Video Metadata
By the time your video files are placed in the respective video folders, metadata and poster image of the videos will be automatically retrieved from the Internet according to their video folder types and the settings you configured at Settings > Advanced Settings > Video Info Auto Search. To ensure that metadata obtained from the Internet can be properly applied to the fields of corresponding videos, please follow the naming rules here.
Note:
- The metadata for home videos must be edited from scratch on your own.
- DSM admin or users belonging to the administrators group can edit and correct video information; non-admin users can only view video and media information.
Enable Video Info Auto Search
You can choose the information sources you want to use by enabling the Video Info Auto Search feature.
To enable Video Info Auto Search:
- Go to Settings > Advanced Settings > Video Info Auto Search.
- Tick the checkboxes to enable the sources you want to use.
- Enter the API key.
- Click Test Connection to check if the connection is successful.
- Click OK to save changes.
Note:
- Only DSM admin or users belonging to the administrators group can enable the feature.
- If the Video Info Auto Search feature is not enabled, the system might not be able to automatically search for video information when your files are uploaded to the corresponding folders.
Edit Video Metadata
You as DSM admin or a user belonging to the administrators group can edit video info if you would like to revise the metadata on your own, or if you have found mistakes in the metadata automatically retrieved from the Internet.
You can also take advantage of systems' metadata-loading feature to auto fill in the metadata or modify incorrect video information.
Note that the information auto-fill service is not available for home videos.
To edit video info:
- Go to any video tab on the left panel, and select the video you want to edit.
- Click the Action drop-down menu, and click Edit video info.
- In the window that appears, make changes to the information in the text field as needed, or do the following depending on the category you selected:
- Movie/TV Show: Click Search Internet to have the empty fields auto filled in or erroneous information corrected. See below for more information.
- Movie/TV Show/Home Video: Click Select from existing videos and all videos of the concerning category stored in your video folder will be displayed. See below for more information.
- Under the Poster tab, if the original poster image is not the one you are looking for (For Home Video, the poster would be the video thumbnail), simply type in the web address at which your desired image can be found at the URL field. The image will be loaded to replace the original one.
- Click OK to save the changes.
Note:
- You can update video info from time to time with the Re-index button at Settings > Video Folder.
- Please make sure to enable the Video Info Auto Search feature before re-indexing your files. Otherwise, the system might not be able to retrieve metadata from the Internet properly.
- If Lock status in the Video Info tab is locked, video info will not be updated automatically when it is searched and retrieved over the Internet (not applicable to Home Video and TV Recording).
To search video metadata from the Internet (not applicable to Home Video and TV Recording) or from existing videos:
- Follow step 1 to 3 of To edit video info to continue.
- In the window that appears, enter keywords of the movie, TV show, or home video title, TV show season or episode number in the corresponding fields, select display language for video info, and press Enter on your keyboard or click Search. Videos matching the search criteria will appear below.
- Browse through the search result, select one correct item from the list, and click Apply. The metadata of the selected video will be applied to the fields at the Video Info tab.
- If previously existing metadata was available but incorrect, it will be cleared and replaced with the updated information searched over the Internet.
- If no metadata was available before the metadata is applied, the empty metadata fields will be automatically filled in and updated with the latest information.
- Click OK to save the changes, or click Reset to restore the original data if you have found the applied metadata is not the one you are looking for, and make another search with the Search Internet button again.
Note:
- Please make sure to enable the Video Info Auto Search feature before re-indexing your files. Otherwise, the system might not be able to retrieve metadata from the Internet properly.
- If the video info language selected here is different from the one currently applied and if video info in the selected language is available over the Internet, the selected language will be applied to the metadata of the video in question. However, if later on you want to change the video info language of movies or TV shows stored in the corresponding folders all together at a time at Settings > Video Folder > Edit > Video Info Language, the language setting will not be applied to the files whose language has been adjusted via the Search Internet function. You need to manually change them one by one on this interface.
Correct Video Metadata
You can correct video info if you have found the metadata retrieved from the Internet is not exactly correct as well.
The difference between the options Edit video info and Correct video info on the Action drop-down menu is that the latter is available only when a movie, TV show episode, or TV recording program contains more than one video file. For example, if a three-hour movie comprises three video clips, one-hour long per clip, you can modify the metadata of the clip(s) which has/have errors, and the modified information will be applied to the other clips grouped under this movie.
Please note that only when changes are made to the following fields of Movie/TV Show/Home Video will the corrected video clip be classified to another video. Otherwise, the clip which has been revised will still belong to the same movie, TV show episode, or home video.
- Movie: Title, Originally available
- TV Show: Title, Originally available, Season, Episode title
- Home Video: Title, Originally available
View Media Info
You can view media info by selecting any video, clicking the Action drop-down menu and clicking View media info.
Export Video Metadata
When you update the information of a video for the first time, a metadata file tracking video information will be created in the directory where the original video is located. You can also create metadata files for all videos in a library folder by doing the following:
- Go to any video tab on the left panel, and click Settings.
- On the Library tab, select a folder and click Export Video Info.
- You can access the metadata files using File Station for management or archival purposes. Any changes made to the video information will be updated to the corresponding metadata file.