OK, so Channels DVR Server has the ability to set a folder (or more than one) that corresponds to "Personal Media" via going to
- the Settings web page
- the Sources tab on the left hand side
- the Personal Media section below the Live TV section.
Here we can set a folder (or more than one) for, let's say right now, existing Movies.
We also have a "Gear" menu allowing us to scan the provided folders if new content has been added, or likewise if content has been removed.
So far, so good. Allows us to add a library of pre-existing content to also be viewed within the standard Channels UI. Unfortunately, however, there are multiple bugs and limitations in the functionality. Let's list some of them in the hope that, over time, they will be fixed.
First, on the SERVER side, there is a weird issue with nested folders.
I want to have something like a primary folder, let's call it /XMovies, with subfolders, eg /XMovies/Action. XMovies/Animation, etc.
I'm not wedded to any specifics of how Channels wants to view this, just as long as the mental model makes some sort of sense. But right now I can see no sense in what's done!
Suppose I provide folder, XMovies, to Personal Media/Movies. That will work; I see say one or two or three movies placed in that folder.
Now suppose I add a subfolder, XMovies/Action. What I will see on the user side (eg on my iPad) is I go to Movies/Folders/ and now I see
- Recorded (as expected)
- Imported (as expected)
- Action (as not expected, but whatever)
but the Action folder seems "inert". I can choose it, but items within in do not show up. No set of variants of Choosing Scan or Prune from the Gear menu, or quitting and restarting the iPad app makes anything show up in a subfolder.
OK, so let's try adding the subfolder explicitly to the list of paths, so nowPersonal Media/Movies has two associated paths. We can go through the same dance of trying various combinations of Scan, Prune, and restarting the iPad app, but nothing changes, we still will not get anything in that folder to show up.
I'm assuming there's some sort of required implicit structure if one wants multiple or nested folders here, but I've no idea what it is. Perhaps (at the very least) there should be something like an (i) info button next to the Manage Folders button in the web UI to explain how multiple (and specifically nested) folders are supposed to work?
Now let's cover issues on the UI/iPad side.
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It would be nice to have a "Decades" selectors for both Recorded and Imported views, the same way we have for the overall movie view.
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There seems something broken with the Genre view for Imported content. I don't know where you're picking this up from but consider my situation. I've added three test movies, one has genre (as displayed by Channels DVR on the movie page just below the backdrop, and just above the technical specs like PG-13/76%/HD/Stereo/CC)
as Comedy, Romance; the other two have genre as Comedy, Action.
In spite of that, the genres listed as available for selecting for a subset of my three movies are
- Action
- Drama
- Dramedy
- Science Fiction
- War
along with a red option of Clear which has I know not what effect! It certainly doesn't clear this menu of irrelevant genre choices.
So there's something broken with how this menu of options is constructed. I don't know if it was set to dummy data with the dynamic code never hooked up? Or if it's grabbing the genres from some other subset of content (eg what's in the Videos library?)
The same is true of the other menu available here, namely the Content Rating menu, which lists R (and our old friend the red Clear) as the only option even though none of these three test movies are tagged as R movies.
- It would be nice if Channels DRV made some attempt to keep metadata embedded IN the movie file in sync with the metadata it uses (apparently stored in some database). This could include
- when first encountering the file, if there's artwork already present use that artwork rather than downloading from the net
- likewise for genres
Conversely, if the user uses the web UI to modify metadata (eg change art or genres) store that in the source file.
I understand that in some cases the source files are read only, in which case, sure.
But what I think everyone would find vastly more helpful is a situation where - existing imported content that's already been categorized and curated does not behave wildly differently to how it behaved before (eg as seen in Plex or Infuse)
- if one does want to modify imported content (eg art work or genre, via the web UI) those changes are recorded in the file so that later changes to the media environment (for example if one is forced to move files around between hard drives or servers), or if one still wants to view these files via alternative apps, are not too disruptive.
- Channels also needs to be more careful about scanning files that have changed (eg via the Scan Personal Media) menu item. For example if a file is imported claiming to have a subtitle track, it will show in Channels DVR as having [CC], which is fine and good. But
- sometimes that subtitle track is empty (you can see this in metadata browsers that will show a subtitle track, but also show that its length is 0:0:0:0). Ideally Channels would detect this and suppress the [CC] mark
- if one then edits the file (again, eg, in a metadata browser app) and deletes this empty subtitle track, Channels will not detect the change and will persist with the [CC].
Apparently the only way to fix this is to trash the file then re-import it. (Which then means another round of editing the artwork and genres etc, because, as I said, the Channels side versions of these edits are not stored in the file metadata...)
I'd really like this Import functionality to work. Unfortunately right now it feels like a sketch, an outline, a demo for "here's what it will look like once we add the code".
So let's hope these various issues can be fixed over the next few months.