How do you sort your collection?

fwildly

Well-Known Member
Jun 22, 2008
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I'm just wondering how everyone sorts their videos.

By name? By code?

If you do it by name, how do you deal with the large number of resulting folders?

How would you find back a specific video within your folder tree?
 
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kjamc1982

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Apr 3, 2007
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I usually do it by studio for myself. I could then break it down to the idols name in said studio would be the quickest way to find the specific video I would want to watch.
 
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fwildly

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Jun 22, 2008
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I usually do it by studio for myself. I could then break it down to the idols name in said studio would be the quickest way to find the specific video I would want to watch.
I see. But than how do handle it when the idol has videos in different studios?

I suppose one can always use a 3rd party search utility like Everything (surprisingly fast and efficient, but needs to scan all your drives at least once eac day) but I'm trying to come up with a system that doesn't require it

Right now, I'm sorting by idols. Whoever has at least 2 vids gets a folder of her own. Everything else is by studio.
 

dinhbang123

Member
Feb 27, 2009
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I used to be sort my colletion by this format Acctress name - Title [C-ode]. Then i only use code, i prefer to watch random vids.
 

fwildly

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Jun 22, 2008
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^ Everything has to refresh its file database which is why it does a full scan the first time you run it every day....err...that's assuming you power off your PC at the end of every day. I don't think it bothers to do this when your PC is left on.

But yeah...I'm thinking I should switch to sorting by code too. Sorting by idols is getting...unwieldy. Too many girls, too many folders of which some have too few files.

I'm thinking I should only maintain specific folders for those who were really that prolific.
 

Death Metal

Burning Knuckle
Jan 9, 2007
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@ether202 I would support your development of an application for that! If it had some cool features...

Anyway, I really like the topic raised by @fwildly. I am kind of paranoid with organization so I tend to organize my stuff really well. I used to have folders for each studio and, inside them, files were organized primarily by code in this format: "[DVD_CODE] Idol_Name - Movie_Title", very simple. Then I realized it didn't fully serve me and sometimes the studio name was not mentioned in the DVD cover so I had to put it in some general foder. Then I did some major reorg, which took major effort, and now folders are organized by idols (like: "Romaji_Name Kanji_Name DOB") and files within them are like this: "Idol_Name Release_Date [DVD_CODE] Movie_Title". This way videos are sorted by release date then DVD code when in alphabetical order. It took me several weeks to rename everything but I feel my collection is pretty neatly organized by now :)
 
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fwildly

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Jun 22, 2008
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I do know some programming and I actually kinda built some sort of program. Its ridiculously basic, as in no GUI (I hate coding for GUIs) and it compiles and runs within Eclipse (for simplicity's sake). But it does what I want it to do, which is scan a designated folder and create a text file for me that lists all the videos I have sorted by idol and than DVD code. This is so I don't have to start up my NAS and sift through directories just to check if I have a video. I can just search the text file.

Not going to share it out partly because its just a .java file which I didn't even bother to compile, plus its not even particularly robust. As in it can only handle a specific file naming convention else the parsing will throw an unhandled exception. When one codes for a living, you sometimes get lazy about 'working' for something as silly as this haha.

It does a few other various things too, like generate another index file for .iso files or files that are older than a specific date along with a list of files that are either avi or rather large MKV that I might want to re-encode later to a more smaller more efficient format.
 
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kunoichi

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Mar 26, 2007
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I know how to code a solution using MySQL for a Java application with a local browser interface that could be an answer, but I don't think it's fair or user friendly to have people install and maintain a local installation of MySQL just for this.. I'm looking into a solution using sqlite which would not require any such installation or db maintenance from the user.. I'd still use a browser interface, because coding a UI with HTML/CSS/JavaScript it still vastly preferable to me and I already know those inside out.

I use this format and simply put my complete collection of videos and covers in the same folder without subfolders:
Code:
[TSDV-41611] Juna Ooshima (大島珠奈) - 妖精時代.jpg
[TSDV-41611] Juna Ooshima (大島珠奈) - 妖精時代.mp4


I usually remove any additional files and just keep the cover, not the best for reseeding I know, but it's pretty nice and clean for organizing.

Having a database of IVs and a way to import titles would be pretty nice, preferably through a standard fileformat in .csv / .xml / .json

You could then had a way to rename existing files using a user specified pattern, possibly you could identify the titles using the product code or filehash, maybe even by title or actress and have a popup dialog to select title if there are multiple matches.

SQLite is a good choice for db since it's cross-platform, and there is also the excellent sqlitebrowser: http://sqlitebrowser.org/
I haven't used Java for a while but I guess it would be nice to use some type of ORM framework like OrmLite: http://ormlite.com/

Personally, I would use C# and .NET framework as it has built in Language Integrated Queries (LINQ) which makes life a whole lot easier when working with databases (and collections):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Integrated_Query#Language_extensions
 
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javpixelcat

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Feb 23, 2017
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Not sure what you're talking about, I've never noticed any scanning or anything like that from Everything and I've been using it for years.. literally just set the drives you want it to be able to search and go, I have it running all the time.

As for the question, I sort by code, and then I add the actress names of the girls in the video to the folder name as well, and I just use Everything to find videos very quickly. If the video has many actresses, I only include the ones that I like from the video.

Yes Everything does use indexing, it has to for the instant search. I switched to (non-indexing) XSearch. Its amazingly fast for a non-indexed search, and has the ability to search within files. Just have to remember to hit enter after entering the search term.

I agree, its easiest to organize / sort by movie code. All other data (like actress name) goes in a sidecar text file within a folder for each movie. XSearch for terms inside the text files to find whatever.
 

mieko1970

Active Member
Jun 15, 2008
223
167
LOL !! I just came across this thread cause i was curious. I've actually been planning to make a cold storage media app for this specific purpose. With the 1000's videos i've capped and encoded from my collecting over the last 30 years plus the countless 1000's of files i've downloaded over the years...they're completely disorganized across 42 TB's of HDD's and trying to find something is just crazy..BTW.. 85% of it is Japanese Media. I'm a Sys Admin but moving into Web Programming.. Rails/MEAN/LAMP..etc.

Anyhow after i finish up the MEAN project i'm currently working on i'm gonna start to build this thing and probably launch it. Gonna most likely build it on Rails with a Postgres DB.. Rather use SQL Server with it but it's a pain in the ass to do so.

If anybody's interested.. LMK and i'll post my Github link.
 
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javpixelcat

New Member
Feb 23, 2017
2
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Honestly, the indexing is so fast that it's not even noticeable, unless you have a bunch of external drives..

Yep, the time spent re-indexing isn't even an issue. And Everything's instant search really is a thing of beauty. It reminds me of the old bookmark program Powermarks, which I still have yet to find a replacement for. If indexing works in your organizing schema, by all means that is the way to go. So long as its an open collection ..

If someone wishes to keep a collection isolated or private, having the files indexed somewhere by the operating system or 3rd party program may not be ideal.

On a side note: Found a coding example, an AJAX'ian way of doing something similar to Everything's instant search. Web search "Dynamic high performance DataTables" to find the article at codeproject.
 
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kunoichi

Occasional Visitor
Mar 26, 2007
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If someone wishes to keep a collection isolated or private, having the files indexed somewhere by the operating system or 3rd party program may not be ideal.

Yes, if you still want to index using the operating system and still keep it private, the safest thing would probably be to encrypt your entire system drive, which may not always be practical.

You could possibly also run a secondary OS on a Virtual Machine placed on an encrypted drive, add the drives or folders with your encrypted containers to the VM, then mount and index them from your secondary OS.
 

mieko1970

Active Member
Jun 15, 2008
223
167
Yes, if you still want to index using the operating system and still keep it private, the safest thing would probably be to encrypt your entire system drive, which may not always be practical.

You could possibly also run a secondary OS on a Virtual Machine placed on an encrypted drive, add the drives or folders with your encrypted containers to the VM, then mount and index them from your secondary OS.

Overkill... If making app public then encrypt the DB, setup login authentication and deploy to the cloud, . If private and offline.. why would one bother encrypting one's system drive ? Hell.. Just all use Microsoft Access.. that's bloody easy to use.
 
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mieko1970

Active Member
Jun 15, 2008
223
167
I'm going the simple route. IIS on my PC serving classic ASP with an Access backend. Did I also mention ancient components? Haha! It's all I need.

Hehehehe.. Exactly !! Access is hardly complex but for those just wanting to have somewhat functional..Why not !
 
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