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+--- Thread: New(ish) User on Library Maintenance + Playback Sync (/t-new-ish-user-on-library-maintenance-playback-sync)
New(ish) User on Library Maintenance + Playback Sync - LordBarinthus - 2025-06-09
Hello! Relatively new to JF (and loving it!) but am fairly tech-savvy in general. I've maintained a media library for years, but am new to hosting/playback using a media system like JF. A few questions for those more experienced than I!
1. Up to this point I've just organized my media (in this case movies) by title with the year in parentheses. Ex: Conclave (2025).mkv. I've never messed with metadata/.nfo files beyond just viewing frame size/dimensions/created date/etc. I also didn't like a bunch of extraneous files hanging out in my media folders, but that's probably just the undiagnosed-OCD in me, haha. However, now that I'm using a media software like JF, I can see the positive in actively maintaining metadata files. Suggestions for doing so? I do have MKVToolNix to edit as needed, but anyone have suggestions for starting metadata maintenance from scratch? I believe JF can add .nfo files for the relevant files (I initially turned that feature off when it added half a dozen files for each media file I had (.nfo, images, etc.) but am not opposed to using that functionality. I noticed after I added my library to JF that a handful of movies pulled the wrong metadata from the online sources. I know I can edit/fix that, but I want it to be a long-term fix. Open to suggestions on starting/maintaining a media library in general.
1A. While I have my media library broken down into media type (Movies/Music/TV Shows/etc.) would you suggest I give each movie its own folder? It's been unnecessary up to this point (except where I already made folders for movie series), but I'd rather have to do extra clicking than see several files for every single movie in the same folder. Orrrrrr, would you suggest keeping it all in the same folder but setting my Explorer/file viewer to just filter out everything except .mp4/.mkv until I needed to actually see the metadata files?
2. I like to have media playing in the background while I'm working on things around the apartment. My work station is on one wall with my entertainment center and tv on the wall behind me. I found myself the other night wishing I could play back media on my workstation (Windows laptop with external monitor that hosts JF and uses JF Media Player for playback) AND my TV (Amazon FireTV) in sync. The tv does have the JF app and works great, but doesn't seem to support the SyncPlay/Group functionality. Any suggestions for syncing playback between the Windows PC and the FireTV so that as I do chores around the apartment I have multiple viewing angles for what I'm watching? I'm using a WiFi network for local playback, but bandwidth/data-usage is not an issue if that becomes relevant to a potential solution.
3. Any must-have plugins?
That's all for the moment, but any suggestions for someone new to JF and media organization/maintenance in general are welcome. Thanks all. Cheers!
RE: New(ish) User on Library Maintenance + Playback Sync - user5621 - 2025-07-20
So you should give each movie it's own folder, it works better for matching the metadata and especially if you later use some of the automated tools to manage your collection you'll want each movie and show in it's own folder.
so TinyMediaManager works good for bulk creating .nfo's for your media files, it will create the proper .nfo files, you can mass add a tag etc. This is really only useful for downloaded videos and not movies or TV Shows.
I use the .nfo files and it works quite well, that way any metadata is preserved by backing up the folder. Jellyfin will create a .nfo for each video as well as the various thumbnails.
The only downside is it can take a few seconds for the thumbnails to load if the drive has gone to sleep since they are stored with the media files on you regular hard drive.