About VsMetaFileEncoder

Summary

NAS manufacturer Synology provides, for its network attached storage devices (NAS), a video content manager called Video Station. The application enables the NAS to stream videos over your LAN. Information about these videos are stored in a local Postgres database and optionally by files with extension .vsmeta. The format is proprietary. The tool provided here is able to write vsMetaFiles. The structure has been elaborated by reverse engineering and ressources found here. Many thanks to Carlos Ballesteros Velasco.

Prerequisites

Once a video is written into a directory, Video Station looks for .vsmeta files if these conditions are met:

• The folder is part of a Video Station library.
• At least once, an export of meta data has been triggered. This can be done at the library settings of Video Station.
• The .vsmeta file has the same name as the video, appended by .vsmeta. Example: The video is called video.mpg, the meta data file shall be named video.mpg.vsmeta.
• The .vsmeta file is available when Video Station indexes the video file first time.
• The content type (movie, series, other) is equal to the type specified in the .vsmeta file.

Limitations

• Media type 'others' is currently not supported.
• Some fields are not yet supported. See list below.

How to use the code

Here's an example piece of code. Other examples can be found in the unit test classes.

import os
from vsmetaEncoder.vsmetaMovieEncoder import VsMetaMovieEncoder
from vsmetaEncoder.vsmetaInfo import VsMetaInfo
class writeVsMetaForMovie():
def test_encodeTemplate4(self):
writer = VsMetaMovieEncoder()
info = writer.info
info.episodeTitle = 'Nach der Hochzeit'
info.showTitle = 'Kino - Filme'
info.setEpisodeDate(date(2021, 3, 8))
info.chapterSummary = 'Um die drohende Schließung seines indischen Waisenhauses abzuwenden...'
writeVsMetaFile(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)),'videp.mp4.vsmeta'), writer.encode(info))

The code is available on PyPI and can be installed with command pip install vsMetaEncoder.

Field mapping

Here's how to use the vsMetaInfo class for the different media types.

Series

To encode the episode of a series, use the vsMetaInfo class with a vsMetaSeriesEncoder. Have a look at the test classes to see how it works best. The table below describes how to set the vsMetaInfo properties.

Field in Video Station	vsMetaInfo property	Remark
TV Show Name	showTitle
Publishing Date	setEpisodeReleaseDate()	Use method instead of direct value assignment.
Episode Title	episodeTitle
Season	season	If not set, defaulted with publishing year of episode.
Episode	episode	If not set, defaulted with week number x 10 plus weekday number (Monday is 1).
Publishing Date (Episode)	setShowDate()	Use method instead of direct value assignment.
Locked	episodeLocked
Summary	chapterSummary

Not supported yet:

• Classification
• Rating
• Genre
• Cast
• Author

Movies

To encode a TV film or movie, use the vsMetaInfo class with a vsMetaMoviesEncoder. The property names might be confusing, don't think too much about it - just use them as listed below.

Field in Video Station	vsMetaInfo property	Remark
Title	showTitle
Short Title	episodeTitle
Publishing Date	setEpisodeDate()	Use method instead of direct value assignment.
Locked	episodeLocked
Summary	chapterSummary

Not supported yet:

• Classification
• Rating
• Genre
• Cast
• Author

Media type 'other'

This media type is not supported, and probably won't. It is intended for private videos or artwork, which will be edited most likely manually at uploading.

Screen shots of the property screens for the media types

Here are the screenshots of the supported media types in German English (I did not had English screenshots at hand - please add them if you have).

References

• Synology Video Station:
  • Help in Support Center
  • Product Page