Kodi Community Forum

Hello

I am wondering about the time it takes for the library scan when I turn on xbmc (I have it set to update the library when I turn it on). I am running eden on a xbmcbuntu, ssd disc, 3 gb ram, intel atom 330 dual core, nothing else running on the computer (only used for xbmc). The internet is wired and I have a 100 mb optical fiber internet connection. I have two issues regarding the scan speed that I want to solve before updating to Frodo:

1) Scan order: Is it possible to get xbmc to first scan for tv shows? Today, it scans for movies first but the tv shows are added more frequently and therefore it would be better to have them scanned first.
2) Folder hierarchy and where to "set content": I have about 2.000 movies and 130 Tv shows with about 10.000 episodes. It takes a long time, about 12 minutes to scan the library when there is nothing to add, of course longer when there is something new to add. When I had only the tv shows (before I added the movies to the library) it took about 2-3 minutes. So I guess that it has something to do with my movies. Is this a normal scan time? I was wondering if this has something to do with the folder hierarchy and where you "set content" and therefore wanted to get some feedback on this before I upgrade to Frodo.

The movies are set up like this:
Movies (my movie folder, it includes 5 sub movie folders which again can contain other sub folders before we get to the movie bulk, like described below)
- Movie series
- - Serie 1
- - - Movie 1
- - - Movie 2
- Christmas movies
- - Animation
- - - Movie 3
- - Movies
- - - Movie 4
- Documentaries
- - Movie 5
- Movies
- - English
- - - Movie 6
- - Foreign language
- - - Movie 7
- Animations
- - Foreign language
- - - Movie 8
- - English
- - - Movie 9

Under each movie X folder there is a videofile, nfo file with a link to imdb, a folder.jpg and sometimes a subtitle file. I don't have fanart (xbmc fetches that), backdrops, .actors, trailer or anything else. This hierarchy should comply with all xbmc standards. However, what I am wondering is if it matters on what folder I apply the "set content"? Is it better to simply set it on the parent folder "Movies" or is it better to set it on each subfolder; Movie series, Christmas movies, Documentaries, Movies, Animations? Or is it even better to set it even further down, like on "foreign language". Today I have it set on each subfolder (movie series, christmas movies etc.).

The tv shows are set up like this:
Tv shows
- Tv shows airing
- - Tv show 1
- - - Season 1
- - - - All season 1 files
- - Tv show 2
- Tv shows stopped airing
- - Tv show 3
- - - Season 1
- - - - All season 1 files
- - Tv show 4

Is it better to set content on the "Tv shows" folder or set content on the other two folders "Tv show airing" and "Tv show stopped airing"? I have it set on the two folders.

So bottom line: What is the best folder hierarchy to speed up the scan? When adding to the library for the first time, is it better to "set content" as high as possible in the hierarchy or as lows as possible (of course not on every movie, but the folder that contains bulk of movies)? And after choosing where to set content, should I always use "scan recursively" or does that slow things down (I saw some post that it can sometimes slow things down)?

It takes a lot of time to test this because of the size of the library so I hope someone can help me.

Concerning where to set content:
- You will want to set content on the folders you currently have it at or the scrapers will not scrape correctly. In other words, do not change this.

Movies
If the names of the individual movie folders match the names on your scraper site it makes more sense to not use 'scan recursively' but just use 'Movies are in seperate folders that match the movie title', because this is less work for the scraper, which then only has to check for new folders, and not traverse every folder downward.

TV Shows
- You can choose to edit the source for 'TV Shows stopped airing' and choose 'exclude path for library updates', because most likely you will have scraped everything already. It would still be possible to manually update a selected show from the library view.

General advise before you update to Frodo is to export your library to individual files (from the settings menu)

Thanks Kibje for the answer.

Set content: It doesn't matter where I have the "set content" now, since I will be able to change it when I do a clean install with Frodo. Considering that my folder hierarchy is correct according to xbmc standards (I am pretty sure they are), what is the best "set content" folder for the fastest library scan speed? Is it the top movie folder that can have 1-3 sub folders down before we have the folder containing the movie file (so only have "set content" on one top folder for all movies) or is it better to have multiple "set content" folders so xbmc doesn't have to go down too many sub folders before reaching the movie file (all my movies are in a folder with "name (year)"). According to posts I have read, most people have a lot less scan time than I have.

Also - is it possible to change the scan order from movies-tv shows to tv shows-movies?

Change scan order
I do not know if it is possible to change the scan order of TVshows and Movies.

Setting content
I already explained above - I believe your slow scan speeds have to do with the fact that you have scan recursively set.
In general I believe the best results are had when the following naming conventions are chosen from the default Video_library/Naming_files (wiki) conventions supported by XBMC.

Movies:
where the scraper is set to the Movies folder and you do not select 'scan recursively' and use 'Movies are in seperate folders that match the movie title'

Tv shows:
Exactly as described in Video_library/Naming_files/TV_shows#Simple (wiki).
To speed up scraping you can choose to exclude the source with Tvshows stopped airing after it has been scraped initially.

Summary
It does not make sense to add the source higher as this will not yield correct results from the scrapers. Both your folder structure and the locations you have the sources set at make sense and I would not change them, however you can change the source scrape settings to speed up the scrape as I explained.