[malcolmbarr]

Apologies in advance if this is covered elsewhere (I have searched for a solution without success).

I am looking for a piece of software that will give me control of the genre field across multiple video files in my collection. I explain why I need to do this below. What I would like to be able to do is:
(a) set the first genre entry to either "family" or "adults"' and then
(b) specify what comes in the fields after the first.
With a large collection of movies to manage (about 700 currently) doing this on a file by file basis would be very time consuming. So I need control of the genre field across multiple files.

I have taken a quick look at a number of pieces of software to see if they can do this (ember, my movies, media companion, mediaelch, media centre master, movie collector). It is possible the functionality is there in one or more of these but I have just missed it (it takes time to get to know them!). Please let me know if I have just missed it!

The one that has got closest on first look is movie collector, which allows editing of the genre field across multiple movie files, and for you to control what genre selections are available. However, the genres are always listed in alphabetical order. So you couldn't, for example, have genres listed as family, animation (it would always sort the fields alphabetically to show animation first, then family).

I am aware what I am asking for is pretty specific, but any pointers on how this can be done would be much appreciated.

So why do I need to organise things this way? The basic answer is I am trying to set up the metadata for my files in a way that plays nicely both with Xbmc and the WDTV live streamers I have in my home. And the WDTV devices only see the first entry in the genre field.

I always like to keep a separation between files for the kids, and those not for them. On the WDTV live, I have done that by filtering the movie library by genre, and setting the first tag in the genre field to either "family" or "adult". The WDTV only sees the first tag listed in the genre field of the XML for the movie file. I have edited the xml files with this in mind as I have built my library up, and am only now coming to Xbmc.

I know that the library separation in Xbmc can be done using smart playlists or by use of different folder structures. But ideally, I would like the info in the NFO files for XBMC and the XML files for the WDTV devices to be the same, and would like in both cases to be able to use the genre field as a starting point for dividing the library. And given that XBMC allows for a lot more fanart and metadata, I anticipate I am going to recsrape the info for all my movie files and build up a fuller bank of metadata rather than just use what I already have.

Thanks again for any ideas (and for reading such a long post!).

[Vertigo]

Kinda late response, but since I have the question and a partial solution, I thought Id post here.
I used to do this using XWMM webinterface, where I could create new genres and assign movies to that genre. That way I created among other things, genres for "dutch spoken children movies". I favorited those genres, so I could create a menu entry for it.

Worked brilliantly.

But XWMM is not updated to Frodo yet. So does anyone know an alternative way to achieve the same, or manually assign genres, preferably one that doesnt involve editing nfo files?

[deh2k7]

Ember lets you select multiple movies and modify/add/change genre.

[PatK]

Tags have been wonderful, within XBMC using the tags function you can isolate files in your library from the entire list.

[bgvan]

Ember lets you select multiple movies and modify/add/change genre.

May I ask how this is done exactly.