How important is Meta Data to Movies / TV Series?

[Lighthammer 91]

For reasons of unknowingness, I never realized I could quickly update the meta data on Movies / TV Series ALSO with programs like MP3Tag (I found this out sheerly by accident).

Media Browser seems mostly pretty good at figuring out TV series and Movies based on my naming convention, but there's always those movies it thinks are something else that I have to manually change.

When I started following a strict convention on meta data with my music collection, it became night and day how easily Media Browser dealt with these items.

Does Media Browser consider meta data for Movies / TV Series? 

Also, is there anyway within naming conventions and meta data I could name movies / series that are problematic that Media Browser would instantly realize what its proper IMDB entry relates to?

For instance: could I name a movie 'Star Trek (2009) tt0796366.mp4' or add the IMDB entry in as a comment in the meta data to have it figure out the movie more easily in cases there are problems?

[ebr 16185]

Star Trek (2009) [imdbid=tt0796366]

 

should work.  But isn't it easier to just use the identify function in the metadata manager?  You can even go to Reports and filter by "Unidentified" and very quickly fix whatever needs fixing.

[Lighthammer 91]

It's not wholly about cleaning the media on my own server, it's about transportability. 

As you know from my other thread, I just completely reinstalled MB and making an effort to make sure my media is more easily identifiable  when its dropped on another media browser server. I basically manage mine and my parents, but eventually I'm going to rebuild mine from scratch. 

Better methods for ensuring data is properly parsed with minimal interaction are always best practices, wouldn't you agree ? ^^

[Luke 42080]

if you save metadata within media folders then ebr's suggestion of using the metadata manager will give you that. the appropriate id's will be written to the nfo files and if you move them to another MBS they'll be utililzed

[Lighthammer 91]

When I am talking about metadata locations, I'm actually referring to using a program like MP3tag and saving the metadata within the file instead of in a separate NFO file.

Media Browser, of course, uses this where music is concerned, but what about movies or TV series?

Also, how practical would be to allow media browser to identify media based on the comment line in the metadata in this case (or is Media Browser capable of this already)?

BTW, if I haven't said so recently, I always appreciate the work you guys do. You're always on the ball and its always a pleasure working with yo two.

[Vicpa 611]

Hi,

 

I have the same question Does or can MBS read metadata tags for Movies / TV Series? Like Lighthammer I like portability and started to add metadata tags to mp4's and mkv's. I use MetaX. and MCEBuddy which add embedded tags. I would think it would make things much easier for things like "auto organize" and help mitigate the nightmare of endless file naming convention support.

 

Thanks 
 

[Lighthammer 91]

That last point is actually a rather good point. I've been involved in a lot of discussion regarding naming conventions on this site over the last year and the truism is no more how "standard" something is in terms of naming conventions, it seems as though almost everyone is going to have a slight variation on it.

Heck, I'm a good example of this, I use a pretty standard naming convention save the fact I like years of release on almost everything. I've found a good middle ground on this using the square brackets but I'm sure most people who see my media would have the kneejerk reaction "Why the heck are you using those and not rounded brackets?", because, flowing with what I said above, even though square brackets is known by many conventions to be regarded as 'ignore what's inside', that's not true with all or even most. Many other sources use the triangle brackets for this function. 

The idea of using meta data as the base line test method sounds pretty good. It would probably be even better if it was as common of a practice for videos as it is for MP3s.

[Vicpa 611]

Hi

For example here is the probe for TV provided by MCEBuddy.

 

C:\windows\system32>C:\Users\xxxxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\MediaBrowser-Server\ffmpeg\2
0150110\ffprobe.exe -i file:"E:\Recorded TV\Elementary\Season 3\S03E10 Elementar
y - Seed Money.mp4" -threads 0 -v info -print_format json -show_streams -show_ch
apters -show_format
ffprobe version N-68994-g4df01d5 Copyright © 2007-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jan  9 2015 22:13:35 with gcc 4.9.2 (GCC)

  libavutil      54. 16.100 / 54. 16.100
  libavcodec     56. 20.100 / 56. 20.100
  libavformat    56. 18.100 / 56. 18.100
  libavdevice    56.  3.100 / 56.  3.100
  libavfilter     5.  7.100 /  5.  7.100
  libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
{
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 00000000043e5b00] stream 0, timescale not set
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'file:E:\Recorded TV\Elementary\Season 3
\S03E10 Elementary - Seed Money.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : MCEBuddy
    title           : S3E10 - Seed Money
    show            : Elementary
    media_type      : 10
    episode_id      : Seed Money
    season_number   : 3
    episode_sort    : 10
    network         : KYWDT (KYW-DT)
    genre           : Drama
    date            : 2015-01-15T00:00:00Z
    description     : As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock and Wats
on investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decision that
 she fears will impact Sherlock negatively.
    synopsis        : As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock and Wats
on investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decision that
 she fears will impact Sherlock negatively.
    comment         : As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock and Wats
on investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decision that
 she fears will impact Sherlock negatively.
  Duration: 00:42:59.59, start: 0.028000, bitrate: 1775 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709)
, 720x398 [sAR 1592:1593 DAR 320:177], 1385 kb/s, 29.91 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn,
 59.94 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: ac3 (ac-3 / 0x332D6361), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp,
 384 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Surround
    Stream #0:2: Video: mjpeg, yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 680x1000,
90k tbr, 90k tbn, 90k tbc
    "streams": [---------------------------------------------
    info deleted for brevity.......

    ],-------------------------------------------------------------
    "format": {
        "filename": "file:E:\\Recorded TV\\Elementary\\Season 3\\S03E10 Elementa
ry - Seed Money.mp4",
        "nb_streams": 3,
        "nb_programs": 0,
        "format_name": "mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2",
        "format_long_name": "QuickTime / MOV",
        "start_time": "0.028000",
        "duration": "2579.588000",
        "size": "572492920",
        "bit_rate": "1775455",
        "probe_score": 100,
        "tags": {
            "major_brand": "mp42",
            "minor_version": "512",
            "compatible_brands": "isomiso2avc1mp41",
            "encoder": "MCEBuddy",
            "title": "S3E10 - Seed Money",
            "show": "Elementary",
            "media_type": "10",
            "episode_id": "Seed Money",
            "season_number": "3",
            "episode_sort": "10",
            "network": "KYWDT (KYW-DT)",
            "genre": "Drama",
            "date": "2015-01-15T00:00:00Z",
            "description": "As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock an
d Watson investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decisio
n that she fears will impact Sherlock negatively.",
            "synopsis": "As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock and W
atson investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decision t
hat she fears will impact Sherlock negatively.",
            "comment": "As Kitty searches for a teenage runaway, Sherlock and Wa
tson investigate the murder of a brilliant bioengineer; Joan makes a decision th
at she fears will impact Sherlock negatively."
        }
    }
}

 

Thanks.

[Lighthammer 91]

You know, here's another related thought:

To the best of my knowledge, MB doesn't currently update meta data, though I think this should be possible.

To allow for a uniform approach, couldn't the ability to fill in movie metadata on the file itself be implemented?

Moreover, similar to how series can be auto-organized, it might not be a bad idea to do the same for movies, allowing them to be moved into collections and renamed to match the IMDB entries if a couple of customization available.

I'd personally like to ensure the release years are tacted on in a meaingful way and though I don't do it personally (as all my files are encoded in the same quality) a lot of people *DO* like to tack on the files video and audio quality as well as its localization. 

[Deathsquirrel 745]

I definitely would not want MB editing ID3 tags in my media content.  Excellent way to corrupt files so no thanks.  Write metadata to easily replaced text files OUTSIDE my media files.  Certainly don't make it a default.

[Vicpa 611]

Hi,

I agree, having MBS write tags is beyond the scope. There are plenty of options available if people so choose. But reading tags if they are there is something to consider

[Lighthammer 91]

Is auto-organize outside the scope of Media Server? Because, well, certainly everyone knows that option exists for Media Browser.

I don't personally use this feature, but I really like it exists and would love to see it expanded. To me, the true value of this feature is to create more uniformality of naming conventions throughout the community and to allow as much of an off-hands approach to keep everyone's media collection nice and clean. It also promotes the growth of contributions to sites like IMDB, TheTVdb, TheMoviedb and Musicbrainz. 

As far as file corruption goes --- I don't see this being a problem. Files are already uneditable while they're in use and a sort of precache system like NIYOW uses could easily be a good solution. 
 

Like TV Series auto-organize, I'd expect this system to initially be turned off or even perhaps be considered a premium feature done through an addon similar to how genre cleaner is now. I'd even suggest utilizing using an authorization system before renames are made be available too:

IE Before files are renamed / moved admins with access to the feature get a notification that auto-organiztion is ready and asks you to confirm the files it's ready to modify. This could be limited in scope by batch and media type with a quick option of "never organize this item" available.

In saying all this, I realize all of what I am proposing here is lofty consider the scope, size and other goals of the MB development team, but they're certainly great ideas to put on the "would be nice" list.