Overview: Libraries and media collections

A media library connects stored files to catalog entries, content relationships and user-specific playback state.

Files on disk and items in a library are related views of a collection. A catalog adds identities, series and album relationships, editions and other organization that a directory listing alone does not provide.

This area explains those models for movies, television, music, books and personal media. Scanning topics describe how the server observes and analyzes sources; history topics describe state that belongs to individual users. The distinction helps when a file is found under the wrong title, two versions appear separately, or a rescan is expected to recover more than the source can supply.

• Library concepts
  Library concepts describe how a catalogue identifies, groups and presents media independently of its physical file layout.

• Movies and related videos
  Movie organization relates editions, alternate files, franchises and supplementary videos to the intended catalogue item.

• Television and episodic media
  Television library structure connects series, seasons, episode identities and the files representing them.

• Music libraries
  Music library models connect works, recorded performances, releases, credits and associated media.

• Books and spoken audio
  Book and spoken-audio libraries organize long-form works through editions, parts and navigable reading or listening structures.

• Personal media
  Personal media organization attaches useful catalogue context to home videos and photographs.

• Playback history
  Playback history records user-specific observations and state across media items and sessions.

• Library scanning and media analysis
  Library scanning observes accessible sources and updates the catalogue through discovery and media analysis.