[najkks]

Hi, new here.. but in need of some help.

Ive run xbmc for some months now, experiencing some problems..

I got 2 usb-discs (2tb each) connected to my pc. The problem in xbmc is that i cant find all the movies (about 400), only 40-50 or so..

When i try to update my source i get the "could not connect to remote server" -error.. and then i can choose to abort or continue.

Also, some movies dont have correct covers, only a "screenshot" from the movie. Why is this? Is it because it dont recognise the movie-name?

All my movies are named after its title, and placed in a similar library (for example F:/movies/ice age 2 (2003)/ice age 2 (2003).mkv

NOTE.. i dont know if its actually 2003 for the ice-age2-movie, but im sure that ive looked up the correct info about all the movies launch-years when ive created the library on my usb-discs.

One final thing, ive choosen to sort my movies after the title, but shouldt it be alphabetical? Now i have A, and suddenly a movie that starts with "H", not in the correct order that is..

Would be pleased if i got some help or hints!

[skeeveman]

I think the most important thing is staying uniform on however you decide to do it. I personally prefer to keep all of my movies in one folder, instead each in their own folder within the parent directory. After that I have had pretty good luck naming them exactly like the imdb has them listed as far as the title goes. Sometimes I have to omit special characters to allow the name change to take, such as a colon, but I don't replace them with anything.

As far as your error connecting to server issue, I get that once in a while too. I believe it's because of my slow internet connection. I've noticed that if I have a lot of new content waiting to be put in the library, and something else on the network is using my bandwidth at full throttle, I will get that. Pausing the activity on the other computer before letting xbmc update the library really seems to help. If that really is the root cause, maybe giving the htpc's IP bandwidth priority in the router may fix it altogether.

[najkks]

I think the most important thing is staying uniform on however you decide to do it. I personally prefer to keep all of my movies in one folder, instead each in their own folder within the parent directory. After that I have had pretty good luck naming them exactly like the imdb has them listed as far as the title goes. Sometimes I have to omit special characters to allow the name change to take, such as a colon, but I don't replace them with anything.

As far as your error connecting to server issue, I get that once in a while too. I believe it's because of my slow internet connection. I've noticed that if I have a lot of new content waiting to be put in the library, and something else on the network is using my bandwidth at full throttle, I will get that. Pausing the activity on the other computer before letting xbmc update the library really seems to help. If that really is the root cause, maybe giving the htpc's IP bandwidth priority in the router may fix it altogether.

Hmm.. so youre saying that if i get rid of all directories/libraries and only have all the movie straight out of the root on the usb-disc, this would help?

Note that i havent had any trouble at all to get the right name of the movies showing up in xbmc. Only "not alphabetical", and "missing a lot of movies"..


Also im going to try and rename the movies as you suggested, using the same "title" as they have listed on imdb. Should i keep the "year" in the movie-title to? Because some titles are reproduced in different years..

For example i had some troubles before (using yamj on popcorn hour) the case was that the old "terror on elm street" was mistaken for the re-filmed version that got out 2011/2011. So i got the new movie from 2010/2011 but with the "plot" and cover from the old from the -90s.

About the renaming..

I guess i can do that, but i can still use two different usb-discs, right?


I know for a fact that our ISP here is terrible, i should get 15mbps on a connected line (not wireless) but im only reaching a lousy 3-4mbps.

Going to change ISP.

But let me ask you this.. the error when i try to update.. what is this preventing me from doing? i thought that despite the error i should still manage to see all my 400 movies present right there in xbmc?

Or is it so, that due to the error im not able to see more than 40-50 of them in the skin in xbmc? I have to update succesfully to be able to get them all there?

Do you have any thoughts about me not getting the movies in alphabetical oder? really anoying to get movies starting with "A" mixed up with "S" and so on..

[clubwerks]

Hi, new here.. but in need of some help.

Ive run xbmc for some months now, experiencing some problems..

I got 2 usb-discs (2tb each) connected to my pc. The problem in xbmc is that i cant find all the movies (about 400), only 40-50 or so..

When i try to update my source i get the "could not connect to remote server" -error.. and then i can choose to abort or continue.

Also, some movies dont have correct covers, only a "screenshot" from the movie. Why is this? Is it because it dont recognise the movie-name?

All my movies are named after its title, and placed in a similar library (for example F:/movies/ice age 2 (2003)/ice age 2 (2003).mkv

NOTE.. i dont know if its actually 2003 for the ice-age2-movie, but im sure that ive looked up the correct info about all the movies launch-years when ive created the library on my usb-discs.

One final thing, ive choosen to sort my movies after the title, but shouldt it be alphabetical? Now i have A, and suddenly a movie that starts with "H", not in the correct order that is..

Would be pleased if i got some help or hints!

It can't find them because your naming is wrong. Spend a little time cleaning up your database and it will work.

For instance, Ice Age 2 (2003) should actually be Ice Age The Meltdown (2006). If you named the folder properly and used folder lookup, you'd never have a single problem. They didn't even make an Ice Age movie is 2003.

[outatouch0]

I got 2 usb-discs (2tb each) connected to my pc. The problem in xbmc is that i cant find all the movies (about 400), only 40-50 or so..!

Most of the time this means they are not being scanned correctly by the scraper. No scraping = no appearance in library VIEW. This is usually due to mismatching in names - spelling and punctuation counts too.

When i try to update my source i get the "could not connect to remote server" -error.. and then i can choose to abort or continue.

Sometimes this message comes up and sometimes it doesn't. Just hit continue, it usually works just fine anyway.

Also, some movies dont have correct covers, only a "screenshot" from the movie. Why is this? Is it because it dont recognise the movie-name?

Possibly, or the scraper site does not have a movie poster available. For some reason it only seems to want to use images with user ratings. You can register and vote a rating for unrated images if you like.
Unfortunately these images are likely to persist after you get them to scrape correctly. You can do a manual change of the image by pushing 'i' or 'c' and select somthing like 'get image' or 'change image'...

All my movies are named after its title, and placed in a similar library (for example F:/movies/ice age 2 (2003)/ice age 2 (2003).mkv
NOTE.. i dont know if its actually 2003 for the ice-age2-movie, but im sure that ive looked up the correct info about all the movies launch-years when ive created the library on my usb-discs.

You can go ahead and leave each movie in its own folder (its a matter of personal preference) and select 'use folder names for lookups' when you add your movie source(s). As stated, change your folder names to match with TMDB scraper site www.themoviedb.org/

One final thing, ive choosen to sort my movies after the title, but shouldt it be alphabetical? Now i have A, and suddenly a movie that starts with "H", not in the correct order that is...

Sort order in the library: there are various ways to display them such as by year, date added to your library, or alphabetically. Set this to your stated preference of alphabetically. There is a setting that ignores things such as 'the' in titles. I don't know if this is part of the issue or what. 'A Great Movie' or 'The Great Movie' will be displayed as simply 'Great Movie' in your sorting.

[outatouch0]

Hmm.. so youre saying that if i get rid of all directories/libraries and only have all the movie straight out of the root on the usb-disc, this would help?

No, it would probably make things worse. The way you have it is fine.

Note that i havent had any trouble at all to get the right name of the movies showing up in xbmc. Only "not alphabetical", and "missing a lot of movies"..

sounds like trouble to me.

Also im going to try and rename the movies as you suggested, using the same "title" as they have listed on imdb. Should i keep the "year" in the movie-title to? Because some titles are reproduced in different years..
For example i had some troubles before (using yamj on popcorn hour) the case was that the old "terror on elm street" was mistaken for the re-filmed version that got out 2011/2011. So i got the new movie from 2010/2011 but with the "plot" and cover from the old from the -90s.

Yes include the year for the reason you stated and note the default scraper is actually TMDb rather than IMDB. May as well look it up on the site you will be scraping from.

About the renaming..
I guess i can do that, but i can still use two different usb-discs, right?

Yes, you can have multiple sources for your 'Movies' 'TV Shows' etc.
About the renaming..

I know for a fact that our ISP here is terrible, i should get 15mbps on a connected line (not wireless) but im only reaching a lousy 3-4mbps.
Going to change ISP.

Yes, sounds like a good plan. However, even at the best dial-up speeds scraping is going to be very slow for you.

But let me ask you this.. the error when i try to update.. what is this preventing me from doing? i thought that despite the error i should still manage to see all my 400 movies present right there in xbmc?

They should all be present under 'Videos' on the main menu. This is the file VIEW mode which is not dependent upon scraping. If all of your movies are not present here then you have some problem with your disks being read.

Or is it so, that due to the error im not able to see more than 40-50 of them in the skin in xbmc? I have to update succesfully to be able to get them all there?

Yes the library VIEW (main menu-Movies) is dependent upon successful scraping.
I have seen some threads that indicate uninstalling and re-downloading then re-installing the 'YouTube plugin' for some reason fixes this error with scraping. You can give that a try too.

Do you have any thoughts about me not getting the movies in alphabetical oder? really anoying to get movies starting with "A" mixed up with "S" and so on..

Let's first get your movies scraped into your library and then we can worry about this issue

[najkks]

It can't find them because your naming is wrong. Spend a little time cleaning up your database and it will work.

For instance, Ice Age 2 (2003) should actually be Ice Age The Meltdown (2006). If you named the folder properly and used folder lookup, you'd never have a single problem. They didn't even make an Ice Age movie is 2003.

well, i wrote "example" and i also know that that particular ice-age-movie didnt came 2003. It was just an example to explain on how ive done..

So folder lookup means that it scans the movie-name and looks for similar thru imdb, or what? should i stop using the "release-date" in the movie-name?

[clubwerks]

well, i wrote "example" and i also know that that particular ice-age-movie didnt came 2003. It was just an example to explain on how ive done..

So folder lookup means that it scans the movie-name and looks for similar thru imdb, or what? should i stop using the "release-date" in the movie-name?

Your movies should be in an individual folder named like this:

Movie Name (Year)

The movie name should be exactly like it appears in whatever scraper you're using. If you're using imdb, for example, here's how that movie appears:

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

You would eliminate the colon. If you do that with every movie you'll never have a problem again if you use folder lookup. You don't even have to rename your movies if you don't want. You could call it movie.mkv and it will scrape fine.

[najkks]

Most of the time this means they are not being scanned correctly by the scraper. No scraping = no appearance in library VIEW. This is usually due to mismatching in names - spelling and punctuation counts too.
Sometimes this message comes up and sometimes it doesn't. Just hit continue, it usually works just fine anyway.
Possibly, or the scraper site does not have a movie poster available. For some reason it only seems to want to use images with user ratings. You can register and vote a rating for unrated images if you like.
Unfortunately these images are likely to persist after you get them to scrape correctly. You can do a manual change of the image by pushing 'i' or 'c' and select somthing like 'get image' or 'change image'...

You can go ahead and leave each movie in its own folder (its a matter of personal preference) and select 'use folder names for lookups' when you add your movie source(s). As stated, change your folder names to match with TMDB scraper site www.themoviedb.org/

Sort order in the library: there are various ways to display them such as by year, date added to your library, or alphabetically. Set this to your stated preference of alphabetically. There is a setting that ignores things such as 'the' in titles. I don't know if this is part of the issue or what. 'A Great Movie' or 'The Great Movie' will be displayed as simply 'Great Movie' in your sorting.

well first off, i cant choose to sort the alphabetically. I can only choose "title, year, genre and so on" - so thats my first problem.

ive already choosen to ignore "the" in the beginning of the movies (checked!)

so if i get you correct.. where i can find the movies in xbmc right now is in the "movie-library" where i choose which discs to search for movies in? Thats true.. because only there i can see all 200 movies on each disc.

the scrapping is to help me be able to see the thumbs/covers in xbmc "movie-mode" - where i start playing a movie?

then i think i got this.. so my problems with not getting a correct scrapping should resolve in the movies doesnt showing up at all in "viewing-mode" ?

lets get an example, take the movie "30 year old virgin"

im not certain from which year it is, but lets say 2009..

should it be like the following on my usb-disc:

G:/30 year old virgin (2009)/30 year old virgin (2009).mkv

or should i rename it with punctuation between all the words?
should i ignore the movie-date, or do i have to bring it in there?

also.. the scrapping looks up an certain movie-page right?
so if i rename the movies like they are named in imdb.com,
it wont work for sure if i use the "themoviedb.org" as scraping-page? (you talked about that earlier)

one more thing.. ive read about the youtube-plugin-thing,
but cant seem to find the way in how to reinstall it in xbmc!

[clubwerks]

The name of the movie was The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Punctuation doesn't matter in the least. Put it in or don't. As I stated before, the movie name doesn't matter if you set it to use folder lookups. Believe me when I tell you that it will make your life a million times easier to just set it up that way.

Examples of things that would work:

D:\Movies\The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)\The 40 Year Old Virgin.mkv
D:\Movies\The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)\movie.mkv
D:\Movies\The.40.Year.Old.Virgin (2005)\40.year.old.mkv
D:\Movies\The.40.Year.Old.Virgin.(2005)\movie.mkv

All of these will work perfectly with folder lookup enabled.

As for sorting alphabetically, it's in the left side menu that pops out in library mode. It's like the second or third thing from the top. It says "Sort:" followed by your sort preference, which can be year, alphabetically, etc. Not the genre, director. Those are the submenus of the Movie menu. Not the same thing.

Spend some time reading the forums. Google the questions you're asking. Something like "movie folder naming XBMC." You might be shocked at how much information is available without banging your head against the wall. These are basics.

[najkks]

The name of the movie was The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Punctuation doesn't matter in the least. Put it in or don't. As I stated before, the movie name doesn't matter if you set it to use folder lookups. Believe me when I tell you that it will make your life a million times easier to just set it up that way.

Examples of things that would work:

D:\Movies\The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)\The 40 Year Old Virgin.mkv
D:\Movies\The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)\movie.mkv
D:\Movies\The.40.Year.Old.Virgin (2005)\40.year.old.mkv
D:\Movies\The.40.Year.Old.Virgin.(2005)\movie.mkv

All of these will work perfectly with folder lookup enabled.

As for sorting alphabetically, it's in the left side menu that pops out in library mode. It's like the second or third thing from the top. It says "Sort:" followed by your sort preference, which can be year, alphabetically, etc. Not the genre, director. Those are the submenus of the Movie menu. Not the same thing.

Spend some time reading the forums. Google the questions you're asking. Something like "movie folder naming XBMC." You might be shocked at how much information is available without banging your head against the wall. These are basics.

Sorry, my mistake about the movie

one more question though..

is it important to use capital?

for example if tmdb says "40 Year Old Virgin (2005)",
will it be wrong to name the folder "40 year old virgin (2005)" ?

im about to rename all the folders and the containing movie-files,
because ive only used "small" characters and no big capital!

[outatouch0]

well first off, i cant choose to sort the alphabetically. I can only choose "title, year, genre and so on" - so thats my first problem.

Sort by title is alphabetical. But NO, not first off, lets worry about this LATER. Lets get your movies scraped so they can show up in the library view in the first place.

so if i get you correct.. where i can find the movies in xbmc right now is in the "movie-library" where i choose which discs to search for movies in? Thats true.. because only there i can see all 200 movies on each disc.

the scrapping is to help me be able to see the thumbs/covers in xbmc "movie-mode" - where i start playing a movie?

then i think i got this.. so my problems with not getting a correct scrapping should resolve in the movies doesnt showing up at all in "viewing-mode" ?

ummmm, NO, well sort-of. Well you are somewhat correct in your statements but your terms for things are way way off to the point where they make no sense at all. I think we need to use the 'proper' xbmc terms in order to communicate about them in a helpful way. I will break your 3 statements down individually to show you what I mean but first lets get some concepts down.
There are two modes of viewing your media files: (1) File View, and (2) Library View.
FILE: This is the basic one. All of your files contained in your SOURCE(S) are viewable here. This is a simple mode where you can see a basic list of the folders/files available to you. You can play your movies etc. from this view mode. This is where you would be able to see or find any of your movies that have not successfully been scraped into your XBMC library viewer.
LIBRARY: This confuses a lot of people new to XBMC at first. In terms of XBMC 'Library' is simply a MODE OF VIEWING your available media. This is the fancy display mode with all the fanart, movie posters, etc. and the display of information about the media title. This is completely different than the library concept in Windows7 where a library is simply all of the certain types of files you have on disk(s).
So now to address your 3 statements above:

so if i get you correct.. where i can find the movies in xbmc right now is in the "movie-library" where i choose which discs to search for movies in? Thats true.. because only there i can see all 200 movies on each disc.

If you have successfully added your sources (the 'Movies' folders on your two usb drives) you can access them under the XBMC main menu heading 'VIDEOS' which displays your video media in FILE VIEW.
One of the options you will see under the VIDEOS heading is 'Add Source' and this is where you tell XBMC where to find your media files. In this case your movies. Navigate it to your usb drive movies folder, then you 'set content' to movies (this activates the default tmdb scraper). Read this guide for step by step on how to do this correctly: http://tbueter.com/XBMC/Guide/XBMC_DharmaGuide.pdf

the scrapping is to help me be able to see the thumbs/covers in xbmc "movie-mode" - where i start playing a movie?

No such thing as 'movie-mode' so no one will know what you are talking about with such statements. What you are refering to is actually your XBMC Movies library view. This is found on the main menu -> 'Movies' and as you say it is where the thumbs/covers are displayed. In order for your movies to appear here automatically they have to be scraped successfuly. This is where getting your folder names to match up with the scraper site is essential. You can play your movies from here OR under the 'Videos' heading (file view).

then i think i got this.. so my problems with not getting a correct scrapping should resolve in the movies doesnt showing up at all in "viewing-mode" ?

What you mean here is 'library view mode' which in your case is under 'Movies' on the XBMC main menu. Yes to the first part - getting your movies to scrape will get them into your xbmc movies library viewer.

G:/30 year old virgin (2009)/30 year old virgin (2009).mkv
or should i rename it with punctuation between all the words?
should i ignore the movie-date, or do i have to bring it in there?

This was answered by clubwerks and as he indicated
G:/Movies/30 year old virgin (2009).... is going to be better than setting an entire drive letter as a source. And yes use the correct year with the name.

it wont work for sure if i use the "themoviedb.org" as scraping-page? (you talked about that earlier)

Where are you getting that? The default scraper site is "themoviedb.org" so if you match your folder names to this site your movies will scrape perfectly.

one more thing.. ive read about the youtube-plugin-thing,
but cant seem to find the way in how to reinstall it in xbmc!

This is another subject. Read about - installing add-ons.

[najkks]

Sort by title is alphabetical. But NO, not first off, lets worry about this LATER. Lets get your movies scraped so they can show up in the library view in the first place.



ummmm, NO, well sort-of. Well you are somewhat correct in your statements but your terms for things are way way off to the point where they make no sense at all. I think we need to use the 'proper' xbmc terms in order to communicate about them in a helpful way. I will break your 3 statements down individually to show you what I mean but first lets get some concepts down.
There are two modes of viewing your media files: (1) File View, and (2) Library View.
FILE: This is the basic one. All of your files contained in your SOURCE(S) are viewable here. This is a simple mode where you can see a basic list of the folders/files available to you. You can play your movies etc. from this view mode. This is where you would be able to see or find any of your movies that have not successfully been scraped into your XBMC library viewer.
LIBRARY: This confuses a lot of people new to XBMC at first. In terms of XBMC 'Library' is simply a MODE OF VIEWING your available media. This is the fancy display mode with all the fanart, movie posters, etc. and the display of information about the media title. This is completely different than the library concept in Windows7 where a library is simply all of the certain types of files you have on disk(s).
So now to address your 3 statements above:

If you have successfully added your sources (the 'Movies' folders on your two usb drives) you can access them under the XBMC main menu heading 'VIDEOS' which displays your video media in FILE VIEW.
One of the options you will see under the VIDEOS heading is 'Add Source' and this is where you tell XBMC where to find your media files. In this case your movies. Navigate it to your usb drive movies folder, then you 'set content' to movies (this activates the default tmdb scraper). Read this guide for step by step on how to do this correctly: http://tbueter.com/XBMC/Guide/XBMC_DharmaGuide.pdf

No such thing as 'movie-mode' so no one will know what you are talking about with such statements. What you are refering to is actually your XBMC Movies library view. This is found on the main menu -> 'Movies' and as you say it is where the thumbs/covers are displayed. In order for your movies to appear here automatically they have to be scraped successfuly. This is where getting your folder names to match up with the scraper site is essential. You can play your movies from here OR under the 'Videos' heading (file view).

What you mean here is 'library view mode' which in your case is under 'Movies' on the XBMC main menu. Yes to the first part - getting your movies to scrape will get them into your xbmc movies library viewer.

This was answered by clubwerks and as he indicated
G:/Movies/30 year old virgin (2009).... is going to be better than setting an entire drive letter as a source. And yes use the correct year with the name.


Where are you getting that? The default scraper site is "themoviedb.org" so if you match your folder names to this site your movies will scrape perfectly.

This is another subject. Read about - installing add-ons.

One thing you wrote..

"This was answered by clubwerks and as he indicated
G:/Movies/30 year old virgin (2009).... is going to be better than setting an entire drive letter as a source. And yes use the correct year with the name."

i must have gotten this wrong - shouldnt i use a entire drive letter as a source? for example disc (F:/) ?

maybe youre telling me that its better to have the movies in separate directories (each for every movie) than all 200 movies on the root of F:/ ?

anyway, ive switched to "alaska" -skin in xbmc. much easier to setup.

im allright with almost everything now, viewing about 275 of my 400 movies so far (this is in movies library view)

just one thing more.. about subtitles, ive configured that it should use english subs on every movie, but is it possible to have a folder of my own with different subs - getting xbmc to look it up by itself instead of the english?

do i have to change setting on each movie, or can i produce a subs-folder, that it randomly picks the correct sub for the movie im about to watch?

[outatouch0]

One thing you wrote..
"This was answered by clubwerks and as he indicated
G:/Movies/30 year old virgin (2009).... is going to be better than setting an entire drive letter as a source. And yes use the correct year with the name."

i must have gotten this wrong - shouldnt i use a entire drive letter as a source? for example disc (F:/) ?

maybe youre telling me that its better to have the movies in separate directories (each for every movie) than all 200 movies on the root of F:/ ?

I was not sure xbmc would even let you name a whole drive as a source. I guess it is a matter of personal preference. There are different ways of doing it. If your folder structure works for you then GREAT

In the long run I believe it is better to arrange your sources in an organized way and in such a way to leave yourself with the most options. For example, if you want to put some TV shows or music on the drive later... It makes more sense to have a Movies folder, a Music folder, TV shows folder, etc.
Having each movie (TV show, Album...) in its own folder is simply a better way to organize things in my opinion. If you have your movie titles in individual folders you can put anything you want to go with it in that folder (subtitles, extra fanart, custom .nfo files, etc.) and things will appear nice and neat and won't get screwy with your xbmc library.

im allright with almost everything now, viewing about 275 of my 400 movies so far (this is in movies library view)

That is FANTASTIC! Great progress, you have come a long way from only 20-40 movies scanned in!

just one thing more.. about subtitles, ive configured that it should use english subs on every movie, but is it possible to have a folder of my own with different subs - getting xbmc to look it up by itself instead of the english?

do i have to change setting on each movie, or can i produce a subs-folder, that it randomly picks the correct sub for the movie im about to watch?

I don't know much of anything about the subs thing. If someone doesn't answer this in this thread you can always start a new thread for this different subject.