Author Topic: Video Support  (Read 95773 times)

Steven

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Starting with MusicBee version 2, video playback and file management is supported by an optional plugin that needs to be enabled in the Plugin preferences
- when enabled, a Video category is created in the left navigator
- MusicBee will support playback of video files directly in MusicBee
  (known issue: the last 0.5 second of a video file is not displayed)
- but playback can be configured to use an external application such as VLC in the player preferences
- if you do use an external application, you can only launch a file and no further integation with MusicBee
- for now the MusicBee video player is very basic but i will look to add some functionality
- some video formats require Codecs that do not come with your computer by default. In my testing, i didnt need to install anything for these formats:
  - MPG, MPEG, WMV, MOV
  - what i did need to install was a codec for .MP4, for which i downloaded the K-Lite (Standard) codec pack
    http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_Codec_Pack_download.htm

Installation
1. First you need MusicBee version 2.1
instructions to follow

2. Then unzip the following file directly into the MusicBee application folder (and NOT the plugins folder as with other plugins)
<link removed>

you should end up with something like:
c:\program files\MusicBee\MusicBee.exe
c:\program files\MusicBee\BASS_DSHOW.dll
c:\program files\MusicBee\BASS_DSHOW.NET.dll

3. If you have .m4a (AAC) files and are using windows 7, it is recommended you get BASS_AAC.dll otherwise playback will be done via the DirectShow plugin and the quality might not be as good - see http://getmusicbee.com/help.html


*** IMPORTANT ***
The current status of this plugin is: ON HOLD
Although the plugin works perfectly well for some people, for others it is not very stable when using the in-built player (using an external player is fine). The reason I believe is primarily to do with what codecs you have (or don't have) installed on your machine. In my case I used the K-Lite standard codec pack and don't have any problems, but some people feel installing codec packs is not a good idea.
Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 09:23:18 AM by Steven

jistme

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While I personally never had the need for video playback from musicplayers (Media Player Classic HC + Shark007 codecs do this perfectly already), I must admit the possibilities to integrate, archive, search and filter in the MusicBee library is very interesting.

I wouldn't care so much to have my movies in a database, but for musicvideo's and concerts it would be great to have them integrated in the music library. It would be fun to play an album or song of an artist from a certain year, and being able to easily lookup a concert video from the same year.
Maybe create a video still from the concert or videoclip as albumart, and just have the videoplayer of one's choosing as an external tool.

Good tagging is of course a must then. I have no idea if there is already some standard for tagging video's, which is compatible between most popular videocodecs though...?

Demonkunga

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- MusicBee will support playback of video files directly in MusicBee
  (known issue: the last 0.5 second of a video file is not displayed)
- but playback can be configured to use an external application such as VLC in the player preferences
- if you do use an external application, you can only launch a file and no further integation with MusicBee

If I use an external application to launch video files, MusicBee can still act as a database/organizer, right?
Also, acting as a database, can it grab from a network share? For example, \\Bob-PC\Users\Bob\Videos

Edit: Hehe, tested it for myself and it seems to work nicely. :) Thanks Steven!
Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 09:24:57 PM by Demonkunga

butler360

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Works surprisingly well! It managed to play a 1080P MVK mostly without issue.  It is even multithreaded apparently, since it used about 60% CPU on my quad-core.

I do have a few issues, though.

For one, it seems to be doing way too much in the background. If I look in my system tray the VSFilter/Haali etc. icons go on and off like crazy while playing. This seems to cause MusicBee to constantly steal the focus, even when in the background. It seems to happen during the importing of videos as well.

The other issue is there's constantly a "VSFilter sytax error at line 4" error. It seems to be tied to scanning the library and importing videos. Maybe it will go away once everything is imported, but for now it will just continue to return.

It also seems to fail to pull screenshots for MKV files. If it could be make to do that, the "Artwork" view in the main panel would be awesome.

Otherwise, though, it seems to play anything I throw at it using the internal player. This may be due to the fact that I have CCCP installed, which is supposed to be one of the best codec packs.

Kaelri

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A few questions for anyone who can answer: how do metadata tags work with video files? Can they be embedded in the files? And, if so, does the file format affect which tags or tag formats (ID3, et al.) can be used?

I also notice that some of the tag fields shown for video files appear to the equivalent music tags in disguise (e.g. "series name" for "album"). Is this just a temporary solution, or is it standard practice for video tagging?

Finally, a small bug report: sorting videos by "season" or "episode" (possibly other, but at least those two) don't obey numerical order:



This is a really exciting development for me. Being able to use MusicBee to tag and organize all of my media would be a dream come true.

Steven

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the only format that embeded file tagging is supported for is .mp4
all other formats only save to the musicbee database (and can be extracted by a number of means if you do a forum search for the video discussion thread)
its intentional that "series name" is used in place of "album"

Nikkel

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Even Though this is on hold, i'd like to say that this feature would be awesome!
And hopefully it will support MKV format also, because i rip all my movies and series to MKV files,
because you can put the different audio channels and subtitles in the file (or remove the ones you don't need to save a little space).

And i hope it will have good support for Series seasons and episodes.
Like a good way to show Season 1 and under that S01E01, S01E02 etc.

Ooh, and maybe even, later on.. when there's time  ;D
Being able to add a movie/serie cover and get the description and year and more info from IMDB.
And making it able to read what subtitles are available in the file (if it's a filetype that supports it) or .iso or .img whatever.

And to top it all of, being able to export that list :-)

That way i won't need my Movie Catalog software anymore lol
Last Edit: March 12, 2012, 09:26:17 PM by Nikkel

Adroit

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I install k-lite by default and have had no issues with playback using this plugin.  MB just keeps getting better and better!  Wish I knew how, or had time to develop!

zwayne

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OK, this is my first post here. I found MusicBee per a comment on Gizmo's (techsupportalert) but only now got around to trying it. Wow, what a richly featured and configurable player! So far, I'm lovin' it - I only wish I had found it sooner. It does almost everything I want & more, especially the management & flexibility in browsing my music library. Previously, my favorite all-around media player was MediaMonkey mostly for that reason, but I just didn't like the quirky things it did to my system (although now I have a faster computer & it isn't so much of an issue.)

I was going to comment on MM's ability to index & play videos, but then I found 2.0 & the plugin and it works great as a video player also! Haven't figured out, however, how the get the Video entry in the Library populated, nothing shows up when I click on it. The configure option on the video plug just displays a message. So how does MB populate the library??

One other thing I want to mention. A really nice feature that MM has is that it can display thumbnails of (some) videos while browsing among them.  (Well maybe MB can do the same if I can figure out how to get it to index my videos, which are sometimes in the same directories as wavs or mp3s...)

Anyway, MB is definitely a keeper - thanks guys!

Nosh

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The configure option on the video plug just displays a message. So how does MB populate the library??
Rescan your library and check the box that says "include video files." Make sure you've told it to scan the folders your videos are in.

zwayne

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Oh yeah! I'm a happy camper now... Thanks.

Nosh

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Is there a way to get it to maintain aspect ratio in full screen?

Currently it stretches my old television shows to fit my wide screen. I'd rather have black bars on the sides than a distorted picture. Not a terribly big deal, as I can launch the playlist form MusicBee in Media Player Classic Home Cinema, but playing the videos within MusicBee would be preferable if aspect ratio can be maintained.

Steven

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i have all development for this plugin on hold - i am waiting to see what the guy developing the video library does next before i decide what to do with this plugin but at the moment i understand he is busy with exams so it might be a while.

Nosh

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i have all development for this plugin on hold - i am waiting to see what the guy developing the video library does next before i decide what to do with this plugin but at the moment i understand he is busy with exams so it might be a while.

So does that mean no (for now) on whether I can make it maintain aspect ratio with the plugin as-is? If so, that's fine. Navigating my video library in MusicBee is still nicer in my opinion that in explorer even if I do end up launching MPC-HC to actually play the files.

VX

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i have all development for this plugin on hold - i am waiting to see what the guy developing the video library does next before i decide what to do with this plugin but at the moment i understand he is busy with exams so it might be a while.

Have a look at LAV Filters: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156191
This is the one and only codec (excluding Haali Media Splitter for splitting Matroska videos) I install to play ALL the video formats I use.

The project is quite mature and updated regularly. It is becoming more and more popular and is widely used instead of  ffdshow as default codec for most formats in various codec packages (including K-Lite ones).

The developer is usually eager for making desired customisations/improvements.