Media centre changes.... Can we revert to the old media portion?

[agover]

I know a number of other folks have commented on the new system for organizing videos/media implemented in 6.

In summery everyone encountering an issue seems to be in the same boat - ie largish video collections spread out over multiple drives (sometimes multiple systems or NAS) and being completely unable to organize their collections without doing ALOT of manual work.

Would it be possible to either:

1) Revert to the old system (keeping the other changes)


2) Make the following changes?
A) Allow for the use of the old (ie flat) media organization system?
B) Create a utility which would auto generate playlists from subfolders?
C) Disable the screen capture preview (I have in excess of 1000 videos (800+ music videos) in one folder and the capture preview nukes navigation, additionally im sure folks with kids dont want them casually encountering some things)
D) How about random playback for picture slideshows? Its strange that videos can be random, but not pictures. (ie shuffle video, no shuffle picture...)

Im really not sure who thought the way that the media centre now works was a good idea, but its really not very useful/viable for many people. Why would anyone want ALL there videos in one giant list with no option for organizing them? (similarly why would you nuke the old organization system (flattened tree system) without replacing it with something else thats viable?)

I really like some of the new features, but I just dont understand the benifit/logic of the organization changes in the media section.

[Necro]

I second all the above.

[ToxMox]

There are many ways to organize them with the new media library. Just switch the views using the yellow arrows on the left. You can view by folder as well. There is a property to turn off the thumbnail generation too. To play all the files in a folder or make a playlist switch to folder view and when you hit select on the folder name it will popup a menu of things you can do to it. If instead you want to navigate into the folder you would press the right directional button on your remote instead of select.

[agover]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

There are many ways to organize them with the new media library. Just switch the views using the yellow arrows on the left. You can view by folder as well. There is a property to turn off the thumbnail generation too. To play all the files in a folder or make a playlist switch to folder view and when you hit select on the folder name it will popup a menu of things you can do to it. If instead you want to navigate into the folder you would press the right directional button on your remote instead of select.

I realize that the additional view options are there - they simply arent very useful.

The problem is I like many others have multiple hard drives. Previously I was able to simply drop all the organized folders into a single tree.

It would look like so:
Television(Sorted) [D:\Television(sorted)]
Television(unsorted) [E:\Television(unsorted)]
Movies[F:\movies]
Musicvideos[H:\musicvideos]
Musicvideos2[F:\musicvideos2]

The current system simply offers no means to simply navigate these structures - browsing through multiple drives is really not useful.

For some reason Frey has consistantly made Sage more and more complex to navigate. When I first grabbed sagetv it was similar in design and functionality to Tivo (wiht a couple of added features for media playback) this was version 4. Since then Frey has added a submenu to be displayed every time you try to play back a show/video, now they have added menus on directories, made navigation more complex. Other companies have gone the other direction trying to simplify the menu structure.

I dont want to have to go through selecting individual drives then drilling down through directories to play 1 video - at this point they may as well simply display windows explorer as ALL the views they are presenting are flawed. I have in excess of 1500 videos, so show all isnt viable, I simply dont have time to manually make playlists and navigating through all the drives is really a pain.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by agover

For some reason Frey has consistantly made Sage more and more complex to navigate.

For you! I really like the new group/folder popups, I manage to display them only when I want them. I find Sage a breeze to move through and do what I want, the GUI is pretty much forgotten most of the time.

[blade]

I understand some people don't like the new menu system and others do. You can't please everyone. Most of the changes you mentioned I've liked, but that is beside the point.

I didn't use the default imported video section in v5. I used one of the custom ones, but I don't recall where it was from. May have been an import or a hidden feature. I know it is still available in v6 and it can be added with the dynamic menus. No clue if the standard v5 is still available, but there are alternatives to the new layout.

[Opus4]

A few comments:

You can skip most pop-up menus by using Right or Info instead. Select means you want to do something with that item.

The old flattened-folder view had issues that caused it not to work entirely properly in many cases. The new folder view is direct folder browsing to see the videos where they actually are.

Finally, check out the tips thread I started for some very easy ways to search for, or filter down to, specific imported media items. With the 'hidden' features enabled, you can quickly filter a long list down to just the few items you are interested in.

- Andy

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by agover

It would look like so:
Television(Sorted) [D:\Television(sorted)]
Television(unsorted) [E:\Television(unsorted)]
Movies[F:\movies]
Musicvideos[H:\musicvideos]
Musicvideos2[F:\musicvideos2]

I'm confused. Isn't this basically the way the new folder view works? When you switch to folders view you should see:
[Television(Sorted)]
[Television(Unsorted)]
[Movies]
[Musicvideos]
[Musicvidoes2]
Then you can navigate them by pressing right on any of them to see what videos are in that folder along with any folders in there.

If this isn't what you see could you please take a screen shot of what you see instead.

[agover]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

I'm confused. Isn't this basically the way the new folder view works? When you switch to folders view you should see:
[Television(Sorted)]
[Television(Unsorted)]
[Movies]
[Musicvideos]
[Musicvidoes2]
Then you can navigate them by pressing right on any of them to see what videos are in that folder along with any folders in there.

If this isn't what you see could you please take a screen shot of what you see instead.

Previously it would be one big list (ie television sorted and unsorted would be the dividers in the list). Now in order to find stuff in television sorted, I need to navigate through to a different drive and then through to the folder in which the files reside.

This would not be an issue for folks that have smaller collections, but once you start hitting 5-10 drive partitions and it gets problematic at best.

Most of the folks that have said this isnt going to work for them are the same people that have the 1tb+ collections spread out over multiple drives (and sometimes over more than 1 computer) and have 100's to 1000's of videos.

With a small collection sitting on a single drive partition this would NOT be an issue at all.

Its really all about organization - manually created playlists arent maintainable for most folks in this situation, and finding something using standard dos/windows partitioning systems isnt really an option.

The previous method certainly wasnt perfect but it was functional but the new method really caters to those without large collections.

[ToxMox]

Please take a screen shot of what you mean by having to navigate through to a different drive then through to the folder in which the files reside.
I have hundreds of videos in about 10 import folders too and this is working great for me compared to the old way.

[ToxMox]

BTW are you saying that you have a whole bunch more folders within your main Movies, Television(sorted) etc folders? Or do each of those folders mainly contain the videos instead of more structure.

[cslatt]

Take this with a grain of salt as I haven't installed the beta. But it is my understanding that it is problematic for folks like me who have a structure like this:

F:\Cartoons
F:\TVShows
G:\Cartoons
G:\TVShows

Then within those, a folder for each show with folders inside those for each season.

Version 5 would flatten that to 2 folders, one called Cartoons the other called TVShows, but Version 6 does not. That's what I've gathered from the thread, but like I said I haven't installed the beta. (Wife doesn't want me to) If that is the case, it is very annoying for those of us who have structure like that as you need to know whether you saved a particular cartoon to the F drive or the G drive in order to find it (though this is mitigated by searcH), and more importantly, any guests at the house browsing through your video collection have extra folders to dig through looking to see what you have.

[rickgillyon]

You just need to buy four 750GB drives and set up a monster-sized striped RAID array...then you could fit them all in one folder.

Oh yeah, you might need to win the lottery first.

[acrowe]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Oh yeah, you might need to win the lottery first.

Nah just not eating for a bit would solve the problem

I mean you can get a multiTB external RAID array for only a few grand

[Opus4]

First: I know exactly what is meant by the old style folder view, but earlier I wanted to point out how you can find things now very quickly now w/o even having to use the folder view at all.

Now, I'll point something else out: the old "Video Library Folder View" (also accessible via the "Video Library" menu widget title) is still in the STV. But, you would have to access it via nielm's dynamic menus, or by changing some things in Studio.

Before anyone does a lot of work to create any sort of customizations to access or enhance the old video folder menu, though, I would wait until the end of the beta period. While v6 is pretty much feature complete, that doesn't mean the existing features won't be tweaked. There may be some changes to the browser screens based on user feedback, but I'm not going to make promises of what those changes might be.

- Andy

[rickgillyon]

1.6TB in the UK for around £600, so in the US probably around $600, probably less. We get screwed on tech prices in England....

[agover]

Originally Posted by Opus4

First: I know exactly what is meant by the old style folder view, but earlier I wanted to point out how you can find things now very quickly now w/o even having to use the folder view at all.

Now, I'll point something else out: the old "Video Library Folder View" (also accessible via the "Video Library" menu widget title) is still in the STV. But, you would have to access it via nielm's dynamic menus, or by changing some things in Studio.

Before anyone does a lot of work to create any sort of customizations to access or enhance the old video folder menu, though, I would wait until the end of the beta period. While v6 is pretty much feature complete, that doesn't mean the existing features won't be tweaked. There may be some changes to the browser screens based on user feedback, but I'm not going to make promises of what those changes might be.

- Andy

Thanks for the neilm suggestion Andy

I was seriously looking at starting yet another interface project simply to bring back this option. (and yes it did look like ALOT of work)

[Necro]

Originally Posted by Opus4

First: I know exactly what is meant by the old style folder view, but earlier I wanted to point out how you can find things now very quickly now w/o even having to use the folder view at all.

I just went down to my HTPC and tested this. I have to say, that I disagree - completely. Having the ability to browse your collection is, in my mind, 100x more user friendly then the ability to search - if your selecting one or the other.

I actually had to spell out family (6 letters) to get to see all my family guy videos - and they were no longer sorted the way I wanted them to be (divided into seasons, etc), nor was their anyway I could do that without renaming all of my files to a new standard for Sage (which I previously did to make it fit into the folder method from v5).

If Sage is going to to be considered a true contender in the 'Media' front, it's going to need to allow much more user customizability - off the shelf and easy enough that anyone can set it up - when it comes to tags, whats searchable, etc. As it is now, if I were to unleash my wife on this, the HTPC would be done.

I hate to make this comparison due to how much I hate the team, but media wise Meedio had it right. It went over the top, but a dumbed down version of their media (specifically video files and music) would basically make Sage dominate the entire media center arena instead of remaining so so at media.

[JREkiwi]

I've knocked up a quick and dirty STVI over here, that allows you to switch your Imported Videos view between the old folder view and the new browser view.

All standard caveats apply.

John

[kevpriest]

Geeze, I just installed the beta and I have to say my entire video library of 200+ dvds just become unusable due to the new organization. I understand that this new navigation system might be better for someone who is organized differently, but I've actually been using some of the features of the V5 interface, and now I'm hosed. I have 5 different drives, each containing an identical folder structure.

DVD1\SCIFI\Star Wars
DVD2\SCIFI\Star Wars II
DVD3\SCIFI\Star Wars II

Etc. Previously I had a SCIFI folder containing all the Star Wars movies. Now I have a mess. Childrens movies mixed in with SciFi, my wife has demanded I get rid of it.

I'll give this STVi a shot, but if Sage doesn't get this fixed I guess I'm going be manually reorganizing all my movies.