Additional Metadata properties discussion

[PLUCKYHD]

This discussion was orignally started here
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42833

I am wanting to add additional properties to the metadata of movies for my imports starting with Sage Movie Wall. It was discussed and I agree that a "unified" method needs to be used so it those fields can be used by others in their STVI's/Apps if they so please. Currently I am looking to want to add to additional metadata fields those are:

MediaType
MediaGroup

MediaType = type of rip (ie:blu-ray,dvd,home-movies,vhs etc) this would allow for selection and filtering of media by the original mediatype regardless of what format the bluray/dvd now sits in. This would allow for proper filtering in my app per say of blu ray movies even if your blu ray rips are not in native format.

MediaGroup = this would be a "grouping" of sorts set up by the user to allow for custom grouping outside of Genres/Categories. I realize you can do this with folders but some users don't want to go that route. For instance you could have "Family" or even group names with family members like "Chris's Movies".

My thought process is that these properties will be setup and added within my STVI but by using universal names other add-ins could use them if you want. Also this could be open to other discussions of metadata properties when others see a need for them.

Cheers and any thoughts of different names are welcome.

[MeInMaui]

Ok, so here are a couple of thoughts.

When I see MediaType, I naturally think Xvid, H.264, Mpeg2, etc. To me, something like MediaSource would make more sense for Blu-Ray, DVD, Recording, etc.

As for MediaGroup, we have had discussions about something similar in working on Phoenix. We talked about adding something like a MediaTag field that would contain a comma delimited list of arbitrary tags, which would be available for all media types. These could be used for grouping in any way the user wants.

Aloha,
Mike

[stanger89]

Something I was thinking about when I read the original thread.

What are "Blu-ray" and "DVD" really used for? Do we care that they're "Blu-ray", or is it something more fundamental than that? For instance is what we're really caring about whether the mediafile is a "Feature"/movie, vs a clip, and whether it's HD or not?

I'm wondering if it might be more useful to have it set as "Movie", "Trailer", "Clip", etc.... Of course that makes things tricky for TV shows, but maybe that could be "Show" or something....

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Ok, so here are a couple of thoughts.

When I see MediaType, I naturally think Xvid, H.264, Mpeg2, etc. To me, something like MediaSource would make more sense for Blu-Ray, DVD, Recording, etc.

As for MediaGroup, we have had discussions about something similar in working on Phoenix. We talked about adding something like a MediaTag field that would contain a comma delimited list of arbitrary tags, which would be available for all media types. These could be used for grouping in any way the user wants.

Aloha,
Mike

Mike,

Agreed MediaSource makes more sense.

Now onto the mediatag where can I find info on this? Are this tags adjustable by all apps or only phoenix? this would be great for me to implement in the groupings.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Something I was thinking about when I read the original thread.

What are "Blu-ray" and "DVD" really used for? Do we care that they're "Blu-ray", or is it something more fundamental than that? For instance is what we're really caring about whether the mediafile is a "Feature"/movie, vs a clip, and whether it's HD or not?

I'm wondering if it might be more useful to have it set as "Movie", "Trailer", "Clip", etc.... Of course that makes things tricky for TV shows, but maybe that could be "Show" or something....

I care about dvd/bluray I just prefer to know what I am watching. Also it also me to apply coverart based on the mediatype. Ie a blu ray cover to blurays and a dvd cover to dvd's

[evilpenguin]

I like the more generic "MediaTag" for groupings like you describe. I could see that being a great catch all for different types of arbitrary sorting you might want to do.

MediaTag=Comedy;Kids;Blu-Ray;Action;Cartoon;Dave;HD;etc.

Kinda like how blogs use tags to organize their posts.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I care about dvd/bluray I just prefer to know what I am watching.

Yeah, I was just thinking, I really like how Sage separates DVDs and BDs from the rest of the videos, but why I like it, is because it separates the "complete" movies from the misc clips. Since I don't transcode anything, it's a very nice dividing line.

It's just your original thread made me think about what I really want, functionally from the current flagging, and that isn't to know what sort of disc it came off of, but to know if it's a "movie" vs for example a "trailer", even though they may have very similar names. I also like knowing if it's HD or not, fortunately Sage auto detects that.

So looking at my own use, it would seem like something "similar but different" to MediaSource would be what I'd really need. Like I quickly mentioned in my last post, what would be most useful, is to know if a given MediaFile (SageTV database entry) is a Movie, a TV Show Episode, Trailer, or some random clip.

I could see:
MediaType = [ Movie | TV Show | Trailer | Music Video | misc ]

I guess I'm not sure I see a lot of value in distinguishing between (for example) two HD movies, one that's Blu-ray, and the other that was say recorded. Or Blu-ray vs HD DVD. Blu-ray vs DVD yes, but that's already distinguished by HD or not.

Re: MeInMaui's comment about Type, I think XviD/etc is more "format" than "type".

Also it also me to apply coverart based on the mediatype. Ie a blu ray cover to blurays and a dvd cover to dvd's

One more reason I like DVD Profiler, it knows whether I have the DVD or the Blu-ray

[evilpenguin]

Also, we already have a mediaType field that we use to distinguish between TV/Movies/Music/etc.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...24&postcount=2

That thread should really be stickied.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stanger89

One more reason I like DVD Profiler, it knows whether I have the DVD or the Blu-ray

Right sage does too but only if it is native format. When you transcode or change to something else I want to pull blu ray covers for my blu rays that aren't native format it is a UI use more than anything. I understand I can pull the hd and the such but that is not going to tell me what I want.

[PLUCKYHD]

So MediaTag may be the way to go and the developer can put groupings, or anything they wish to "tag" the media with?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Right sage does too but only if it is native format. When you transcode or change to something else I want to pull blu ray covers for my blu rays that aren't native format it is a UI use more than anything. I understand I can pull the hd and the such but that is not going to tell me what I want.

I'm confused by this, are you talking about putting a generic Blu-ray case image around the existing cover art or downloading the actual blu-ray cover art?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

So MediaTag may be the way to go and the developer can put groupings, or anything they wish to "tag" the media with?

That's my vote, the less metadata fields we have for tagging/sorting/filtering the easy it'll be to write an API around.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Right sage does too but only if it is native format. When you transcode or change to something else I want to pull blu ray covers for my blu rays that aren't native format it is a UI use more than anything. I understand I can pull the hd and the such but that is not going to tell me what I want.

I probably should have been more specific, but I meant using DVD Profiler as your data source. Because if you do that, then DVD Profiler has the right cover for that particular name, since you enter the movies in DVD Profiler by UPC. So when BMT or whatever imports the metadata from DVD Profiler, it by default gets the appropriate cover, since basically you already configured that.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I probably should have been more specific, but I meant using DVD Profiler as your data source. Because if you do that, then DVD Profiler has the right cover for that particular name, since you enter the movies in DVD Profiler by UPC. So when BMT or whatever imports the metadata from DVD Profiler, it by default gets the appropriate cover, since basically you already configured that.

Right but I am adding covers within Sagetv to the existing fanart I guess I should say sleeves.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by stanger89

One more reason I like DVD Profiler, it knows whether I have the DVD or the Blu-ray

except when you have both the dvd and bluray and you use BMT to collect the metadata/fanart because there is no distinguishing between the DVD and bluray version.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I like the more generic "MediaTag" for groupings like you describe. I could see that being a great catch all for different types of arbitrary sorting you might want to do.

MediaTag=Comedy;Kids;Blu-Ray;Action;Cartoon;Dave;HD;etc.

Kinda like how blogs use tags to organize their posts.

Yup, that's basically the idea.

Here's an example of what I really like about it. Lets say you hypothetically went on vacation on Maui this year and took a bunch of pictures, a few video clips on your camera, a couple of hours of video on your HD camcorder, and for good measure you bought one of those tourist DVD's that has lots of pretty arial footage of the island. You could load all of this on your server and tag it all 'Maui 2009'. Then with some new-fangled STV that has a universal media browser (), you could quickly group on tags and have a nice grouped display of all media related to that vacation.

Aloha,
Mike

[Fuzzy]

Hmmm.. has anyone looked at the Vista metadata tagging? This, honestly, and its use in the Windows Photo Gallery is my favorite new feature in Vista. Would be nice to get an STV that would work with the windows metadata api to retreive this info. Much nicer than separating it as a separate set of data.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Hmmm.. has anyone looked at the Vista metadata tagging? This, honestly, and its use in the Windows Photo Gallery is my favorite new feature in Vista. Would be nice to get an STV that would work with the windows metadata api to retreive this info. Much nicer than separating it as a separate set of data.

I think that that is beyond the scope of what Plucky would be willing to do. He just wants a "simple" codeless solution that he can implement quicky.

While the vista metadata may sound like a good idea, It's not something that I'd be willing to invest time into researching. Unless it will run on windows/mac/linux, then I'm not even going to consider it. (That shouldn't stop someone else from building a windows only solution for sage and metadata)

Back on topic.... If you create a separated list of tags, then I'd recommend putting the tag contents between 2 separators. ie,

MediaTags=;HD;Blu-Ray;Maui;

The reason is that when you are grouping, you can search the string for ";TAG;" and be sure that you are matching the complete. Otherwise, you'd have to split the string, and then iterate each element for the tag value. Basically using ;TAG; is a lazy way of searching the string.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Back on topic.... If you create a separated list of tags, then I'd recommend putting the tag contents between 2 separators. ie,

MediaTags=;HD;Blu-Ray;Maui;

The reason is that when you are grouping, you can search the string for ";TAG;" and be sure that you are matching the complete. Otherwise, you'd have to split the string, and then iterate each element for the tag value. Basically using ;TAG; is a lazy way of searching the string.

since i started the whole discussion on a more generic tag i spose i should weigh in. I like the MediaTags idea. It is generic, can be used for anything the developer wants and is easily searchable (2 lines of code if im not mistaken... one to get the tag and one to search it) when using the method that stuckless suggests.

And even though I'm a windows only user i think it would be best to shy away from a windows only solution for metadatatags... there *MUST* be a more universal means of storing this information in the media itself and then sage can just read it.

[PLUCKYHD]

My only question to this is going to be a simple on how would your append/add more tags to the existing is this possible with the current api?