory called Beatles and in it are a number of short-form Beatles videos. They show-up in a Beatles directory in my Emby Music Videos library. This is good.

in the Movies Movies PC directory I have "Let It Be". This way, it shows-up in my Emby Movies library (also good) and also in the Emby Music Video library (sort of good). The problem is, Let It Be, while showing-up in my Emby Music Video library, does NOT show-up in the Beatles directory of that library.

I'm trying to figure out how, using the above example, to get Let It Be in the Beatles directory of the Emby Music Video library while also having it show-up (as it does) in the Emby Movies library.

Thanks to all for the help.

Best,

Bruce

 

[GrimReaper 3266]

Oh, I think I finally understand what are you trying to achieve, and the solution I THINK might work (but will require some manual labor), someone will correct me if I'm wrong:

1) Remove Music Movies path from your Music Video library

2) Either move all movies from there to your Movies folder or leave it as it is, if you like to keep them separated

3) For each music movie, make a strm file

4) Place those strm files inside respective artist folders in your Music Videos folder

5) Rescan

[GrimReaper 3266]

4 minutes ago, BruceDavid said:

The problem is, Let It Be, while showing-up in my Emby Music Video library, does NOT show-up in the Beatles directory of that library.

Because that is just a representation of your actual folder contents. You cannot get Let it be to show there unless being ACTUALLY present (or making Emby 'think' it is present) in Beatles folder. Hence strm files. 

[BruceDavid 3]

Got it (I think), thanks.

I am not familiar with strm files but looking around a bit, it seems that it is basically what Windows would call a shortcut (which is what I was trying to figure out how to use).

The instructions that I see for strm files talks about having a URL in the file. I assume that rather than a URL I would have the full directory path (all files are on the same PC). Is that correct.

Again, many thanks for the help.

[GrimReaper 3266]

5 minutes ago, BruceDavid said:

Got it (I think), thanks.

I am not familiar with strm files but looking around a bit, it seems that it is basically what Windows would call a shortcut (which is what I was trying to figure out how to use).

The instructions that I see for strm files talks about having a URL in the file. I assume that rather than a URL I would have the full directory path (all files are on the same PC). Is that correct.

Again, many thanks for the help.

Exactly, plain text file with full path to your movie. Once inserted, rename it to moviename (year).strm.

Edit:

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159147

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by GrimReaper76
Link

[BruceDavid 3]

Ok, I tried it with mixed success.

For a film that is just a film (Let It Be) where the strm file references an mp4 file, it works great.

But, for a film that has extras and is part of a directory, not so good. 

For example, the Grateful Dead Movie has the following structure:

f:\video\music movies\grateful dead movie\grateful dead movie.mp4 and

f:\video\music movies\grateful dead movie has a subdirectory called Extras with various mp4 files in it.

I created a strm file the contents of which is F:\Video\Music Movies\Grateful Dead Movie and placed that in the Grateful Dead folder in the Music Videos Emby library.

I rescanned.

When go into the Grateful Dead folder in the Music Video library on Emby, I see the Grateful Dead movie artwork and when I click on that I am taken to a details page for the film. But, the extras are not displayed (they are when I go to the movie details page in Music Videos, outside of the Grateful Dead directory which is not using the strm file) and when I try to play the video, I get an error message that says "No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details." Again, when I go to the movie page outside of the Grateful Dead directory (which does not use a strm file), the movie plays.

Is there a way that I can use strm files for movie directories?

Thanks.

[GrimReaper 3266]

1 minute ago, BruceDavid said:

Ok, I tried it with mixed success.

For a film that is just a film (Let It Be) where the strm file references an mp4 file, it works great.

But, for a film that has extras and is part of a directory, not so good. 

For example, the Grateful Dead Movie has the following structure:

f:\video\music movies\grateful dead movie\grateful dead movie.mp4 and

f:\video\music movies\grateful dead movie has a subdirectory called Extras with various mp4 files in it.

I created a strm file the contents of which is F:\Video\Music Movies\Grateful Dead Movie and placed that in the Grateful Dead folder in the Music Videos Emby library.

I rescanned.

When go into the Grateful Dead folder in the Music Video library on Emby, I see the Grateful Dead movie artwork and when I click on that I am taken to a details page for the film. But, the extras are not displayed (they are when I go to the movie details page in Music Videos, outside of the Grateful Dead directory which is not using the strm file) and when I try to play the video, I get an error message that says "No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details." Again, when I go to the movie page outside of the Grateful Dead directory (which does not use a strm file), the movie plays.

Is there a way that I can use strm files for movie directories?

Thanks.

No, individual files only. You can try recreating same folder structure and then strm all files inside. And how come you have that movie in your Music Videos library still? Did you not remove Music Movies path in your Music Videos library? 

[BruceDavid 3]

Thanks. I'll recreate the structure using strm files.

As to the structure, I haven't revised it yet, was just checking out strms as I had not used them before.

Thanks for all the help and the fast responses, I really appreciate it.

[GrimReaper 3266]

7 minutes ago, BruceDavid said:

Thanks. I'll recreate the structure using strm files.

As to the structure, I haven't revised it yet, was just checking out strms as I had not used them before.

Thanks for all the help and the fast responses, I really appreciate it.

Do tell us how it went.

[BruceDavid 3]

Will do.

[GrimReaper 3266]

36 minutes ago, BruceDavid said:

Will do.

Revisiting this, not sure if you understood me correctly as it was a bit ambiguously typed: by "recreating folder structure" I was addressing those movies that have them, so making a \grateful dead movie\ folder and its \extras\ subfolder inside your \music videos\grateful dead\ subfolder, and strm all files inside, both movie and extras in their respective folder. 

[BruceDavid 3]

Yes, that is how I understood it, many thanks!

[BruceDavid 3]

Just to let everyone know, I used the STRM function as set forth above to re-create the film/extra functionality and it worked perfectly.

Many thanks for all the help!