I 'd like to have the option to store or just read (I’ll move them) the BIF files alongside the media. Just like poster, subs and others you can simply make the server use them if there and document it in the local media assets page if that makes it easier.
Reasons would be that since generating them is a time consuming CPU intensive task (5-10 minutes each for me), it only needs to be done one time no matter where, when and how you place the video. I’m aware that you should be able to move items without regeneration but it’s not 100%.
Secondly, not me but I see many people run into space issues on their SSDs so this helps that.
Surprised more interest isn’t expressed for this. There are many use cases where this would be very helpful. I use a cloud drive mount and don’t want to be dinged for extra unneeded traffic if I loose the BIFs and they have to be created. In that case, it’s not a “nice to have” it’s a “will cost me money or a ban if I don’t have”
Also worth considering, we don’t generate our own posters when they are already available. Why have thousands of users scanning the same content and creating the same BIFs? I realize there will be some variables in the length of the video, it may be off by a few seconds, but we are able to do something similar now with external subtitle files.
I’m on Linux, until this feature is added, I’m going to try the symlink method just to make my data directory more manageable, even if it does slow down things a bit.
