Date Metadata for video files

[hartlenb]

I'm still working through v4 issues. I'm trying to figure out how Mezzmo determines the dates of my home video files. To make sure that I didn't have any artifacts of my old database, I deleted the folder holding these home videos, and then selected Yes when prompted with "Do you want to remove the files from your library". I then shut down Mezzmo. Restarted Mezzmo. During the restart I also upgraded to v.4.0.4. I then added the folder back into the library.

I can't determine the logic that Mezzmo uses to assign the YEAR metadata. As an example, look at the files marked by the red bars. Mezzmo has assigned the year 2009 to one, 2010 to another and left the other two empty. These 4 files all have the same windows date metadata (with 2011 as the year)?

Mezzmo file list
Mezzmo date metadata.JPG

Windows file list
Windows metadata.jpg

I really don't want to have to do, and most likely redo, this manually (ie edit the metadata within Mezzmo)... So, what can I do to my file's names or their metadata, so that Mezzmo will correctly and consistently interpret the date?

[Paul]

This is a side effect of Mezzmo parsing the file name looking for important metadata. Mezzmo looks for the common style of "<movie name> year". For example, "Inception 2010" or "Inception (2010)". In your case, it is finding the year and thinking it is a movie file.

You can stop this happening for these files by stopping Mezzmo getting metadata from file names. Go to the Metadata Retrieval Settings dialog (Video tab) and turn off the "Get text metadata from file path". Then right-click on the playlist or folder containing these files and click Maintain Playlist. On the Maintain Playlist dialog select "Update all attributes" radio and then maintain the playlist/folder. This should update the titles and years/dates for those files.

[hartlenb]

Ok, so that cleared up the problem with funky names and weird dates on my Home Videos. But I still have a couple problems with that solutions. The first is that now Mezzmo doesn't have any info in the metadata fields. The second is that while this setting works for my home movies it messes things up when movies (that do have info in their file path) are added.

Is there a reason why Mezzmo doesn't pull the date from one of the several date tags that Windows has on video files (even as a last resort)?

It seems that the safest way for me to handle my home movies (which are the anomaly) is to manage their metadata through an embedded metadata editor or by creating an external file in one of the formats that Mezzmo recognizes.

- Anyone have any recommendations on an editor for video metadata?
- Paul, will Mezzmo recognize any embedded tag that matches the fieldnames in the properties view?

- If I have to go the external file route - is one format preferred (or easier) than the others to create?
- Any pointers to formats or how to create files in one of the supported formats?
- Paul, will Mezzmo recognize any tag that matches the fieldnames in the properties view?

[Coises]

Is there a reason why Mezzmo doesn't pull the date from one of the several date tags that Windows has on video files (even as a last resort)?

In my experience (Mezzmo 3.4.4.0), when getting metadata from filenames, Mezzmo recognizes a string of digits that “looks like” a year (probably four digits starting with 19 or 20, but I haven’t tested). If it finds one, that overrides the Windows file system dates for setting both the Year field and the Created Date field (which is always set to January 1st of the Year, even if a full date is present in the file name).

In the absence of any other source, Mezzmo does use one of the Windows file dates. It is, exactly, the last resort. (If I remember correctly, it’s the Date Modified, which is then stored in the Created field in Mezzmo. The year of that date is stored in the Year field. However, this only works for dates between January 1st, 1970 and the current date, inclusive. For older dates and future dates, Mezzmo uses January 1st of the current year.)

Unfortunately, at least as of 3.4.4.0, there was/is no way to tell Mezzmo to derive the Title field from the filename but to derive the Year and Created Date fields only from the Windows date, and not to attempt to derive them from the filename.

One option is to keep switching the appropriate options on and off depending on what you are adding. That works so long as you never let Maintain Library update metadata... and never forget which way you have the option(s) set at any given time. :-(

Anyone have any recommendations on an editor for video metadata?

I’m pretty sure there can be none for *.mpg files. MPEG-1/2 files lack any standard way of storing metadata. We’re stuck with either deriving the data from the Windows file names and dates, using external metadata files, or maintaining the data within Mezzmo.

[Paul]

That's pretty much right, Coises. In Mezzmo v4.0, we've moved away from using the Windows date as the Release date, Year or Month metadata for files that you add into Mezzmo. We found it just was not representative as to what the media file was about - e.g. a movie, TV series, song, photo, etc. The Windows file system date is the date that file was created or last modified on your computer - which does not match what you want - i.e. the release date of a movie / TV show / song, or the creation date for a home movie, or photo taken date of a photo.

Mezzmo does collect the date/year/month from numerous sources - file path, embedded metadata, external metadata files (.XML, .NFO, .TGMD) and online web sites.

Once you get the correct date for a file into your Mezzmo library, then Mezzmo won't touch it again unless you maintain your library with the "Update all attributes" radio button selected on the Maintain Library dialog.

[Paul]

Is there a reason why Mezzmo doesn't pull the date from one of the several date tags that Windows has on video files (even as a last resort)?

See my post above. We don't like Windows file system dates as in most cases they don't represent what you want.

Paul, will Mezzmo recognize any embedded tag that matches the fieldnames in the properties view?

Mezzmo does read date tags from within all popular video, music and photo formats. Contact us if you are finding that Mezzmo is not reading your embedded metadata correctly.

If I have to go the external file route - is one format preferred (or easier) than the others to create?

Your choices are .XML, .NFO or .TGMD. Do quick search on the web and you will see examples of them. Probably the simplest is .XML. I don't have an example to show you at the moment - I'll update this thread when I get back into the office.

[hartlenb]

Paul / Coises - thanks for the replies.

I did try to find examples of movie.xml and/or mymovies.xml. Not a lot of details. But I thought I'd wing it and see if I could make it work (it didn't).

- I created a movie.xml file and stored it in the top level folder of my home movies.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<movies>

<movie>
<title>1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01</title>
<sort title>1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01</sort title>
<year>1992</year>
<category>Home Movie</category>
<genre>Home Movie</genre>
<file name>1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01.mpeg</file name>
</movie>

<movie>
<title>1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02</title>
<sort title>1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02</sort title>
<year>1993</year>
<category>Home Movie</category>
<genre>Home Movie</genre>
<file name>1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02.mpeg</file name>
</movie>

</movies>

- I deleted the two home movies from Mezzmo DB
- I ran Maintain Playlist on my video files with (i) all Metadata Retrieval Settings unchecked except for "Get text metadata and artwork from movie.xml and mymovies.xml", and (ii) Only update new files or files with empty attributes

Maintain Playlist added the files back into the library but without metadata.

[Paul]

Here's an example .NFO file. Place the .NFO file alongside your video file with the same name. For example, sample_video.avi and sample_video.nfo. You can remove any tags you don't need to use. The top level <movie> tag can be substituted with <episodedetails>, <tvshow> or <musicvideo>. This determines the category of the video.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<movie>
  <title>sample video title</title>
  <aired>2012-01-19</aired>
  <outline>This is a sample video's description...</outline>
  <tagline>This is the a sample video's tagline...</tagline>
  <sorttitle>sample video title sort title</sorttitle>
  <rating>8.0</rating>
  <contentrating>PG-13</contentrating>
  <imdbid>tt1234567</imdbid>
  <season>4</season>
  <episode>23</episode>
  <genre>
  	<name>Drama</name>
  	<name>Comedy</name>
  	<name>Thriller</name>
  </genre>
  <director>
  	<name>sample director 1</name>
  	<name>sample director 2</name>
  	<name>sample director 3</name>
  </director>
  <actor>
  	<name>sample actor 1</name>
  	<name>sample actor 2</name>
  	<name>sample actor 3</name>
  </actor>
  <writer>
  	<name>sample writer 1</name>
  	<name>sample writer 2</name>
  	<name>sample writer 3</name>
  </writer>
  <studio>
  	<name>sample studio 1</name>
  	<name>sample studio 2</name>
  	<name>sample studio 3</name>
  </studio>
</movie>

Also, we just found a small problem when updating videos from external metadata files. Email us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com and we'll provide a patch to fix this.

[hartlenb]

Still can't get this to work.

- I installed the new patch for reading metadata from external files.
- I created 2 test nfo files and placed them in the same directory as the files

'1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01.nfo' for the target file '1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01.mpg'

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <movie>
    <title>1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01</title>
    <sorttitle>1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01</sorttitle>
    <year>1992</year>
    <category>Home Movie</category>
    <genre>Home Movie</genre>
  </movie>

'1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02.nfo' for the target file '1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02.mpg'

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <movie>
    <title>1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02</title>
    <sorttitle>1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02</sorttitle>
    <year>1993</year>
    <category>Home Movie</category>
    <genre>Home Movie</genre>
  </movie>

- I deleted the two home movies from Mezzmo DB and then ran Maintain Playlist on my video files with

• all Metadata Retrieval Settings checked
• Only update new files or files with empty attributes
• This run brought the files back into the library with the funky names created from improperly reading the date info from the file name.

- I then deleted the files again and ran Maintain Playlist on my video files with

• all Metadata Retrieval Settings unchecked except for (i) "Get text metadata and artwork from series.xml and episode.xml", and "Get text metadata and artwork from movie.xml and mymovies.xml"
• Only update new files or files with empty attributes
• This run brought the files back into the library with no metadata at all.

[Paul]

Just went through your steps and it worked for us .

Try this:

1. Delete the two files (1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01.mpg, 1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02.mpg) from your Mezzmo library.
2. Select the Library item in the tree in Mezzmo.
3. Click 'Create Playlist' -> 'Playlist'. Give your playlist a name like "AAA".
4. Click 'Add To Library' -> 'Add Files'. Select the two above files and click OK.
5. The two files will be added to your 'AAA' playlist. Assuming you had 'Get text metadata and artwork from XBMC (.nfo/.tbn) file' checkbox selected, then they will be listed as '1992-10-04 to 1993-05-24 DVD#01' and '1993-05-23 to 1994-09-04 DVD#02'. Double-click on the files to see the metadata that has been picked up. If they are not correct, then it's probable that Mezzmo did not pick up your .NFO files. Make sure they are in the same folder and have the same name (as you have listed them in your earlier post).
6. To maintain these files after making any change, right-click on the 'AAA' playlist and click 'Maintain Playlist'. You will need to select the "Update all attributes" radio button to change attributes that already have values (such as title).

Let us know how you go.