Question MP4/MKV Tagging Solutions?

[zanetti]

Ok, since I'm YOLOing my 90TB library (no redundancy) and was dumb when starting and refused to follow Kodi/Plex naming rules for TV shows (ALL my tv show episodes are in S0xE0x format - no episode/show name/year etc in the name) I had a great idea it might be wise to start writing tag data into files so in case of bad sectors starting appearing I might be able to rescue data and decipher which S01E01.mp4/mkv file belongs to which show (IIRC data rescuing usually does not provide folder structures just a bunch of files, maybe it's different now it was a while, maybe a few decades since the last time I had to recover something from a failing HDD).

So, of course I went and bought MetaX since the word on the street is that is the goto solution for Windows. And while I regularly use it to strip and write metadata of movies (with 'obfuscated' data written in the tags, wink-wink), and that works quite well, although I do have to rescrape each and every file in Kodi since Artwork Beef addon refuses to download artwork with movies that were MetaX'd, I have to use Kodi scraper even though metadata written with MetaX is read just fine by Kodi, but that' besides the point. For TV shows, it also works quite well (although I did not see any benefits scraping wise MetaX'd episodes vs non-Meta-X'd ones, did not investigate much, so maybe I'm missing something).

BUT. I want more. First things first, Windows Explorer does not read most of the tags properly. Comments tag in WE is not the same as Comment tag in MetaX. Also, I don't get episode number displaying in WE when details view is turned on, although in MetaX I can see that info. I had to spend a good hour hunting down which tags do appear in WE and which do not. I ended up with the following:

Name/Date Modified/Title/Length/Type/Size/Video Tracks/Audio Tracks/Frame Width/Frame Height/Subtitle Tracks/Framerate/Content Type, plus two more which are Year and Comments but those are always empty, and that irks me like you would not believe. It's 2024 and I can not believe simple stuff still does not work, ffs. A bloody MP4 tag, it's not like it's rocket science, right? Unbelievable, haha.

Aaaaaanyways, I am looking for a solution to have every little bit of data written into my MP4/MKV files, and I do mean every little bit. I want detailed video codec data, detailed audio codec data, bitrates, resolutions, number of video/audio tracks, yes I want 'write short description into comment field' to actually work in plain, bloody Windows Explorer, same goes for year, basically I wish all data I get in both Mediainfo (technical stuff) AND Kodi/Plex (descriptive stuff) jammed into every single TV episode file (65000 and counting). I will not sleep, I will not eat until I tag each and every stinking file and cram as much data/info into ' em! This. Needs. To. Be. Done. Even though I turn details view in WE only when checking on whether files have embedded subtitle and if they do which language they are, lol.

So, can this be done? Of course, goes without saying I'd like to be able to pull data/info from TVDB like in MetaX, I am not writing show name and other info by myself, I may be cuckoo, but I ain't cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I think. Anyways, I am wiling to do half the work in MetaX (e.g. load seasons into it, search for show manually and let MetaX write what it can) and then something-something to add other data afterwards. It would be neat though if I could do season year automatically somehow, I wish to avoid doing that on per season basis. In other words, automate it as much as possible. I can fiddle a bit, but not much, thank you. With creating custom posters, logos, banners and such, renaming, extracting embedded subtitles and cleaning them up then remuxing video files with embedded subtitles stripped onto another SSD, then copying them back into series folder that still has an odd TB of free space left... it is just too damn much, lol.

Am I asking too much? Maybe. Do I really, really need it? Of course, stop being disrespectful with silly questions! Thus, help a brother out. A suggestion, an idea, an opinion, anything and everything is welcome. F it, I'm even willing to try Directory Opus even though I am a WE slave for the past 30 years, anything bro, this needs to be sorted, it is irking me to no end. Oh, yes. Of course, it might be useful if I need to recover files, yes, yes. I am doing important work, this has actual life benefits, yes, yes.

Thanks. Cheers!

 

[cartman0208]

What you are looking for is either some serious powershelling, maybe @tectpro has some time to spare.
Or you should go for FileBot, which I'm sure you saw already mentioned in the forum

https://www.filebot.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324&p=2248#p2248

Plus ... that will solve your file-naming-problem

 

[tectpro]

What you are looking for is either some serious powershelling, maybe @tectpro has some time to spare.
Or you should go for FileBot, which I'm sure you saw already mentioned in the forum

https://www.filebot.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=324&p=2248#p2248

Plus ... that will solve your file-naming-problem

It would be a quite complex task.
And involve several tools, MediaInfo, MKVToolNix, AtomicParsley, FileBot for example.
Also error handling and logging would need to be accounted for due to the amount of files.
So, while it might be possible to achieve this with PowerShell and additional tools, it would require a significant investment in terms of time and effort to script, test, and refine the process.

 

[zanetti]

Plus ... that will solve your file-naming-problem

Filebotting would solve my naming problems, but there is a problem with that. A) I use Filebot to do exact opposite, rename Show Name - S01E02 - Episode Name.mkv to S01E02.mkv, lol. And B) that would mean I will have to manually correct stuff in 1) Filebot when matching and 2) Kodi/Plex when scraping, and I think I would need to change the folder structure as well (which also means renaming folders as well), not to mention fixing scraped artwork even though 85% of my entire library, both movies and shows, have artwork stored locally (show seasons each contain all artwork - yes, it is unnecessary and yes, maybe even pointless haha). I would do al of that, and I plan. When children are off to college. In 18 years, give or take two, lol.

Besides, I would really like them tags to show in WE. 'member when I really, really wanted them movie folders in WE to show as clearlogos? It's basically the same, pointless, but nevertheless irksome situation, aaahahaha.

I have tried thus far MetaX, results meh. I wanted to try ExifEdit or whatever that is called, but I'm sure that one definitely does not have TMDB/TVDB integration for scraping data. Now I also tried Media Center Master, but that turd is freezing constantly and is a definite no go. I also tried MP4 Video & Audio Tag Editor (along with Video Manager from same publisher) and ok... I got somewhere BUT (and that is a huuuge but): it effing remuxes each and every MP4 file, resulting in like 3min wait for it to write tags (actually it is remuxing from MP4 to (!!!!) MP4 with final MP4 having tags added), which is super retarded. Why the hell is it doing that?? MetaX can write tags in a matter of two seconds. And of course, nothing in settings addresses this. MKV files, on the other hand... NO problem, bim bom bum, done in 10s tops. But then again, MetaX does do mkvs as well.

I'm continuing the search, and I don't think there is any need for powershell kungfu, I just want a MetaX mod that does it fast like MetaX, but also adds all mediainfo stuff to tags and names/sorts all tags properly so Windows Explorer can read them, i-is... i-is that too much to ask, darn it?? Here is a snippet of how rich and... and gorgeous 'show tag data' in MP4 Video & Audio Tag Editor looks like:

So, basically all info in the screenshot I'd like to be able to be displayed in details view in Windows Explorer. Can it be done, without using TMM or any other manager software which would definitely involve even more scraping and importing and renaming and and and... ?

 

[cartman0208]

I use Filebot to do exact opposite, rename Show Name - S01E02 - Episode Name.mkv to S01E02.mkv, lol.

Why on earth would you do that? That only results in the mess you have described in the first post

That screenshot is not from the Explorer Details tab, is it?
Hair Stylists? Electritians? W.T.H. ?!?

I'm afraid the short set of meta info in Windows Explorer is all you will get there ... for other info you need the displaying tools on all other machines you want to display the meta data.

Btw, you can use Filebot to reverse the damage you did ... Filebot recognizes the folder where files are located and "deducts" the file name
There's a neat lil preset that adds media properties to the filename ... adjusting that you could put at least some info in the filename ... no need for meta stuff

 

[zanetti]

This is what I managed to squeeze out of MetaX for now. See the 'comments' row? Empty. And in MetaX it is called 'comment' and it contains short description. I do get 'comments' row filled with description IF I use these other programs, so I guess MetaX is to blame (yes I checked 'force description to comment'). I am also missing 'year' collumn which is beyond me how tf can something as simple as 'year' tag refuse to display even though in MetaX it is there (btw, all of these problems are mostly nonexistent for my music library, which ok I can understand that TagScanner does a better job than MetaX). I also understand I can not force WE to display tags it does not support, even though there are like 200 collumn options for details view. I am willing to switch to sth else, but for now I wish to find a solution for proper tagging, because it is obvious 'year' in MetaX is something different than 'year' in WE. I'm flexible, lol.

About Filebot, yeah. The gigantic feat called renaming and resorting 60TB of TV shows... I... I can't force myself to do that now, because if I do I will, and I do mean will must finish and I'm already getting slightly tired with all other work that goes into maintaining the darn library (3700+ artwork contributions to TVDB, 1700+ TPDB, 800+ TMDB, 1200 MEDIUX... and I still have a tonne to sort, fix, create, align, upscale, find artwork etcetc). Is there something as fast as MetaX but does tags properly so at least I can get these basic ones displayed in WE? Any ideas or suggestions are more than welcome. Cheers!

EDIT: Upon further inspection, MetaX has tag called 'date', no 'year' tag. I presumed, silly me, that what I remember I saw was year, but it ain't, lol. Oh, and about previous screenshot, of the metadata. No, that's 'show tag data' in MP4 Video & Audio Tag Editor, it just opens a tab with that data and I am aware of the fact that WE will not be able to display all off that, which in itself is a bummer, but hey... it is Microsoft after all. WHY would something simple work after 30 years of developing an OS, right? Cheers!

 

[cartman0208]

Sooo, what are you going to do with those files?
I mean, why write the info you mentioned as meta tags to the file, when you can already acquire that using Mediainfo OR the mentioned Library tools (Plex and such)
That sounds like so much work that others already did

And again: to view the data MetaX (or other tools if found) has written, on another PC, my guess is that you need to have it installed there also...

 

[zanetti]

And again: to view the data MetaX (or other tools if found) has written, on another PC, my guess is that you need to have it installed there also...

well, other PCs also have windows explorer, id just need to configure the details view, and then switch to it when needed. i just need to write tags to the files, et voila!

and yeah, i get your point. why hassle with metadata tags for recovery purposes in the event of hdd failure, when i can have the title of the episode in its name, instead of s01e01 (1550 times over, lol). but, as i said, that means at least 1550 renamings (yes, thats a word). i was just wondering if it can be done. frankly, i was fishing to see if anyone has maybe stumbled upon a solution, a program that could do it as fast as metax does it, but properly. like, metax on steroids, where i can have year tag, and maybe it can pull some mediainfo tags and, this would be swell, fill the tags windows explorer already has (for instance, id like IMBD_ID tag as well, but iirc windows explorer does not have that tag in the list for details view).

upon searching the interwebs, ive found that its not that easy. at least what im looking for. sure, some media managers could do some of it, but then again id have to import everything and thats just too much work atm. i found abovementioned solutions, but one keeps freezing everytime i select an item and write the tags, and the other one literally remuxes an entire mp4 file just to write the tags (mkvs apparently dont need that and the program does mkvs in matter of 1 or 2 seconds). now, i could take all my mp4 files and just switch container, that is pretty easy to do with videocontainerswitcher, but that one also needs remuxing, and id have to check how many mp4s my library has, but im sure its in tens of thousands, therefore also would take a considerable amount of time. ive also found solutions for mac but... surprise, surprise... i dont have a mac.

i mean, writing tags also would take a lot of time, but i figured if the solution is on par with metax, sure. i could do it in a few weeks time. add all seasons of a show, select the name of the show, let metax do its magic. writing tags to like 100 episodes will take less than a minute, i can manage that. if theres no solution and nobody knows of a such solution, i will fall back to just metaxing my tv shows. BUT. i. am. irked. by. comment. tag. being. empty. and yes, yes... i would be reading that tag in explorers details view every 5th leap year, BUT... it would bring peace to my inner nerd just knowing that it is there. catch my drift? yes, its a sickness. i agree. hahaha.

akshually... i believe metax also has a renaming feature, like from tag to filename. that is also a possibility, i mean for sorting my library filename wise. anywhoo... my search continues. first things first, imma gonna do a list of explorer tags that could be relevant to my purposes. there a a tonne of tags windows explorer has listed for details view, but apart from ones mentioned before theres maybe a handful of those i could actually have use of. as i said, if there is no solution, ill just do metax and be done with it. and THEN ill think about redoing my tv library (movies are fine as they are, never had any issues importing those even though they are in movie.name.year.resolution.source.videocodec.audiocodec-release format, be it folder or filename, even the year gets picked up every time, apart from when incomplete/corrupted tags get in the way, but thats just kodi, it seldom happens and its an easy fix, i just use metax to either delete tags or if that fails, sometimes it does, i just write new tags in metax).

anywhoo... thanks. ill keep looking. if anyone has an idea or suggestion, feel free. cheers!