[Binnerup]

Hi guys,

At My Movies, we have for many years had a set of applications to manage meta-data for various platforms, including support for XBMC/Kodi.

Besides storing meta-data for both media center softwares and hardware media players, we have had our own main interface in Windows Media Center.

With Windows Media Center not being available in Windows 10, many of our users are looking at alternatives to Windows Media Center, and at continuing to use the meta-data solution that My Movies provides, our title monitoring, as well as our automated disc copying functions to full media formats, MP4 mobile formats or MKV files. For our users we find Kodi to be the closest thing to an ideal place for many of our users.

My Movies already store meta-data in NFO files for Kodi to read, and the solution also has the ability to use the Kodi JSON interface to add titles to the Kodi video library when a title gets added in our solution. We also have an XBMC scraper, but that is more a functionality for users who do not use our software solution, but only wants to load data from our service to Kodi.

However, for a better integration we are lacking some parts, and being unfamiliar with the Kodi project, we found that the best option perhaps was to ask if any of you guys would have an interest in helping us add some functionality in the JSON interface, allowing us to improve the connection between My Movies and Kodi for our users - allowing them to have a better solution when looking to switch away from Windows Media Center. We find that this would be a better solution than us attempting to work on the parts ourselves, with the lack of knowledge we have about the Kodi core.

We have various things that we would like to do with the JSON interface that we cannot - listed below here in priority of importance.

1. The ability to refresh a title in the Kodi video library. Our implementation currently is based on the documentation here: http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Remotely_update_library. If a user edits data for a title in our software, we would like to ensure that the Kodi library are updated with the new data. Today, the only option we can see is for the user to manually mark the title in the Kodi interface, and choose to "Refresh". Having an option to refresh a title at a specific path would be ideal.

2. The ability to add just a single title to the Kodi video library. Today, all we can do is request Kodi to do a full library refresh, where, it would be more ideal to request the JSON interface to just add a specific folder to the library - naturally, the folder must be one that is a sub-path of something configured in the Kodi library.

3. The ability to request playback of a title though a path. Today, if we are to play a title though JSON, we have to locate the title in the Kodi video library, and request playback of that. That is ideal for applications that are a specific Kodi browser, but for our solution, where our mobile applications have support for different platforms, we are not specifically showing a library from Kodi , but showing titles from our solution - we however have the specific path, either as a local path, as an SMB path with username and password, or an NFS path. Ideally, we could pass this path to JSON, and get the title to play. Our Android mobile application today have a solution where it has to locate the title in the Kodi library, and it is not an ideal way of working with it.

Are there anyone here that perhaps would have an interest in helping us on one or more of these topics, making the solution of using My Movies and Kodi together a better alternative to Windows Media Center for our users?

I am naturally available here, but also on e-mail, skype or phone, depending on preferred communication method.

Thank you,

Brian Binnerup
My Movies

[da-anda]

Hi, as your questions are mostly about extending JSON-RPC I'll move your request to the according subforum where it will get better attention by related devs.

[Binnerup]

Thank you :-)

[Montellese]

1. The ability to refresh a title in the Kodi video library. Our implementation currently is based on the documentation here: http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Remotely_update_library. If a user edits data for a title in our software, we would like to ensure that the Kodi library are updated with the new data. Today, the only option we can see is for the user to manually mark the title in the Kodi interface, and choose to "Refresh". Having an option to refresh a title at a specific path would be ideal.

I wanted to look into this a long time ago but never got around to it. IIRC the main problem is that the whole refresh process is completely written with user interaction in mind i.e. you get a progress dialog on the screen and may be asked for input like "look online or in NFOs" or to choose the proper item from a list of possible matches.

2. The ability to add just a single title to the Kodi video library. Today, all we can do is request Kodi to do a full library refresh, where, it would be more ideal to request the JSON interface to just add a specific folder to the library - naturally, the folder must be one that is a sub-path of something configured in the Kodi library.

So you are adding a new directory (containing a movie + NFO) to the usual filesystem for movies and would just like that one to be scanned?

3. The ability to request playback of a title though a path. Today, if we are to play a title though JSON, we have to locate the title in the Kodi video library, and request playback of that. That is ideal for applications that are a specific Kodi browser, but for our solution, where our mobile applications have support for different platforms, we are not specifically showing a library from Kodi , but showing titles from our solution - we however have the specific path, either as a local path, as an SMB path with username and password, or an NFS path. Ideally, we could pass this path to JSON, and get the title to play. Our Android mobile application today have a solution where it has to locate the title in the Kodi library, and it is not an ideal way of working with it.

Have you tried Player.Open with the "file" property as part of the "item" parameter?

[Binnerup]

Hi Montellese,

Thank you for a quick reply.

1. Ok, I can understand that is a problem - this would then mean that there has to be a copy of that refresh function developed, or the existing needs to be changed to have a silent option as I understand it. This naturally makes this more difficult - it is however also crusial to maintain a proper meta-data index, because Kodi always only adds to the library, it never refreshes based on perhaps the dates of the NFO file. Once the data is in Kodi, its not updateable in any way without specific user interaction - quite a downside for users who cares about their data.

2. Correct - I figure it is quicker for Kodi rather than having to refresh the whole library - in my end, I know which title was added, and where it is.

3. I have checked the code we have on Android where we have a Kodi remote function, and we attempt to locate the "movieid". Is it a new thing that it can take a file? Is the any documentation on what the file must be in this relation? Can it be any file, or a file that must be in the library, and if it is a file that must be in the library, does it use the configured credentials for smb when playing such?

Best regards,

Brian

[Montellese]

Sorry for the late reply.

1. Ok, I can understand that is a problem - this would then mean that there has to be a copy of that refresh function developed, or the existing needs to be changed to have a silent option as I understand it. This naturally makes this more difficult - it is however also crusial to maintain a proper meta-data index, because Kodi always only adds to the library, it never refreshes based on perhaps the dates of the NFO file. Once the data is in Kodi, its not updateable in any way without specific user interaction - quite a downside for users who cares about their data.

I've done some work on this which basically seperates the whole media item refresh logic from the GUI and also allows it to be executed asynchronously. It isn't finished yet (i.e. I haven't integrated it into JSON-RPC yet) and will need a lot of testing so that I'm sure that I didn't break anything.

3. I have checked the code we have on Android where we have a Kodi remote function, and we attempt to locate the "movieid". Is it a new thing that it can take a file? Is the any documentation on what the file must be in this relation? Can it be any file, or a file that must be in the library, and if it is a file that must be in the library, does it use the configured credentials for smb when playing such?

You can pass in any path that is accessible by your Kodi installation. It could also be an internet stream or something else. It doesn't have to be part of the library. I've never tried it with SMB without credentials but I assume it should work as long as the file is part of a source which has the SMB credentials configured.