4 replies to this topic

[HappyShark]

Media File Advice
Hello. I need advice from users that have found a good way to manage a large media library that will have more than one use.

Media Sources (thousands)

• Roots Magic Media Library. Photo’s, documents.
• Photo and document library on hard drive, organized by family branch. Many are were tagged by Picasa, and Windows, but the tags don’t seem to be visible from within RootsMagic.
• Assume that future contributions to my collection will have been tagged using different programs like Picasa, Photoshop, Windows, & whatever Mac uses.
• Scanned images, still on the disks but not imported into the library.

Desired Result

• All family related media files in one place without duplication. A data deduplication feature or program is needed to ensure that the images, not just the file names, are all unique. And, if it finds duplicate images, mark for review.
• All photographs and documents from certain directories, and new imports, will be moved (not copied) and combined into one Media location. This new location will be used by Roots Magic and image manager (?), I hope.
• Tagging and metadata from various source programs will convert to whatever the new image manager program is, without intervention.
• Prefer program that can be run from time to time to cleanup library.
• Am not opposed to purchasing a program as long as it really does what I need.
• What/how do you store your media files so that you can locate them easily, link them in your family tree software, keep them available for albums (without being linked to a family tree), all while avoiding duplication and only needing to tag each file, one time?
• Is there such a program out there? Would appreciate hearing from other users that have success managing large media libraries.

Thanks!

[Nettie]

The beauty of RM is none of the photos are not in the software but on your C drive. You can as many of us do set up a file for Photo

example: C: All Documents/Genealogy/Photo
Beyond Photo/ subdivided into family sections but the url on the folders option take me to the main Photo file. Next sentence.

The using the Tools Menu // Program Options/Folders and list the url for the photos. We never have had the photos inside of the software package and that works so well for many of us.

There is a report for listing Media Types to find all the ones attached.

[TomH]

Plug these search terms into google to turn up some prior discussion on this forum related to media management: (media management site:forums.rootsmagic.com). There is a broad consensus on the need for improved media handling, processing, management and outputs.

I cannot claim to be successful at managing a large media library. I do what I can and I'm never satisfied that it's good enough. I use Picasa with many folders and virtual albums and appreciate its face-tagging and search capabilities but I have not exploited all its features. No program will do all of what you want. Some of what you want must be done by RootsMagic (if you are going to stick with it) and it doesn't do it: e.g., writing metadata into the image file or reading from it. Trying to work around some of these shortcomings, I have done a fair bit using SQLite which you can read about at http://sqlitetoolsfo...uery Menu#Media .

BTW, Picasa has some duplicate detection and prevention features - one is obvious when you import. The other I just found under Tools > Experimental > Show duplicate files; it does a fairly good job of pairing them up in the Search Results window. Both supposedly do some kind of image comparison in addition to the simple stuff such as file name.

In order to keep images contiguous for RootsMagic, I tend to move or copy the ones I want to link with it in a media hierarchy specifically for RM or more generally for family history although that hierarchy also contains images not used by RM. Because RM does not do virtual cropping, you invariable have to have a separate cropped image file for its use.

[Vyger]

There is still a great potential for Rootsmagic to lead the field in media management and a few relatively simple things which could be added to the existing Gallery. I wrote the page below way back in the early days of RM4, some of the issues have been addressed some are still there and I would like to add one or two and will do in the near future.

1. Add Right Click "Open With" functionality in Gallery to open original image in your preferred image program.

2. Add additional columns to Media Gallery List View like Date Modified, Type and Size.

3. Make all columns in Media Gallery List View sortable by clicking column header ala Windows.

4. I would like to see the path excluded from the search results and have this only targeted at File Name, Caption and Tags.

http://www.vyger.co....ia-gallery.html

[Renee Zamora]

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