Consolidating multiple databases into one

Hello there,

This is the first time I am writing in this forum.

I've been hearing and reading a lot about Mezzmo and decided to give it a try.
I have installed a trial version on 3 different computers at my home and on each computer I have a few pre transcoded .MZT movie files.
Is there a way to consolidate or move the transcoded files from the three computers to the one that has the largest free hard drive space available?
This is not the same as merging folders, this would probably be similar to merging different databases to include pre transcoded files from different sources.

Is that possible? If so, how can this be done?

Thank you,
JS

Hi JS,

Yes - you can set your transcoded folder to any location on your computer (or any other location on your network). Do this in the Transcoding Settings dialog. In your case, you would set the location for all three copies of Mezzmo to the same shared network folder. You would need to share the drive using Windows Explorer before doing this.

A better (alternative) approach is to have one copy of Mezzmo installed on one computer on your home network and then you add the media files from that computer into your Mezzmo library and also add the (shared) folders from the other 2 computers into your Mezzmo library. The advantage of this is that you will have one Mezzmo library to look after. You also have one Mezzmo server running on your home network and that lets you access all files from all 3 computers using this one Mezzmo server from your devices. Also, you can set the transcoding folder to the drive with the largest free space.

Hello Paul,

I'm not sure I understood you correctly. I don't have the media files any more, just the .MZT files scattered between the three computers.
So if I copy those .MZT files from the two other computers onto my transcoded folder on the computer with the largest hard drive and then update my library, the database on that computer will include those files?
I wan all my .MZT files from the three computers to be included in one Mezzmo database that resides on the computer with the largest hard drive.

Can you please let me know if this is possible?

Thanks again,
JS

Hi Paul,

Let me rephrase my previous comment.
Let's say I have a computer with multiple partitions, one for the operating system and a few others for movies, music, picture, etc...

On the movies partition I have hundreds of pre transcoded .MZT files and for whatever reason, I need to wipe the operating system partition and perform a clean reinstall of Windows. The first thing I do after reinstalling Windows is installing Mezzmo. Please remember, the partition with the pre transcoded .MZT files is still intact and no files were deleted from it.

How can I make this new installation of Mezzmo recognize all the pre transcoded files and add them to its new database and medial library so that I can watch them on my TV without the need to pre transcode the actual media files again??? I can't pre transcode the medial files again because I don't have most of them any more and besides, it seems to be absurd to keep two copies of each movie file when I needed to conserve hard drive space.

This is my question and I will be very happy if I can do that.

Thank you,
JS

Hi JS,

Understand better now. You must have the original file if you wish to keep the transcoded/associated .MZT file and use it within Mezzmo as a transcoded file. However, a .MZT file is just a media file, so you can export the .MZT file as a (say) video file and then use that as your video file that you add into Mezzmo and stream to your device(s). To do this, right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click Properties. On the Properties dialog, go to the Transcoding tab. Select the transcoded file and click "Save As'. If you wish, you can then delete the original file from your Mezzmo library (which will also delete any associated transcoded files as well) and then add the newly exported/created transcoded file into your Mezzmo library.

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delay.

When I go to the Transcoding tab on the properties of a file and click Save As, the default is *.m2ts. Can I just add this file to Mezzmo library on a different computer or do I have to select a specific extension when saving as?

Thank you,
JS

When you click Save As on the Properties dialog (Transcoding tab), Mezzmo assigns the file extension based on the format of the transcoded file. In your case, your incompatible videos files are probably being transcoded into MPEG-TS files so that's why you see the .m2ts file extension. Once saved using Save As, the saved file is just a regular file on your computer like any other file, so you can add it to your Mezzmo library, copy it to another computer, play it in a media player, etc.