Video Metadata
With the Video Info Plugin feature enabled, metadata and poster image of the videos will be automatically retrieved according to their video folder types and the settings you configured at Settings > Video Info Plugin. To ensure that metadata obtained from Video Info Plugin 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 Plugin
At Settings > Video Info Plugin, you can upload plugins and adjust their order to allow Video Station to search for information according to the priority you set.
To add Video Info Plugin to Video Station:
- Go to Settings > Video Info Plugin.
- Click Add, upload a “.zip“ or “.tar“ file from your computer, and name it.
- Click OK and Video Station will check if the plugin is valid.
- Once uploaded, the plugin will be automatically enabled and categorized into a list of Movie or TV Show according to the information provided by the plugin.
To edit Video Info Plugin:
- Select the plugin you want to edit.
- Click Edit to edit the API key (for the system default plugin) or the name (for the plugin you uploaded) of the plugin.
To delete Video Info Plugin:
- Select the plugin you want to delete.
- Click Delete.
Note:
- Only DSM admin or users belonging to the administrators group can enable the feature.
- The Video Info Plugin feature does not apply to home videos and TV recordings.
- The order of plugins will affect the order where the indexing service obtains video information. Please place the plugin you use more often in an earlier position.
- You can refer to this Video Station API documentation to learn how to implement a video information plugin.
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 Video Info Plugin.
To edit video info:
- Go to any video tab on the left panel, and select the video you want to edit.
- Click Action > 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 from Video Info Plugin to have the empty fields auto filled in or erroneous information corrected. See the section 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 the section 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 the web address of your desired image in 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 Search all video info again button at Settings > Library.
- Please make sure to enable the Video Info Plugin feature before clicking Search all video info again. Otherwise, the system might not be able to retrieve metadata from the plugins properly.
- If Lock status at Action > Video Info is locked, video info will not be updated automatically when it is searched and retrieved from Video Info Plugin.
To search video metadata from Video Info Plugin or from existing videos:
- Go to any video tab on the left panel, and select the video you want to edit.
- Click Action > Edit video info.
- In the Video Info tab, select either Search from Video Info Plugin or Select from existing videos.
- 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 Video Info Plugin.
- 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 from Video Info Plugin button again.
Note:
- The Video Info Plugin feature is not applicable to home videos and TV recordings.
- 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 > Library > Edit > Video Info Language, the language setting will not be applied to the files whose language has been adjusted via the Search from Video Info Plugin function. You need to manually change them one by one on this interface.
Correct Video Metadata
You can correct video info if the metadata retrieved from the Video Info Plugin is not exactly correct.
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.