HD-200 = Excellent

[h2guy]

I hooked up my HD-200 last night and it works flawlessly w/ my Handbrake converted mkv's. I used the 'film' encode template and can't see any quality loss on a 50" LCD. Sage has engineered a lovely product.

Some general questions (and apology in advance if I missed previous posts):

1. video tagging: I've looked through various threads and have found that 'folder.jpg' will be read for artwork purposes. Are tagged mkv's supported and are there other ways to get metadata (inc. art) to show in stand-alone mode? (Also, what if I use a flat directory structure for mkv vids, how can art be associated w/ a given movie?)

2. What do you suggest for mkv tagging on MS Vista? I've found a few Mac-based tools, but nothing for PC (this Q should probably be posted in a more general sub-forum?).

Thanks Sage and keep up the good work!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by h2guy

I hooked up my HD-200 last night and it works flawlessly w/ my Handbrake converted mkv's. I used the 'film' encode template and can't see any quality loss on a 50" LCD. Sage has engineered a lovely product.

Some general questions (and apology in advance if I missed previous posts):

1. video tagging: I've looked through various threads and have found that 'folder.jpg' will be read for artwork purposes. Are tagged mkv's supported and are there other ways to get metadata (inc. art) to show in stand-alone mode? (Also, what if I use a flat directory structure for mkv vids, how can art be associated w/ a given movie?)

I think standalone mode should be able to read metadata.properties files (a search should find information about them) for getting metadata into Sage. Unfortunately there's no "tool" for populating metadata in standalone mode.

MKV tags aren't supported either (didn't know MKVs had tags).

You might want to look for a couple of tools that I vaguely remember, DVDPro2My will make ".my" files from a DVD Profiler database. And I think someone made a .my to .properties converter utility at one point.

[bcjenkins]

Stuckless' IMDB importer has a plugin for DVD Profiler which creates properties files. It works very well.

B

[h2guy]

Thanks for the pointer, going to give stuckless' IMDB Importer a try.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34301

Link for anyone else interested.

[RedCoat999]

give us a shout if that works well. I too am a Handbrake user with mkv files all lumped in one folder and would be interested in seeing how this works when Santa arrives with my HD200

[h2guy]

@Redcoat999 - i played around with the IMDB Importer and it works well. Stuckless actively updates his software to add new features/fixes.

I highly recommend it.

[RedCoat999]

I'll give that a looky looky. Thanks for the heads up.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by stanger89

MKV tags aren't supported either (didn't know MKVs had tags).

Need to correct you again Stanger.

MKV tags ARE supported on all platforms (including the HD200). (at least the ones that map to values in the SageTV database; which should be most of them)

And for associated art files; you can just use the same filename as the video but with a .jpg,.png,.gif file extension. And if MKVs have a way to embed art in the file; then that should work as well. (I can't recall currently if MKV files have that option; but I think they do)

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Need to correct you again Stanger.

MKV tags ARE supported on all platforms (including the HD200). (at least the ones that map to values in the SageTV database; which should be most of them)

Cool...

[FreshOne]

Originally Posted by Narflex

And for associated art files; you can just use the same filename as the video but with a .jpg,.png,.gif file extension.

I am assuming from your remarks that the HD200 will use them as thumbnails instead of the filmstrip icon. Is there something special we have to do to enable art file files after putting them with the MKVs ???? I tried this and it didn't work as expected.

I had file1.mkv and file2.mkv. I added file1.jpg and file2.jpg to the Windows share containing file1.mkv and file2.mkv. What I got was the following:

[2 slides icon] file1.jpg
[filmstrip icon] file1.mkv
[2 slides icon] file2.jpg
[filmstrip icon] file2.mkv

I was expecting:
[file1.jpg icon] file1.mkv
[file2.jpg icon] file2.mkv

I am running in standalone mode and the share is on a WinXP server. I am running the 1219 beta firmware.

Thanks in advance.