[CuriousJay]

I realize that enabling the media icons while viewing media has been discussed at great length in both the main XBMC forums and this sub-forum... but that's precisely the cause of my confusion.

There have been some pretty big changes in how media flags are displayed in XBMC over the last two years and as I'm searching for a concise answer/guide on how to properly enable media flagging I'm finding a lot of outdated information. Since it's time consuming to rename files, scrape and check, etc. I'd like to make sure I'm doing it the best/most effective way for the present.

Here is my current setup:

I have all my media stored on a Windows-based server. My movies are all in one place but, I'll admit, they could use some spring cleaning as far as folder and file names are concerned. Nothing is terribly out of whack but there are lots of movie that are set in folders like Movie Name\somecrazyshorthandfilename.mkv instead of Movie Name\Movie Name.mkv

I'm running XBMC for Windows with AEON skin on my media center.

I've downloaded Ember Media Mananger.


At this point in the process, what's the most important thing I need to do? Clean up my folder structure first? Run a sweep with Ember and clean up whatever mess is left? Tweak something in XBMC?

I'm happy with the way movies and television shows display (big 1080 backdrops, nice thumbnails in the coverflow, etc.) but I'd really love to enable the media icons along the bottom that tell what resolution it is, what sound quality, etc.

Thanks! And by the way.. if the answer to my questions is "RTFM", I'd be happy to do so... but I just can't figure out which version of the FM I'm finding is the current one since things change so quickly. =/

[CuriousJay]

Ok... so I started reading the posts in reverse chronological order so I didn't end up reading the older posts first and get more confused. Tell me if I've got this right:

The BluRay/HD-DVD/DVD logo in the bottom row of the coverflow screen is pulled from the title of the file name. So if you want the BluRay logo the file name would have to have BluRay somewhere in it? i.e. Charlie.and.the.Chocolate.Factory.bluray.mkv, right?

Everything else, the audio type, the studio, etc is pulled from the .NFO file in the movie directory? Or is it pulled from the main XBMC database and then only overruled if there is a .NFO file in the movie directory?

So ideally... if I want to enable all the icons I have to put flags like DVD and BLURAY into the file name and then the rest of the info into a .NFO file with Ember Media Manager?

Am I on the right track?

[Ram2000]

Ok... so I started reading the posts in reverse chronological order so I didn't end up reading the older posts first and get more confused. Tell me if I've got this right:

The BluRay/HD-DVD/DVD logo in the bottom row of the coverflow screen is pulled from the title of the file name. So if you want the BluRay logo the file name would have to have BluRay somewhere in it? i.e. Charlie.and.the.Chocolate.Factory.bluray.mkv, right?

Everything else, the audio type, the studio, etc is pulled from the .NFO file in the movie directory? Or is it pulled from the main XBMC database and then only overruled if there is a .NFO file in the movie directory?

So ideally... if I want to enable all the icons I have to put flags like DVD and BLURAY into the file name and then the rest of the info into a .NFO file with Ember Media Manager?

Am I on the right track?

YUP thats the way to do it.

[PantsOnFire]

I downloaded EMM, ran it, and it errored, saying not a valid win32 application.

I then read the readme, which says I need .NET 3.5 installed. So I downloaded that, installing... then it came up saying

"Download complete. You can now disconnect from the internet."

all thats left is a cancel button and thats it. It's going nowhere.


-so i can disconnect from the net... and? weird installer IMO. anyone else have this?

basically im just trying to get the NFO files made.. are they simple, can anyone just tell me the layout of one so I can create it myself?

thanks.

[Hitcher]

XBMC will now extract the Meta Data for you, just enable it in the Video options.

[PantsOnFire]

XBMC will now extract the Meta Data for you, just enable it in the Video options.

from the video files themselves or an NFO?

[mavgink]

video files...

[Ram2000]

from the video files themselves or an NFO?

I Believe it creates its own files which you can extract from the library using the export as single files
this will copy the nfo file to the movie dir. I had issues with emm at first but managed to get it fixed
it was the netframework issue I was having and had to download the full 250mb package and install manually that fixed it for me.

[CuriousJay]

XBMC will now extract the Meta Data for you, just enable it in the Video options.

Is there any reason I would want to have individual .nfo files in each movie folder, as oppose to letting XBMC take care of it from a central database? Or does XBMC put the .nfo files in the folders for me?

I ask because I hate how much time rescanning a large library chews up. If keeping the .nfo files in the movie folders by using Ember Media Manager means that the next time I reinstall XBMC or what not I don't have to spend hours rescanning everything (or at least shave some time off that rescan) I'll do it that way.

Thoughts?

[Ram2000]

Is there any reason I would want to have individual .nfo files in each movie folder, as oppose to letting XBMC take care of it from a central database? Or does XBMC put the .nfo files in the folders for me?

I ask because I hate how much time rescanning a large library chews up. If keeping the .nfo files in the movie folders by using Ember Media Manager means that the next time I reinstall XBMC or what not I don't have to spend hours rescanning everything (or at least shave some time off that rescan) I'll do it that way.

Thoughts?

XBMC will pick up the saved info and images before it goes out to look for those missing so yes it speeds it up ALLOT
I often have to redo my Lib and I have over 1500 movies it scans them back in, in minutes.
Also having them separate lets you modify them easier IE changing actors genre so on and so fourth.