V4 meta-data question

[MidnightInAurora]

Will the upcoming V4 handle years in movies and shows?

For example -

The Americans and The Americans (2013), The Outer Limits and The Outer Limits (1995) and my personal hot-button, irritating problem - Doctor Who and Doctor Who (2005).

Also, in movies -

1984 (1984) or 2012 (2012).

Would also need to handle trailing articles in both shows and movies - Americans (2013), The

A quick check shows 98% of registered Serbian voters want you to fix this.

Jim

[Paul]

Hi Jim,

We'll check that out. To help us understand in detail, tell us what Mezzmo v3.4.4.0 is doing (wrong) and what Mezzmo v4.0 should be doing (right). Give us some of your file path examples to try here.

[MidnightInAurora]

Will do.

Here's something I did discover when looking at why shows weren't being retrieved correctly. It looks like the year (if there is one), is not being passed.

I have a folder named "Americans (2013), The" with one file named "The Americans (2013) - 1x01 'Pilot'.mkv

Auto meta-data retrieval doesn't find data for it. However, when I manually get meta-data, the filename shows just "The Americans." If I append 2013 at the end and search, it does find it.

Same with Doctor Who. Folder name Doctor Who (2005) and the auto process retrieves the wrong series (the 1960s one). The manual process also shows just "Doctor Who." However, if I append 2005 and search, it retrieves the correct series.

So maybe a regular expression to test for "(nnnn)." Extract the number and use it for the year.

Make it a Mezzmo rule - if you need year specificity, the format is "(nnnn)" or forget it.

I'll check on movies in a few minutes.

Jim

[MidnightInAurora]

One more thing on shows. I'm not sure anything inside parens is being passed.

I have "Life On Mars" and "Life On Mars (US)". Both appear that way in TVDB, but the auto meta search returns "Life On Mars" when attempting to get meta for "Life On Mars (US)." The manual meta search shows "Life On Mars" in the filename. Appending "(US)" to the filename and searching returns the correct series. Mezzmo is dropping data surrounded by parens before it's passed for meta retrieval and I believe that's incorrect.

Movies - I'm not sure how to explain what's going on with this, other than to say I don't think year is being checked even though in some cases it's being passed.

I have a folder "1984 (1984)" with a file named 1984 (1984).mkv. The meta being returned manually for both "1984 (1984)" and "1984 1984" is for some Japanese movie made in 1984. I've tried manual search with "1984" and it does return meta for the movie 1984, but for the 1954 version.

I tested two other movies, "Flight Of the Phoenix (1965)" and "Flight of the Phoenix (2004)." The Flight of the Phoenix 1965 movie returns meta for the 2004 movie.

Jim

[Paul]

Thanks, Jim. We'll check these out in the upcoming Mezzmo v4.0.

[Paul]

Update: We have fixed these issues for the upcoming Mezzmo v4.0.

[MidnightInAurora]

That's great.

I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Thanks.

Jim

[jbinkley60]

Speaking of metadata we had spoken before about two additional features user defined fields and the ability to strip leading words off of titles for smart playlists. The user defined fields would be used for smart playlists driven from our own database tags (like my favorites, my wife's favorites etc..) and striping off leading words like "A". "The", "An" etc.. for rolodex smart playlists and not having all the titles which begin with "The" show up under T. From the feature list it looks like you included the second one in v4.0 . I can't tall on user defined fields. Can you confirm or not on both features ?

[Paul]

Both are confirmed.

Sort title has been added. You can also set your own sort title keywords (The, A, An, Der, Das, Die, etc.). So a movie like "The Lego Movie" will have a Title of "The Lego Movie" and a Sort title of "Lego Movie, The". This additional metadata field lets you sort on it for your smart playlists, etc.

We have added quite a few other metadata fields - including one called Keywords to meet the needs you mention. You can add any terms you like into Keywords and use them for filtering your smart playlists, etc.

[jbinkley60]

Both are confirmed.

Sort title has been added. You can also set your own sort title keywords (The, A, An, Der, Das, Die, etc.). So a movie like "The Lego Movie" will have a Title of "The Lego Movie" and a Sort title of "Lego Movie, The". This additional metadata field lets you sort on it for your smart playlists, etc.

We have added quite a few other metadata fields - including one called Keywords to meet the needs you mention. You can add any terms you like into Keywords and use them for filtering your smart playlists, etc.

Excellent news on both counts. Looking forward to the features.

[smitbret]

Both are confirmed.

Sort title has been added. You can also set your own sort title keywords (The, A, An, Der, Das, Die, etc.). So a movie like "The Lego Movie" will have a Title of "The Lego Movie" and a Sort title of "Lego Movie, The". This additional metadata field lets you sort on it for your smart playlists, etc.

We have added quite a few other metadata fields - including one called Keywords to meet the needs you mention. You can add any terms you like into Keywords and use them for filtering your smart playlists, etc.

I am assuming this only works if you are letting Mezzmo populate the metadata, but not if Mezzmo is populating from an .nfo or .xml file that already has an entry in the <Sort Title> field?

[Peter]

The sort title should be populated from the Metadata Retrieval Settings on the 'Other' tab, the values here are used to create the sort title.

[smitbret]

The sort title should be populated from the Metadata Retrieval Settings on the 'Other' tab, the values here are used to create the sort title.

I think I am dense. I am not understanding the "Sort Title Keywords". Are these words supposed to be ignored when creating playlists?

[Peter]

The sort title keywords are used to trim the title when creating the sort title field, so the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' would become 'Beautiful Mind, A' and would be listed under B. http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=using_sort_titles&s[]=sort&s[]=title for more information.

[smitbret]

The sort title keywords are used to trim the title when creating the sort title field, so the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' would become 'Beautiful Mind, A' and would be listed under B. http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=using_sort_titles&s[]=sort&s[]=title for more information.

OK, that's what I thought. I guess my confusion occurs because Mezzmo doesn't seem to be consistently trimming them off. This only pertains to the <Sort Title> field, right?

Yep, I just checked. I have an active playlist that should be sorting the movies Rolodex style by Sort Title but I have several dozen movies in the 'T' folder like 'The Bourne Ultimatum' or 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'. I checked the Sort Titles and they are populated and correct but Mezzmo isn't ignoring "The".

I have changed the .nfo file to have the updated <sort title> (i.e. "Bourne Collection03, The") and run the "Update All Attributes" but that takes me to the next issue I have been having and that is Mezzmo usually stalling when updating the library. It usually takes 2 or 3 attempts of running an update, noticing the update install after several hours, using the Task Manager to close Mezzmo, then reopening Mezzmo and running another update. It is also next to impossible to update the Metadata Fields for any single item. You can go into the item and make the change but clicking 'OK' usually hangs Mezzmo.

[Peter]

An active playlist only lists the items by sort title when the sort order is set to 'Sort Title (Ascending)' or 'Sort Title (Descending)', try changing the sort order and this should list the item 'The Bourne Ultimatum' under 'b'.

For the issues where Mezzmo is hanging can you please go to the Windows Task Manager when this occurs and right-click on the Mezzmo.exe process and select to create a dump file then add it to a zip and send it to support [at] conceiva [dot] com so we can investigate to see what is locking up Mezzmo. If you are using Windows 64bit you will need to run the task manager from the c:\Windows\sysWOW64\taskmgr.exe folder so that it creates a 32bit dump file.

[smitbret]

An active playlist only lists the items by sort title when the sort order is set to 'Sort Title (Ascending)' or 'Sort Title (Descending)', try changing the sort order and this should list the item 'The Bourne Ultimatum' under 'b'.


Edit.......

[smitbret]

An active playlist only lists the items by sort title when the sort order is set to 'Sort Title (Ascending)' or 'Sort Title (Descending)', try changing the sort order and this should list the item 'The Bourne Ultimatum' under 'b'.

For the issues where Mezzmo is hanging can you please go to the Windows Task Manager when this occurs and right-click on the Mezzmo.exe process and select to create a dump file then add it to a zip and send it to support [at] conceiva [dot] com so we can investigate to see what is locking up Mezzmo. If you are using Windows 64bit you will need to run the task manager from the c:\Windows\sysWOW64\taskmgr.exe folder so that it creates a 32bit dump file.

My library has been giving me fits for a couple of years now with the random lock ups, etc. So, I cleared it out and started out fresh with a new organization yesterday. The new library is running pretty smoothly but I haven't added any audio files, yet.

Anyway, I have been messing with the <Sort Title> on my active playlists and it is strange. When I sort by <Title>, everything with "the", "a" or "an" shows up in the t's or a's as you would explain (per this post).

When I change the active playlists to sort by <sort title> everything that has an empty <sort title> field in the metadata disappears from the Active Playlist completely. Is this normal? I guess logically it might be. Everything with a, an or the is still showing up in the a's and t's like the <Title> sort. What am I missing here?

[Peter]

The active playlist has a rule that sort title must not be empty, so if a file has an empty sort title it will not be shown. Mezzmo should set a sort title for every file even if it does not have 'the', 'a' or 'an'.

[smitbret]

The active playlist has a rule that sort title must not be empty, so if a file has an empty sort title it will not be shown. Mezzmo should set a sort title for every file even if it does not have 'the', 'a' or 'an'.

Still can't get the sorting correct. I have gone through part of my library (A-F) and made sure that there is a <Sort Title> in the metadata of each title. Then I re-ran the <Maintain Library>, over writing all attributes. Still getting everything that starts with "A" or "An" showing up in the A's. Here is a screenshot showing this as well as how my Active Playlist is setup:

http://imgur.com/hCPfCPc

I have no doubt there is something I am doing wrong here, but what that is, I don't know.

[Peter]

There is currently a bug in 5.0.5.0 where if you change from sort title to just title sorting or from title to sort title sorting the rule for title sorting is left behind so sorting by sort title will not work correctly. If you create a new active playlist and set the sorting to 'Sort Title (Ascending)' it should have the correct sorting.

[smitbret]

There is currently a bug in 5.0.5.0 where if you change from sort title to just title sorting or from title to sort title sorting the rule for title sorting is left behind so sorting by sort title will not work correctly. If you create a new active playlist and set the sorting to 'Sort Title (Ascending)' it should have the correct sorting.

<Sad Face> No good. I deleted the Active Playlist and built a new one with <Sort Title Ascending> as the sort option and it didn't make any difference.

[Peter]

Can you please add your Mezzmo.db to a zip and upload it to a share site then send us a download link to support [at] conceiva [dot] com so we can investigate the issue?

[smitbret]

Can you please add your Mezzmo.db to a zip and upload it to a share site then send us a download link to support [at] conceiva [dot] com so we can investigate the issue?

Should I upgrade to v5.1 first or leave it at v5.0.5?

[Paul]

Should I upgrade to v5.1 first or leave it at v5.0.5?

Either way is fine :).