[barrygordon]

I have my own scanning and library system that handles all my BR/DVD items. It has all the fanart (except two that I just cannot find (Turbulence and Twilight 1997), cover art etc.

I need a little help with the following:

1) Since I do not use library mode and get what I want with file mode, how do I set the skin (I am using Transparency at the moment) to use File mode and not library mode as the defualt? Do I have to change skins? IIRC with the confluence skin it remembered the mode (Library or File).

2) Since I have all the fanart, coverart and movioe.info files properly buit and working should I ever do a library update? Is there an advantage to doing that. If so How do I tell it not to do an internet search and scrape. My system is based on DVD Profiler and all the necessary movie.nfo data is gotten from there along with the cover art. I had many problems when I tried to scan/scrape involving multiple instances of the titles. Eventually I gave up.

[sho]

Now, how to approach this?
If you really have full metadata via nfo files you are using the XBMC library, just from file mode.
When you press info on a media item, the XBMC database gets populated with the said metadata from the nfo.
Now if you choose to use and browse that via file mode, I guess each to his own, but I personally find that very inefficient.

On your question regarding library update, that function scans your sources that have content set on them for new media and populates the database with the information from the nfo files.
So definitely, yes I would recommend you use it, but afaik it's only available when actually in library mode.

File mode alternative would be to press i (info) on all and any new media and thus populate the database with the metadata. To me that is inefficent and counter intuative.
If there is a valid xml nfo file for all present media, XBMC should never hit the internet for metadata. (given that you have turned off actor lookups in settings)

[Dobyken]

I have my own scanning and library system that handles all my BR/DVD items. It has all the fanart (except two that I just cannot find (Turbulence and Twilight 1997), cover art etc.

I need a little help with the following:

1) Since I do not use library mode and get what I want with file mode, how do I set the skin (I am using Transparency at the moment) to use File mode and not library mode as the defualt? Do I have to change skins? IIRC with the confluence skin it remembered the mode (Library or File).

2) Since I have all the fanart, coverart and movioe.info files properly buit and working should I ever do a library update? Is there an advantage to doing that. If so How do I tell it not to do an internet search and scrape. My system is based on DVD Profiler and all the necessary movie.nfo data is gotten from there along with the cover art. I had many problems when I tried to scan/scrape involving multiple instances of the titles. Eventually I gave up.

I'm confused...did you use .nfo files to import into XBMC? I used DVDProfiler 20 or so years ago or it seems. What do you have against library mode? If you put .nfo files with your media XBMC will read them in and should only scrape missing fanart and more than likely actor thumbs.

[barrygordon]

Thank you both foryour replies.

Let me explain some more. I Built my theater many years ago and developed my own librarian based on DVD profiler. I use the exported xml file from DVD profiler to dynamically build the nfo files, and I use the covert art from DVD profiler for the coverart for XBMC. I had written my own scrapers years ago and so I have Fan art for everything I own. When I buy a new BR/DVD it is trivial to pull the fan art from TMDB, picking exactly what I want

My experience with the xbmc scrapers was negative and probably due to naming conventions on my storage media. I would get multiple entries for a single title on my NAS (e.g. A Time to Kill showed up in the library 7 times, but there is only one folder "//NAS/Movies/A Time To Kill").

I would like to use library mode I just don't want what I saw before (pre the nfo files being placed on the NAS).

I have no issue using Library mode now as long as it doesn't disturb what is on the NAS, (every folder has a file "movie.nfo", "fanart.jpg", and "folder.jpg). if This inhibits the scraping and just populates the library with what I have then I am good to go.

I will make sure that I am not requesting actor thumbnails (I do not believe I am) and that there is no scraper setup.

As It stands right now I see nothing in library mode (I had cleared the library database) and yes I would like it populated from what is on the NAS, and only what is on the NAS.

Again, Thanks for the replies and if you have any additional advice it would be appreciated.

[sho]

I'd say try it out, worst case you can just scratch the db file and go back to what you know and like.
What you describe looks like a stacking issue, xbmc has been through some tough times on that front (but library mode "should" have been mostly unaffected). Approximately around what time / version was this?

Looking at your structure, you'd set contents on the movies folder, use foldernames for lookup and uncheck scan recursively.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Set...eo_Library)

[barrygordon]

Thanks Sho.

I will be playing with it tomorrow. I think the problem I have with multiples in the Library is I am getting one for each release type, i.e. one for blu ray, one for dvd, one for each dvd edition, one for dvd/BR combined, etc. I guess it expects me to go through and clean it up removing the ones I do not want.

In my BR files on the NAS they are ripped to BR ISO format so the movie file is buried. Do I need to tell XBMC in the nfo file where it is e.g. ./BDMV/STREAM/00000.m2ts or will it find it? If I need to tell it where can I find the format of the nfo entry for that.


If I want to populate ell of media files into the library what is the proper way to do that, I assume there is a way of having XBMC do all the media in the Movie master folder which is organized as:

//Tower/Movies
/Movie1 Name
/ movie.nfo
/ folder.jpg
/ fanart.jpg

If it is a dvd then there are more files of extension .ifo, .bup, whatever
If it is BR then there are two directories
/BDMV
/Certificate

With the movie at /BDMV/Stream/00000.m2ts


TIA, Really appreciate the time you are spending to answer my questions.

[sho]

So you actually have multiple rips of each movie? That would explain multiple instances in the library for sure.
The only workaround for that I can think of is Movie Sets and some sort of identifier in the <title> tag (BR, DVD etc).

I have no personal experience with BR rips, but afaik they are fully supported in XBMC (including structure).

[barrygordon]

Sorry I did not explain this well, no It is a single rip of each title. That is what is confusing me, I may convert all the BR rips to MKV as I can do that automatically (I think) by writing some VB code. It is as if It finds multiple versions of the title and does not know which one to piock so it picks them all!. Today I intend to scan the full library and see what it does as I can always erase the DB.

A BR folder, A Time To Kill looks like (/xxxxxx indicates a folder, .... are for indentation):

//Tower/Movies
...../A Time To Kill
.........movie.nfo
.........fanart.jpg
.........folder.jpg
........./BDMV
............../AUXDATA
............../BDJO
............../BACKUP
.................../BDJO
.................../CLIPINF
.......................00000.clpi
.................../PLAYLIST
.......................00000.mpls
...................index.bdmv
...................movieobject.bdmv
............../CLIPINF
.....................00000.clpi
............../JAR
............../META
............../PLAYLIST
.....................00000.clpi
............../STREAM
.....................00000.m2ts
..............index.bdmv
..............movieobject.bdmv
......./Certificate

There is no problem in XBMC Playing the movie (00000.m2ts). My other thought is that it would rather have the movie file named with the title of the movie as in "A Time To Kill.m2ts)

[barrygordon]

The issue with pulling multiple instances was the Stacking. I turned it off and things are much better