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Thread: Pain Points in Mezzmo 3.4.4.0

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    78

    Default Pain Points in Mezzmo 3.4.4.0

    I didn't request to be a part of the Mezzmo 4 beta because I don't think I'd be able to devote enough attention to participate properly. However, I want to list a few things I hope can be addressed in the new version (unless there is already a better way to handle them, and I just don't know about it).


    1. Some data fields cannot be entered, corrected or updated in the user interface.

    This is my number one complaint about Mezzmo 3.4.4.0. There are fields Mezzmo uses (e.g., timestamps for created, added to library, last watched) which cannot be manipulated in the user interface. When one of these somehow causes a problem, there is no simple way to fix it.

    Example problems this causes:

    The PlayStation3 is the only device we use with Mezzmo. Each item displays the artwork, the title and the created date. Since that's all we get, I want the date to be meaningful: generally, the release date, performance date or first air date. I also use the created date to sort within active lists by Artist and by Creator, so each films by an actor or director appear in the order that he or she made them. Mezzmo 3.4.4.0 will retrieve this information from an mp4 tag or from the file's timestamps. For avi and mpg files, there is no tag that works, so I have to set the timestamp. This is possible, but convoluted. (I keep a batch file of "filetouch" commands that set the dates on all video files that don't have an embedded timestamp.) However, Mezzmo doesn't correctly parse file dates before 1970; for older movies in avi or mpg files, the only way I can get the correct date is to calculate the number of days elapsed from December 31st, 1899 to that date, then enter that value into the Fulldate field of the mgofile table in the Mezzmo database using sqliteman.

    Several episodes of a series are added to a network folder at the same time; this folder is also a folder in Mezzmo. When I access the folder in the user interface and Mezzmo adds the new files, the seconds value on the added to library timestamp increments during the operation. In a recently added list sorted descending on date/time added, the order of the episodes is jumbled. To fix this, I have to use sqliteman on the mgofile table in the database to change the timestamps to be the same (or to reflect the required order). Alternatively, I could carefully move each episode into the network folder one at a time, in reverse order, being sure after moving each one to re-enter the folder in Mezzmo and let it be added to the database before moving the next one... but this doesn't work if I want to add more episodes before all the ones already added have been watched.

    Granted, part of the reason for the second problem is that I want things shown newest first, but I also want things that should be watched in order to appear in the order they should be watched. There's a bit of fuzzy logic implied there. My point is that I could still have that—with manual intervention, but without "hacking" the database—if the added to library timestamp were exposed for modification in the user interface.


    2. There is no way to set the artwork for an item to the corresponding file's embedded artwork, nor to retrieve or restore any data from the file tags or other local sources (as opposed to from the Internet) for an individual item or a selection of items.

    Example problem this causes:

    I have an embedded cover in a movie that's in a folder. I "Get Online Video Metadata" for that movie and don't notice that I forgot to clear the "Use image" checkbox. To restore the artwork, I have to move the file; maintain library deleting files that cannot be found; move the file back again; go to the folder again in Mezzmo; then "Get Online Video Metadata" again, this time making sure to clear the checkbox.


    3. Change detection (when a file is modified or replaced by another file of the same name) is either unreliable or nonexistent (I'm not sure which). As per the previous point, there is no way to force an update for an item, or a selection of items, if Mezzmo doesn't do it.

    Example problem this causes:

    Mezzmo knows about all my music files through a single "Audio" folder; this refers to a network location used by various machines and clients, not just Mezzmo. I replaced the mp3s of one album with better quality copies. When I checked in Mezzmo, in addition to items for new files (the replacement was a re-issue with additional tracks), two file names were capitalized differently, and those created new items (while leaving the old items, which referred to the same files, since Windows file names are not case-sensitive). The new items had the cover art for the new version of the album, while all the other items showed the old cover art. I right-clicked the sub-sub-folder containing the album and selected Maintain Playlist, setting it to retrieve all information from new and old files; instead of just scanning that sub-sub-folder, Mezzmo re-processed information for all 14,314 files in the Audio folder.


    4. There is no way to "aggregate" series in a Smart Playlist or Active Playlist. For example, an Active Playlist restricted to video files defined as:
    ----Group By First Letter
    --------Artist
    ------------Album/Series
    shows only videos that are part of a series. I can find no way to put the series in sub-folders while showing the movies, etc. directly under the Artist. This applies to Smart Playlists (like video with watched count = 0) as well.

    Example problem this causes:

    There are 83 files in our library under Larry David. The two movies are buried among 81 episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."


    5. Sorting is inflexible.

    a. The biggest problem is not having a title sort field that can be specified independently of the display title. (Rules like "ignore A/An/The" would be nice, but no set of rules will get it right all the time. The important thing is to be able to override the default title sort with a custom value in the item properties.) The same applies to series names.

    b. I'd rather see multi-level sort on a conditional list of fields:
    Code:
    season?(series,season,episode):series?(series,date):(title,date)
    than a single list of sort options in which you try to guess every combination that someone might need. I realize you'd still need a quick list for folks who would look at what I wrote and just... cry.


    6. The "TV series title" option is a good idea done at the wrong level. It should be a folder/playlist option that affects how items are displayed, not a global option that affects how new item properties are initialized.

    Consider a folder that contains all episodes of a particular TV series; an active playlist of TV series structured by series/season; and an "unwatched video" smart playlist. In the folder, the series name should not be repeated on every item, but the season, episode and title would be useful information. In the active playlist, only the episode and title should be shown. In the smart playlist, the series name, season, episode and title would all be needed.

    Similar considerations apply to music videos. Context tells you which information should be displayed for each item and which would just clutter the display. In a "new and unwatched" list of music videos, I would like to see the artist's name with each item; in a folder of music videos by one artist, I would not want to see that information repeated on every item.

    This might also vary by device. If I'm remembering correctly, the PS3 shows cover/title/date for video files, but shows cover/title/album/artist for audio files; so for display on the PS3 the album and artist should never be added to the title of an audio file. If other devices are different, that could change how the title should be delivered in various contexts.

    Again, I'd rather see a flexible option:
    Code:
    season?(series ": " padright(season,&ensp,series) "-" padright(episode,"0",series) ". " title):series?(series ": " title):title
    than have you try to guess what we might want. The expression for a given playlist could get rather complex, depending on what sorts of items could appear in that particular list.


    7. There is no way to manually order items, except by using a Linked Playlist with no sorting and controlling the order by editing the linked file. I assume this would work for videos, though I've only tried it with audio files. It can't work for playlists in playlists, though: in particular, the order of top-level playlists/folders under Library, which seems to be different in the user interface (where it's sorted alphabetically) and on the PS3 (where I can't quite figure out what determines the order) is not controllable.

    It seems like a simple Playlist ought to include the ability to drag items into the desired order... that's kind of what a "playlist" normally is.


    8. This might not be under Mezzmo's control: but it is annoying that folders (or playlists) that contain only video files appear on the list of server folders in the Mezzmo menu under the "Music" main menu on the PlayStation3, and folders that contain only audio files appear on the list under the "Video" main menu. The PS3 will not play files under the "wrong" main menu (it just says "There are no items" when you open a bottom-level folder with no files of the appropriate type), but all the folders still show up. Does DLNA provide either some way that Mezzmo can know whether it's being asked for Audio, Image or Video and offer only meaningful folders; or else some way that it can tell the client what kinds of files are in a folder, so the client can ignore inapplicable folders?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    78

    Default

    After all that, I should probably mention what does work: the server!

    I don't let Mezzmo transcode, so I can't speak to that, but streaming (wired to router) from my XP machine to the PS3 works with no problems that I've been able to attribute to Mezzmo. I think it has crashed once in a year of almost daily use (sometimes eight hours a day), and that was probably a mal-formed media file.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    11,642

    Default

    Excellent feedback as usual, Coises. Many thanks for your thoughts. We'll add them to our development notes for further discussion here.

    Mezzmo v4.0 does have a few new features that either partly or completely cover some of your suggestions:

    • We've added a bunch more metadata fields into the Properties dialog for editing - including content rating, IMDB id, writers, producers, directors, production company, web site + more. There are still some 'hidden' and we'll look at making them available for user editing for the reasons that you describe.
    • We've added smart playlist rules into active playlists. This lets you filter only the files you want included in the active playlist. For example, creating an active playlist where files have Artist = Larry David. In addition, we've added a new field called Category that Mezzmo fills automatically when adding/maintaining files with values of "TV Series" or "Movie" or "Home movie" when it detects what the video is. You can use this field in active playlists and smart playlists to filter your movies, TV shows, home movies, etc. Category is user-editable.
    • We've added Sort Title as a user editable field. Mezzmo automatically fills this in when adding/maintaining files based on the list of 'noise' prefix words (The, A, An, etc.), which are user configurable.
    • We've introduced Display titles in Mezzmo v4.0. They are customizable using keywords such as %TITLE%, %SORTTITLE%, %ALBUM%, %SEASON%, %EPISODE%, %FILENAME%, %CONTENTRATING%, %PLAYCOUNT%, etc. For example, for music you may want "%ARTIST: %ALBUM% - (%TRACK%) - %TITLE%" and for TV shows you may want "%SERIES% - (s%SEASON% e%EPISODE%) - %TITLE%" and for Samsung F-series TVs that override server-based sorting with it's own (very poor) firmware-based alpha-sorting you may want "%COUNTER% - %TITLE%". Display titles can be set globally for your Mezzmo library and per playlist. This lets you have display titles as you wish for all the various media types (music, photos, videos, TV shows, movies) in your Mezzmo library. We will not have conditional logic/scripting for display titles (as per your suggestion) in Mezzmo v4.0, but we may introduce this later. Metadata settings from Mezzmo v3.x such as "TV series title" and "Use filename as title" have been removed since the new Display title feature encompasses this functionality.
    Last edited by Paul; 04-15-2014 at 09:53 AM.

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