One major feature of TealPlay is the ability to browse and select items from a media library. While the concept of the library is shared among most media center applications and some media players, TealPlay is distinctive in that you have complete control over the library layout. Media files are not forced into regimented categories like "Movies" or "TV Shows." Instead, a completely customizable layout is supported by simply arranging your media into folders and using some metadata files to supply information. Consider the following example:
Since TealPlay is an academic project, it makes sense to be able to organize lecture videos. However, lectures do not neatly fit into the standard media model of movies or TV shows. Courses typically have more than one lecture, and professors normally teach more than one course. With TealPlay's flexible library arrangement, we can group lectures together in a natural way that reflects their existing organization. Without this flexibility, grouping lectures would be a challenge. Is a course equivalent to a TV show? If so, then grouping the lectures is easy enough unless you consider that there might be different sections of the same course taught by different professors (with different lectures!). Eliminating preconceived ideas of media organization solves this problem.
Of course, you might also have media like movies, TV shows, or music. By using the traditional names of media categories when organizing the libraries, you can still have these standard categories:
To use the library, you first need to create it on your local file system (or on a network share accessible from your computer). Once the library is created, you use the Rescan Library feature of TealPlay to scan the library to extract information and make loading much faster. You can then browse the library, add content to the playlist, and search for content in the library. These steps are detailed in the following pages: