[META] Some useful tools I recommend

AReallyScaryGhost | 212 points | Oct 23 2016 19:59:17

[META] Some useful tools I recommend | Megalinks MegaDB [META] Some useful tools I recommend

Since this is one of my most visited subreddits, I thought I'd share some stuff I use to keep my libraries streamlined and to make my life a little easier.

Not sure if there's a similar list already here, but I thought I'd compile a list of tools and software that I use to help manage my libraries.

Filebot | Megalinks MegaDB Filebot - This is super useful when it comes to renaming files to something I bit easier to read and cleaner.

"Game of Thrones - S06E09 - Battle of the Bastards" is a lot easier to read and makes your library look cleaner than "Game.of.Thrones.S06E09.INTERNAL.720P.HDTV.X264-KILLERS".

In addition to that, it can be used to find subtitles for multiple | Megalinks MegaDB multiple video files at the same time. It automatically renames it as well so that your video player can easily find it.

PotPlayer | Megalinks MegaDB PotPlayer - An amazing | Megalinks MegaDB amazing video player that I've been using for the past couple years. The most vast and extensive options I've seen in any video player, better playlist support than VLC or MPC, skins, supports every file format I've come across (mpg, mp4, mkv, .ts, mov, etc.), broadcasting support, various UI options and more.

iTunes | Megalinks MegaDB iTunes - Even though I despise iTunes, there's ONE reason why I still use it; changing thumbnails. In iTunes, you can change the thumbnail of mp4 files to whatever you want, so for my movie library, I changed the thumbnails of my movies to their respective posters. It looks better.

To do so, just drag the file into iTunes, right click on it, "Get Info" and click on the "Artwork" tab to change it.

Rebox.net | Megalinks MegaDB Rebox.net - If you hate using MKV files, use this to convert it to MP4. It only takes a few seconds. It's also important to remember that MKVs are really file formats. It's just a container for files. So within MKVs, there's usually an MP4 file, audio tracks and subtitles.

MKVToolNix | Megalinks MegaDB MKVToolNix - I use this mainly to add subtitle files to video files, just so that the .srt file isn't just there laying around. Here's a guide on how to do it. I also use to to combine multiple video parts from when I extract them from sites (in some sites the video files usually come in separate parts so there's space for ads in between). I can just append them to one another so they're one single video.

Youtube-DL | Megalinks MegaDB Youtube-DL - Hands down one of the most powerful video rippers out there. Supports literally hundreds of sites. Takes a while to get a hang of, but its worth it. I use it to rip videos off of BBC, Crunchyroll, Funimation, YouTube, SouthParkStudios, AdultSwim, etc.

These guys give a pretty good idea on how to use it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYEDj69IRg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCrUGKwc8JA

VidCoder | Megalinks MegaDB VidCoder - If you're interested in encoding your own files (in my case, I do it to make my files a bit smaller, but retain quality) this is your best bet. I believe it uses the Handbrake engine to handle the work, but its much simpler to use in comparison to Handbrake's UI. Encoding files usually take as long as the length of the video.

A 22 minute TV show usually takes about 15-20 minutes for me if I'm encoding it to 720p or 1080p.

Here are my settings.

AIMP | Megalinks MegaDB AIMP - A great looking music player that supports many file types. It also comes with an audio converter and tag editor.

BulkRenameUtility | Megalinks MegaDB BulkRenameUtility - For those of you who have hundreds of files and not enough time to change the names.

MXPlayer | Megalinks MegaDB MXPlayer - An Android media player. I use it to play mostly mkv and x265 files.

Occasionally if I rip a site of its videos, the titles will usually contain something like "Watch Full For Free" or something similar in its title. Using this tool you can get rid of all of that.

That's about all I can think of at the moment, but I'll add more if I remember them.

[-] Mickey1Mouse | 13 points | Oct 23 2016 20:58:33

I would add a few others: VirtualDub - Let's you do all kinds of video editing and encoding. Has alot of optional filters like delogo. This one lets you remove those annoying logos many cable channels love to spam all over their videos. You can also use VirtualDub to crop a video(good for youtube videos where people have their television in the video) or speed up/down a video(great for those youtube videos that had their speed altered to get around youtube's copyright system)

MegaDownloader - I haven't tried this one but others swear by it to get around Mega's daily download cap.

Any Video Converter - This one is great for reencoding video(in batches or alone) and supports some simple video editing as well.

VideoLan(VLC) - Great video player. Supported on multiple platforms.

[-] rednight39 | 4 points | Oct 23 2016 22:31:24

Holy cow. People still use Vdub? I used to use this to cap TV and encode it about a dozen years ago. :)

[-] AReallyScaryGhost | 2 points | Oct 23 2016 21:05:51

I thought about including VLC, but I put PotPlayer instead. It's much better in my opinion.

[-] yrneh12 | 2 points | Oct 24 2016 01:06:46

Seems like the download links for MegaDownloader are down. That's a shame because I would like to get around the new bandwidth limit. I haven't been able to find a workaround for it.

[-] Mickey1Mouse | 3 points | Oct 24 2016 02:53:49

My bad I shoulda checked the link first. This one should work: megadownloader

[-] TheMightyZander | 3 points | Oct 23 2016 22:21:01

Quick question. What makes Filebot so much better than just renaming the file by right clicking an item and changing the file name and info through the regular file settings?

[-] JazzJit | 4 points | Oct 23 2016 22:35:50

Filebot can do batches of files, so renaming an entire series of episodes can be done with a few mouse clicks instead of doing each one individually.

[-] TheMightyZander | 3 points | Oct 23 2016 23:25:59

Oh shit that's awesome. Will definitely be checking this out. I'm assuming it also works with full music albums too?

[-] PmMeSteamWalletCode | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 03:13:54

Yes

[-] TheMightyZander | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 08:32:33

Perfect thanks!

[-] [deleted] | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 01:53:13

I would also like to know if it works with full music albums. I have 40gb of mozart, and its taking me forever to rename everything.

[-] ToxaKniotee | 3 points | Oct 24 2016 04:12:53

I've never used Filebot to rename and organize music, but you can use MusicBrainz Picard to do so

Edit: Here is the link http://picard.musicbrainz.org/

[-] AReallyScaryGhost | 4 points | Oct 23 2016 23:04:40

It's a batch renamer and subtitle finder.

[-] TheMightyZander | 2 points | Oct 23 2016 23:26:18

Oh nice. Thanks for the post!

[-] DefsNotAnAltAccount | 3 points | Oct 24 2016 00:27:45

I would like to add some stuff I use.
MetaX is a great tool for tagging TV episodes and movies. It adds cover art, and a huge amount of details such as director, cast, long and short descriptions, episode and season for tv shows, classification, date aired and a few more things. It is a great program for tagging.

dBpoweramp is great for ripping CDs and transcoding music to different formats. It takes seconds for me to convert whole albums between lossless formats due to multithreading.

Spek is a program that creates a graph of an audio file. It makss it easy to assess if the file is indeed what it says it is. I am able to see if a 128kbps track has been re-encoded up to 320kbps or if there is a lot of artifacting due to it being converted between lossy formats numerous times.

[-] tonystankisajerk | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 04:13:11

I just want to make sure with you guys.

I have a video that is MKV type. When I play it on some of my video players, the video just starts messing up. Like the audio is ok, but the video starts getting pixellated. I can't figure out if something is wrong with my video players or the video itself.

Can you guys maybe clarify what's happening?

Edit: The video starts off perfectly well like I can see the video...and then it slowly just becomes pixellated.

[-] AReallyScaryGhost | 3 points | Oct 24 2016 10:50:47

If that happens with all MKVs, it sounds like it may be an issue with the codecs you're using or probably the video player. Download the K Lite Codec pack and install it and see if that helps: https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

[-] tonystankisajerk | 1 points | Oct 25 2016 00:08:56

No, other MKV files work. I think wherever I downloaded that file has a H.265 codec. So its a x265 MKV file.

[-] Timzor | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 10:08:23

Please don't rename files if you intend on sharing them, that information in the name is very important.

[-] AReallyScaryGhost | 2 points | Oct 24 2016 10:51:05

What do you mean?

[-] Timzor | 4 points | Oct 24 2016 11:46:20

The information contained in the file name is important, resolution, the source, the codec, the release group, all very important information when it comes to archiving and sharing files. One look at the name tells me what I need to know about the file,is it high res enough? Will it play on my device? Does it have TV logos on it, was it released by a reputable group. Things that I look for when finding downloads, and it's very frustrating to find renamed files out in the wild.

[-] AReallyScaryGhost | 2 points | Oct 24 2016 11:51:41

Yeah, as I said in the post its for organization purposes. I don't need to know the codec, resolution or release group. I can run any video, I only download 720p-1080p and I really don't care about the release group (I don't see why that matters anyways). If you want to know some of those things, just look at the file properties.

It's not like I'm changing the name and then uploading it. This is all for my personal collection.

[-] Timzor | 1 points | Oct 24 2016 12:00:06

Sure whatever, I'm just saying it's very useful to keep metadata basically, not just you but anyone who cares about their collections. Especially if you want to share your collection with others.