Posts: 9
Joined: Nov 2014
Reputation:
0
Hello all,
I'm new to this forum and to Kodi. I had a Popcorn Hour and now I'm switching to a HTPC with Kodi.
Therefore i want a Mediamanager.
And now I'm a bit overwhelmed. There are so many. And please, don't get me wrong, I don't want to start a debate between the camps, just base information to help me deciding.
Are there any noticeable differences in:
a) user comfort?
b) processing speed?
c) result accuracy?
d) results in german language
e) variability
Thanks a lot, i appreciate every helpful answer!
Greets
Posts: 1,071
Joined: Mar 2013
Reputation:
50
I have tried Ember, Tiny, and MediaElch, and have stuck with MediaElch because it's easy to use, fast, and does everything I could want. My library consists of over 2600 Movies and over 580 TV Series (like 45,000 TV episodes), to give you an example.
Posts: 190
Joined: Oct 2009
Reputation:
4
what is wrong with just using the native scraper? If you have your media properly named it has generally worked really well for me
i used to mess around with these external scrapers and nfo generators and fanart grabbers and everything - then i got busy in life and stopped using them. that was a couple years ago and lo and behold - many many tv series and movies later - i havent noticed a difference in the user experience of KODI with respect to fanart, posters, plot outlines etc.
just my 2 cents - maybe i am missing something
Posts: 281
Joined: Jan 2012
Reputation:
8
I prefer to have a external scraper so that I can manage, for example, the language of the content. Furthermore, the native scraper works perfectly with common movies, but with Kids movies, it can become a pain... Yesterday, I tried to setup it up for a friend of mine and I encountered multiple issues with regards to dutch kids movies. Kodi native scraper is not able to process them correctly as the titles are not recgonized. Last but not least, when I use a external scraper the info and art works are being saved within the folder of the movie and it's independent of the xbmc client. When ever I decide to reinstall XBMC on one of my clients, it doesn't take more than a few minutes as info is already there.
Back to the original question: I have Mac that I used primarily and I'm using ViMediamanager. It's not compatible with windows I believe. Prior to this I used Ember. It worked very well for me.
Posts: 190
Joined: Oct 2009
Reputation:
4
good points, Miss_80. My shows and movies are 99% north american english (I am Canadian) so havent had to work with international titles. if the OP is not dealing with non north american mainstream films and shows, perhaps the use of an external manager is not necessary.
oh and welcome to the forums, evilscytheman
Posts: 215
Joined: Sep 2013
Reputation:
0
ztrust
Senior Member
Posts: 215
I have jumped between those you mentioned but I have finally stopped and have been using Media Companion for a long time.
first off its easy to use, and it has one feature that works I that I cant do without DVD order and there is great support here on the forum by Vbat.
this is the one for me atleast but think you should try it
Posts: 1,013
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
2
I've tried them all and Media Companion is the best. But my use is also limited to popular N. American movies and TV shows. For my purposes it is by far the most complete and full featured.
Posts: 5
Joined: May 2013
Reputation:
0
Just wondering perhaps im missing something but i cant cant seem to get multiple TV shows to scrape in MediaElch movies worked fine (select all hit scrape) but TV Shows seems to only do first or last is this a limitation?
Posts: 1,071
Joined: Mar 2013
Reputation:
50
What you describe is exactly what I do using MediaElch. Download locally, copy to NAS, and the NAS is shared to all my clients. So the one thing each client does do, is cache the artwork, but since the original artwork is all stored on the NAS, all clients end up caching all the same artwork (which is nice, as it makes each client look the same throughout the house).
Some advantages not mentioned for using MediaElch, it also does Music Scraping (including all Fanart, Posters, Banners, disc art, etc). Also, MediaElch will download TVTunes for all your TV Shows. You just need a skin that supports that feature (I'm using MQ5 and MQ6 on Isengard).
Posts: 942
Joined: Oct 2011
Reputation:
64
gibxxi
Posting Freak
Posts: 942
2015-10-04, 01:08
(This post was last modified: 2015-10-04, 01:10 by gibxxi.)
I consider TMM to be the best in terms of ease-of-use. It's UI isn't as sexy looking as MediaElch, and it probably lacks some of the more advanced stuff from Ember. But since the OP is new to Kodi, and probably going to be new to whichever tool he settles upon, it's probably best to get started on something that is pretty clear how it works and why.
With TMM, I can set up my preferred options with ease. The GUI has no icons under the title bar, so finding the settings option can be difficult to somebody unfamiliar with it, but once there, the settings you need to configure are pretty self explanatory. Bear in mind that the coders for TMM are not native English speakers, so you may find one or two of the settings slightly hard to understand their purpose, but on the whole it's pretty concise, with good annotation for all the available options.
For some, the fact it runs on Java (AFAIK) a bit of a turn off, and the UI isn't as polished as the other two, but it's probably the easiest of the three to get 'up-to-speed' on with regards organizing your existing library to be Kodi 'compliant'. Once you have the principles of scraping your collection down, you can then migrate on to something else. I'm running MediaElch alongside TMM, for testing purposes atm myself (not at the same time, obviously).
. It is THE most full featured out there. It was behind for a while in features but was always best for interface. It has now caught up and DanCooper, Cocotus and m.savazzi have made it the best out there.
