The Best Setup for Music Videos Using Both the Music and Video Scanners

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Setup for Music Videos Using Both

the Music and Video Scanners

(I.e. Having the best of both)

Essentials for the Music Section

I opted to put the videos in the global Music Video files. With that in mind, here are the important points that aren’t obvious until you see music videos showing up:

  • Even if you get it working you might not think you have because the videos will only show up on the artist’s page, well below the regular albums. Unless you know to scroll down or have a very large vertical window, you could get it working and not even know it. Then you might fiddle some more and break it and not even know there was a period where you got it right.
  • Even after you think the scanning and metadata update are done you may still have to wait a few minutes before the music videos show up on the artists page so be patient!
  • For me it hasn’t worked well to have the videos in parts with the music scanner. Better to have one file for the whole production. However, there is a way to have the parts as well which I’ll show below.
  • It’s seems essential that you get an MP3 of the artist in your regular music folder so that Plex can get some info. on the artist otherwise your videos will never be displayed.
  • You must also put this MP3 in with the video in the global folder for the artist or your video won’t show up - at least I had to.

Optional

  • The instructions say to add a suffix like “-concert” for the type of file. This word shows up in Plex and it looks nicer capitalized so you might want to use “-Concert” as I chose to.

Tip

If you are experimenting such as moving things around, creating/deleting/modifying libraries, changing the scanner parameters sometimes you effect a change in a library and not see it. If you think this is the case:

  • Re-scan the library files
  • Empty the trash
  • Reload the metadata.
  • All of the above is on the same popup menu for any given library
  • If you are making many changes and doing the above often. Move all but some test file out of your music area. This way all steps will be relatively quick.

Music Videos with the video scanner “Other Videos”

  • This is straight forward. Follow the instructions for file formats and directory structures for this setup and it works.
  • One variation: under the directory Scenes I preface the file names with something akin to a track # to preserve the order of them from the concert.
  • To play all the “scenes” in order once you have them all just add them all to a Play List - QED - although unnecessary with the way I’ve set it up.
    Update: I’ve removed the numbers. Since I have the full video and if I really want to I can create a play list with the concert’s order, it makes no sense to order them with numbers on the file names and it looks cleaner without the numbering.
  • For the file with the same name as the folder, as required in the instructions, use a file of the full concert instead of a short part like suggested. That way when you click on the main image you get the full concert. This of course means having the concert/production all as one file and as parts. This won’t always be the case but when you do this is a pretty good setup to accommodate having both.

Putting it All Together

The last step in all this, to save duplication of files on the server is to use a few symbolic links (Linux/BSD/Mac - I can’t speak for Windows servers). It’s starting to get quite a bit of information so I think it’s time for something visual. Below is my working file structure and below it the import points to note not already mentioned.

A Working File Structure

Music/Jesse Cook - Gravity/
└── Jesse Cook - Closer to Madness.mp3

Music-Videos/
├── In-Parts
│   └── Concerts
│       └── Jesse Cook - One Night at the Metropolis
│           ├── Interviews
│           │   ├── Melissa McClelland.mkv
│           ├── Jesse Cook - One Night at the Metropolis.mp4
│           ├── poster.jpeg
│           └── Scenes
│               ├── 01 - Beloved.mkv
│               ├── 19 - Viva.mkv
│               └── 20 - Encore.mkv
└── Whole
    └── Jesse Cook
        ├── Jesse Cook - Closer to Madness.mp3 -> ../../../Music/Jesse Cook - Gravity/Jesse Cook - Closer to Madness.mp3
        └── One Night at the Metropolis-Concert.mp4 -> ../../In-Parts/Concerts/Jesse Cook - One Night at the Metropolis/Jesse Cook - One Night at the Metropolis.mp4

File Paths

Main Music Library: .../Music/ (Setup)
Global Music Folder: .../Music-Videos/Whole/ (Setup)
Other Video Library: .../Music-Videos/In-Parts/ (Setup)

Important Points
  • Everything under .../Music-Videos/Whole/ are symlinks. This way there is no duplication.

The Final Result of All This

In my menu on the home page I have:

  • …
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Music Videos
  • TV Shows

If I click on “Music Videos” I will see my concert with all it’s parts at my disposal. If I click on the main picture I get the whole concert or I can browse the Extras and select a specific scene/song etc.

If I click on Music and browse to the artist I’ll see the artist’s albums and below them the videos. Clicking on a video plays it.

Update 1

I said previously I didn’t work for me to have multiple video files with the music scanner. After playing around with it it seems to come down to this - this works:

Music-Videos/
└── Whole
    └── Jesse Cook
        ├── Jesse Cook - Closer to Madness.mp3
        ├── One Night at the Metropolis-Concert.mp4
        └── Viva-Live.mp4

This does not:

Music-Videos/
└── Whole
    └── Jesse Cook
        ├── Jesse Cook - Closer to Madness.mp3
        ├── One Night at the Metropolis-Concert.mp4
        └── Live
           └── Viva.mp4 (or Viva-Live.mp4)

So the issue seems to be it’s not going to be easy to setup a hierarchy with the music scanner and it won’t be useful to do so on the display even if we could so I think my original methodology is still the best for now by only having the concert parts on the video scanner side.

…and that’s about it, I hope this helps someone in the future.

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