mVids - Music Video Database (1 Viewer)

[jburnette]

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Hopefully the Smilies say it all (I normally think they're silly but I'm so pleased I don't care!)
I've just tested this latest with my girlfriend who speaks no English but within 2 minutes she found her way around easily.
She's been at it for over an hour and nothing is broken so it looks like you've just made another friend.

Jim & Seng
Quick PS - Some of the vids are ripped from old vcds (.mpg) and it's these that have only sound, no video. Which setting in the MP config screen will I need to tweak?
PPS I'm keeping a notebook of my MP installation with the idea of offering it for download - not so much an idiots guide, more a non-technical installation/configuration handbook for people like me with very little or no technical background. I'll be sure to say nice things about you.

Thanks for the kind words. Great to hear it's working for you now and the girlfriend now. I try to design everything in such a way that my wife can navigate without having to ask questions. Thanks for helping me hunt down those bugs too.

For your old mpg videos, I'd make sure I had a filter that coould decode mpeg-1 since that's possibly what you're dealing with (as opposed to mpeg-2 which is what most live TV is encoded in). If you're using ffdshow, make sure you've got that format set to decode with libavcodec. I may be way off on this, but I'd say that's close to what you're problem is. You could use something like gspot ( http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/GSpot270a.zip ) to check what type of compression is used for the specific file in question.

I having trouble getting mvids to see my videos. I keep getting "found 0 files" when I update the database. All of my videos are in DVD format using the standard DVD structure. I have a directory called "My Music Videos" that contains a directory for each video called "<artist> - <title>". For example, the files for the video Back in Black by ACDC are:

My Music Videos\ACDC - Back in Black\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.BUP
My Music Videos\ACDC - Back in Black\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO
My Music Videos\ACDC - Back in Black\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_0.BUP
My Music Videos\ACDC - Back in Black\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_0.IFO
My Music Videos\ACDC - Back in Black\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB

Will the plugin work with videos in this format or do I need to convert them to a single file format like mpg or mkv? If it will work like this, can someone help me out with setting up the path and mask?

Thanks

Raw DVD structures are the next thing on my todo list. They are not supported right now, but will be in the next version (which certainly won't take 4 months like the last one). This will also include an expansion of the folder masking system to recognize structures like yours.

You could make it work the way it is right now, but you'd have to make a few changes. You could put an info.txt file in the video_ts directory with artist=acdc and then rename your vob to Back in Black.vob. This would of course break the standard DVD structure, but would cause the scanner to add the video correctly. Or you could drop the Video_TS folder completely and rename the vob to acdc-back in black.vob. Obviously that's not the ideal solution, but it's the only way I know of that it would work right now.

 

[pilehave]

Tested successfully in MediaStream skin - tweaked a bit and now included in the skin-pack I upload tomorrow

Thanks to jburnette for making it so easy to test, with the supplied test-database, and a nice explanation of the fields in the database!

 

[gamestar]

Raw DVD structures are the next thing on my todo list. They are not supported right now, but will be in the next version (which certainly won't take 4 months like the last one). This will also include an expansion of the folder masking system to recognize structures like yours.

You could make it work the way it is right now, but you'd have to make a few changes. You could put an info.txt file in the video_ts directory with artist=acdc and then rename your vob to Back in Black.vob. This would of course break the standard DVD structure, but would cause the scanner to add the video correctly. Or you could drop the Video_TS folder completely and rename the vob to acdc-back in black.vob. Obviously that's not the ideal solution, but it's the only way I know of that it would work right now.

OK, Thanks for the reply and all of your work on this plugin. I may play around with a few files just to get it running and check it out but I'll be anxiously awaiting your next update. No pressure, though.

 

[jburnette]

Tested successfully in MediaStream skin - tweaked a bit and now included in the skin-pack I upload tomorrow

Good to hear it since that's the skin I use.

Also thanks for the feedback on the skinning doc, was hoping I made it understandable enough.

OK, Thanks for the reply and all of your work on this plugin. I may play around with a few files just to get it running and check it out but I'll be anxiously awaiting your next update. No pressure, though.

Haha, well as long as you test the functionality out for me it shouldn't be too long.

 

[metalla_nz]

Im having trouble with the random function in 0.2. When i click random in 0.1 i get a dialog asking for random all artist genre, etc. But now everything just kinda dissapears.

Any ideas?

 

[p13man]

Will the plugin work with videos in this format or do I need to convert them to a single file format like mpg or mkv? If it will work like this, can someone help me out with setting up the path and mask?

It is designed to parse each file seeking two items of info: the name of the artist and the title of the song. I've found the most effective way is to name the files "artist - song title.ext". So sacrifice by Elton John would have the filename "Elton John - Sacrifice.mp4". The plugin treats the first hyphen " - " as a delimiter so whatever comes before the hyphen it assumes is the artist's name snd what comes after the hyphen as the song title. You can have spaces in the filename or not, as you wish but it makes for easier reading if you do. Be sure that there is nothing other than the artists name before the hyphen and know that whatever follows the hyphen will be treated as the song title. You can add extra hyphens and other stuff after the song title if you want to, for your own purposes, mvids will ignore any further hyphens, so "Elton John - Sacrifice - DVD RIP - Live - 4 minutes 30 seconds - poor quality.avi" will be read as "Elton John- Sacrifice.avi" BUT it will read "Elton John - Live Concert - Sacrifice.avi" will lead it to read the artist correctly but it will treat the song as though it was called "Live Concert.avi"
The one problem people were having was that this structure needed you to have all your video files in one folder and with collections of over 100 that was unwieldly so the author has been tweaking it over the past week or so (this system starts with mvids_02.0). As things stand you can have a folder structure but you must inform the plugin what that structure is by using a mask. At the simplest level, then, you might put all videos by the same artist in their own folder e.g "root folder\artist\video file.extension". To use the example above that would be (say) "D:\Elton John\Sacrifice.avi". On the relevant page of the plugin configuration you will find a text box for you to tell it the root folder: "D:\" and below that is another text box for the mask, in our example that would be "%artist%/". You can use other tags if you wish, a useful one is to include the tag that last.fm uses for the artist - it saves you been quizzed by the plugin if it's got the artist right or not. The mask for that is "%last.fm%". So, for our example the structure you would use is "D:\Elton+John\sacrifice.avi" and the mask, "%last.fm%/". You can get as complicated as you want after that using whatever tags and folders you prefer. "D:\Classic Rock\Elton John\Elton+John\Elton John - Sacrifice.avi" and the mask, "%genre%\%artist%\%last.fm%\".
This is dragging on a bit I know but I'm just giving you the information I wish I had. Finally, if you don't like the idea of masks and arcanery, you can create a textfile with notepad which you must call "info.txt" and put that in the folder which contains the video. In the file you put the information you want mVids to know with each piece of data on a separate line. Example:

artist=Elton John
title=Sacrifice
last.fm=Elton+John

and then, it shouldn't matter what you call the file, EJSac.avi should work.

One final point, there's no need to have the.bup files and the .ifo or video_ts files present. I rip mine with DVD decrypter, split the DVD by chapters (which usually corresponds to a song) and rename the file changing the '.vob' extensions to '.mpeg'. There's no need to recode the file .vob is synonymous with .mpeg - it's just an mpeg 2 file with a sophisticated name. You wont get menus this way (which saves time anyway) but the video will plkay with the same quality as the original. I used to recode to DivX but hard drive space is so cheap, it's much faster to use a file renamer program. I've just done everything I've written here with over 700 videos and mvids recognised them all. It's a little miracle.

Good luck

jburnette wrote,

For your old mpg videos, I'd make sure I had a filter that coould decode mpeg-1 since that's possibly what you're dealing with (as opposed to mpeg-2 which is what most live TV is encoded in). If you're using ffdshow, make sure you've got that format set to decode with libavcodec. I may be way off on this, but I'd say that's close to what you're problem is. You could use something like gspot ( http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/GSpot270a.zip ) to check what type of compression is used for the specific file in question.

Yes, you're right, you can see what I do from my post above. ffdshow handles vob files which have been renamed .mpeg without error as does Intervideo decoder. FFdshow also works with mpg-1s also renamed to .mpeg but if you make a mistake and miss out the letter 'e' (i.e. 'mpg') it still renders the file but it plays upside down!

Thanks too to pilehave - what a great combination, MediaStream and mVids. I've tried every media center program I can find, Open Source and commercial, on windows and Linux and this is easily the prettiest, simplest and most unbreakable combination I've seen. Great work guys! I can't wait for the tweaked skin from pilehave tomorrow. Christmas is coming early this year!
Right now the only small annoyance is that I can't get mVids to appear in the myHome menu - I have to access it via myplugins but I'm starting to understand the xml structure and, anyway, it's no real hardship.
Does anyone know a quick way to rip these 250 or so DVDs that are sitting on my desk? Do you two geniuses know anything about robotics?

 

[jburnette]

Im having trouble with the random function in 0.2. When i click random in 0.1 i get a dialog asking for random all artist genre, etc. But now everything just kinda dissapears.

Any ideas?

Yeah, I kinda broke that and forgot to fix it

I'll be uploading 0.2 final to the repository tonight and that will be fixed.

 

[metalla_nz]

Ok. Cheers, am looking forward to the new release.

 

[metalla_nz]

New release yet?? Hanging out for random again....

 

[jburnette]

I've just uploaded 0.2 to the repository. Thanks to everyone for the feedback on the numerous beta builds you were kind enough to endure.

As for changes in this version - I really have no idea. A lot of stuff was added and changed so suffice it to say that it's just better than the first.

Since the file (as of right now) has not been verified, make sure the download page says 0.2 before downloading it or you'll just end up with the old version.