Kodi Community Forum

When saving my database to separate .nro files, most tags seem self explanatory and useful but i get some tags i don't understand seemingly with information i may not want within my system.

<epbookmark>0.000000</epbookmark> what is this used for?

<thumb aspect="poster" preview="http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w500/somenumber.jpg">http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/somenumber.jpg</thumb>
:
<fanart>
<thumb preview="http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w780/somenumber.jpg">http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/somenumber.jpg</thumb>
:
</fanart> why a web link and not a link to the jpg file within my filesystem?

<playcount>0</playcount> why do we need a play count?

<lastplayed>1601-01-01</lastplayed> why do we need a last played date (same question for <premiered> and <aired>)?

<trailer>plugin://plugin.video.youtube/?action=play_video&amp;videoid=xyz</trailer> why do we need a web link to a trailer? it's my film so i know what it is!

<dateadded>1601-01-01</dateadded> why do we need such a date?

There just seems to be too much information held within the database which can be can be problematic in some jurisdictions or just unwanted by users (like me). I can't be the first that feels this [:0]
I would have thought that xbmc would simply scrape basic info anonymously (as if one was web browsing with privacy settings) and the database would thus be divorce from the web itself.

Is there some 'paranoid' mode which only saves the bare essentials within the database or some way to switch off parts of the database, or have i misunderstood something?

Cheers.

uhm, we need to know the source urls of images, should you want to switch, lose your copy or whatnot. the other pieces of info are completely harmless. they are there since lots of code is shared between shows, movies and episodes.

if you don't want trailer links scraped, disable it in the scraper's settings...

finally i suggest you find something else to waste your time worrying about

spiff, thanks for the comment but i fail to understand why xbmc need to save image urls in the database when all one need to do is again use the scraper to simply re-fetch such information if the .nro file does not exist? Isn't that why the scrapers itself exists, to automate the fetching of movie art from the www, and why .nro files and local art exist to override the need for fetching from the www? If so, this makes it superfluous to have image urls within the database and the .nro file when one saves the database and associated art. In such instances, www url reference should be removed and replaced with local file url's within the .nro file and within the database but this does not happen and maybe it should happen? There is no option to set such behavior either and maybe there should be...

As for changing scraper settings, the problem that everyone new to xbmc will suffer is that the menu system is somewhat illogical and convoluted. For example, "system - settings - appearance - international" provides options for preferred audio language but xbmc does not "speak to me" so this setting can not be related to the UI itself and must be related to the audio stream of a video, which if so makes it illogical to have in this menu. Likewise, it's also not intuitive and rather convoluted to have to go to "video - files" then select a movie directory and right click selecting "change content", then within the set contents window press "settings" button to make some change for the current scraper. The scrapper is obviously related to the type of media but embedding it within the source directory implies that each source of a particular type can have different scrapper settings which may or may not be the case, i don't know. It's just that new users would find it easier and more logical to see a global scraper settings within "system - settings - video" or "system - settings - music" where scrapers for particular source types can be selected and the scraper settings defined. With xbmc there seems to be some context sensitive menus which reminds me of the MS ribbon UI which i and many dislike due to the difficulty in finding things. It almost seems that much effort has been spent to make xbmc skinable with the consequence that many many skins exist yet the UI of none are laid out 100% logically

In the case of trailers, i have now unticked "enable trailer" within the scraper settings and "cleaned" my database and "exported" as single files but i still have the trailer url within the .nro and presumably within the database!

I'm not wanting to sound critical of a good application but it can be better for new users than it is today and i'm happy to waste my time now that i have put on my tinfoil hat and raise some issues from a new user perspective :

Welcome ,
I think in all my years on this forum, you are the first to bring up stuff like this. Scraper is there to scrape the information off the internet so that you can use it later for fast access. imagine if everyone would scrape everytime the access there library, the sites that the information comes from would be bombarded with request every second which would make everything very slow for user and be very frustrating for site owners. As for player count, this is to managed watched status (the little check mark after you finish a show).<epbookmark>0.000000</epbookmark> is for if someone sets a bookmark for a resume point. As for fanart links, this has been discuss many time on the forum and the short answer is thats how it works now. As for the changing the scraper settings and location, again thats just how it is. After many version of XBMC why change everything when it has always been like that and confuse people? You can have other scrapers besides the ones that come with XBMC by default, you can even set a scraper for the source and then set a different scraper for a particular show/movie (because you know that the source scraper works fine for everything but not for that particular show. New users will use the Wiki (that explains everything a new user needs to know) Frodo has consolidated many settings compared to previous version.

Who knows maybe some setting locations will change in future releases but no one really complains about them since we are all used to the how it is. Also its NFO file and not NRO

@skylarking you are tilting at windmills. But 0f course you can get a refund on your purchase price if you don't like it. Or fork the code and make it better. Or contribute a patch.

What are .nro files?
I only know .nfo

saitoh183, thanks for your reply.

My original post was in the context of what is held within the database itself and what gets exported from the database into the .nfo files (yes a small brain fart calling it .nro). So in the context of exporting this video metadata to the .nfo file, i fail to understand why we have poster/fanart urls specified within the .nfo file itself as the associated poster/fanart images are themselves exported to the directory where the video's are stored. Such exported metadata should be whole without the currently referenced urls should it not?

Again in this context, i find it reasonable to expect one simply scrapes missing data that was not available within the .nfo and jpg files available within the video directory itself. I did not state that every time one access the xbmc library, one should re-scrape existing metadata from the web, over and over (thus placing an undue load on their own broadband connection and the metadata server itself). A single scrape should be enough to fetch new metadata for new content not handled by .nfo and jpeg file within the video directory itself should it not? And i expect xbmc would construct a local cache of metadata to optimize/speed access of the already fetched (scraped) metadata which can reside on the local network within another computer running xmbc server duties.

Now if one want's to re-scrape metadata for an existing video, they could always go to "videos - files" then select the source and then right click the video and select "movie information" and within they can select Refresh which would presumably re-scrape the metadata starting with the .nfo and jpeg files if they exists and only look at the www if they don't exist, correct?

And another little problem is that this "movie information" popup has it's "close" button on the left whereas all other xmbc popups have their "close" button on the right side (as is the windows convention) but i guess xbmc is what xbmc is...

But as i don't know how the xbmc is structured, where the information is held and how xbmc fetches and optimizes metadata retrieval from the local filesystem or local network, i ask here Sometimes my lack of understanding can result in asking what may seem a silly questions or questions that have never been asked before but i always try and read the wiki before posting anything And as you should know, and i think we can all agree, the wiki is not 100% accurate, for example epbookmark is stated within the wiki as being used to mark the episode start point within a single file containing multiple episodes, not for user saved bookmarks; and finding such information can also be a little convoluted. There seems to be no good overview of the structure of xbmc and its data

Anyway, i'm tilting into windmills as nickr has kindly stated

Seems there is no point in continuing this discussion though it's fair to say that as a newcomer to xbmc, my feedback would be that understanding and using xbmc is a little convoluted at times while the information contained within the wiki needs improvement.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]When saving my database to separate .nro files, most tags seem self explanatory and useful but i get some tags i don't understand seemingly with information i may not want within my system.

The main point is that you don't seem to understand that a library export is an export of your full library that needs to be able to be reimported to get back to an identical state.
Everything in it is needed and used in a running XBMC system.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<epbookmark>0.000000</epbookmark> what is this used for?

It stores the location where you saved a bookmark for this file.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<thumb aspect="poster" preview="http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w500/somenumber.jpg">http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/somenumber.jpg</thumb>
:
<fanart>
<thumb preview="http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w780/somenumber.jpg">http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/somenumber.jpg</thumb>
:
</fanart> why a web link and not a link to the jpg file within my filesystem?

You might want to change the fanart so we cache the locations you scraped in the first place. This significantly takes down the load of the sites that provide this content in the first place - sites that are being upheld by donations and sponsors. It also significantly speeds up teh interface of selecting a new image.
It does not infringe your privacy (http links in the database are not being opened until you decide to open them!) nor does it cause extra downloads, unless you choose to use them.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<playcount>0</playcount> why do we need a play count?

Because some skins show this. To enable showing unplayed items. To enable sorting by number of times played.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<lastplayed>1601-01-01</lastplayed> why do we need a last played date (same question for <premiered> and <aired>)?

Because many skins use this. To enable showing last played items. To enable sorting by play time.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<trailer>plugin://plugin.video.youtube/?action=play_video&amp;videoid=xyz</trailer> why do we need a web link to a trailer? it's my film so i know what it is!

There are many skins that have a button implemented to allow you to view a trailer for the film. Why did you enable scraping this in the first place if you were not going to use it ?

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]<dateadded>1601-01-01</dateadded> why do we need such a date?

Skins use this for sorting and for the 'recently added' screens on home.

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]There just seems to be too much information held within the database which can be can be problematic in some jurisdictions or just unwanted by users (like me). I can't be the first that feels this [:0]

I do not see how this freely viewable data can be problematic in some jurisdictions. If you don't want to cache data you scraped from the internet in the first place. If you are so paranoid, why do you scrape from the internet at all ? Just create your own NFO files and do not scrape from the web.
Maybe your problem is that you have illegal video material ? Did I guess correctly? Are you asking us to cater to the 'problematic' issues a pirate may run in to ?

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]Is there some 'paranoid' mode which only saves the bare essentials within the database or some way to switch off parts of the database, or have i misunderstood something?

There is not, and we most likely will not implement one because it will touch almost every area of the program.
The source of this program is totally free and very easily accessible so you are more than welcome to create a pull request which adds a 'paranoid'  mode that will disable most of the functionality in the skins that is the biggest reason people use XBMC in the first place.

(2013-07-17, 11:26)Kibje Wrote: [ -> ]The main point is that you don't seem to understand that a library export is an export of your full library that needs to be able to be reimported to get back to an identical state.
Everything in it is needed and used in a running XBMC system.
:
You might want to change the fanart so we cache the locations you scraped in the first place. This significantly takes down the load of the sites that provide this content in the first place - sites that are being upheld by donations and sponsors. It also significantly speeds up teh interface of selecting a new image.
It does not infringe your privacy (http links in the database are not being opened until you decide to open them!) nor does it cause extra downloads, unless you choose to use them

OK, now i get that everything within the database is exported. Obviously i misunderstood what happens when i export, since i saw only one poster and one fan-art jpeg, i felt wrongly that that there was no need for all those http references. Now i realise that these references are contained within the nro file and associated with many other xbmc features, like choosing alternate poster and fan art where such http references are only utilized if one chooses to exercise this feature. (spiff mentioned switching but it didn't register enough that he meant choosing alternate poster or fan art).

(2013-07-17, 11:26)Kibje Wrote: [ -> ]I do not see how this freely viewable data can be problematic in some jurisdictions. If you don't want to cache data you scraped from the internet in the first place.

Again, i now understand that the database & nfo file only contains the http links to poster and fan art material, not the material itself, this concern is now moot.

And fyi, IANAL but just because something is on the web and freely accessible does not mean it may not be problematic. Where i live, copying a simple thumbnail of a copyrighted picture from the web could be considered technically illegal whereas it's considered OK in the USA under their fair use provisions. Unfortunately we have no such fair use luxury here which places those in my country that use scraper on potentially shaky ground . But as this is not related to xbmc, this is also moot.

(2013-07-17, 11:26)Kibje Wrote: [ -> ]If you are so paranoid, why do you scrape from the internet at all ? Just create your own NFO files and do not scrape from the web.

I'm not so paranoid considering my above statements
My initial thought was that i wanted pictures of the front covers of my DVD's and BluRays to simulate flicking though my physical shelf when browsing my xbmc library, and scraping seemed the logical choice and much quicker than scanning my own covers Maybe i should have taken the road less travelled

(2013-07-17, 11:26)Kibje Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe your problem is that you have illegal video material ? Did I guess correctly? Are you asking us to cater to the 'problematic' issues a pirate may run in to ?

Just to be clear, your guess is 100% wrong as i do not download unquestionably illegal videos or other illegal or immoral material. I'm on slow and intermittent wireless broadband, but even if i had T1, i wouldn't do such things. I'm old hat and prefer to own physical objects so it's no surprise i have a very large CD, DVD and BD collection and i don't like 'app stores' or download only software mechanisms. I do not use and have never used torrent apps to searched for or download such illegal things. Such stuff simply does not interest me, so 100% wrong.

I simply came to xbmc as i wanted to 'format shift' my DVD and BD collection to HDD so i don't have to get up and swap disks. And my paranoia stems from how we are all heavily tracked on the net whenever we surf but i guess todays reality is that privacy is but a distant memory and if the state wants to get you, they will

Oh, and i would not ask xbmc to cater to piracy in any way whatsoever, more the opposite actually, as i want xbmc to be around for us all to enjoy.

(2013-07-17, 11:26)Kibje Wrote: [ -> ]

(2013-07-12, 12:57)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]Is there some 'paranoid' mode which only saves the bare essentials within the database or some way to switch off parts of the database, or have i misunderstood something?

There is not, and we most likely will not implement one because it will touch almost every area of the program.
:

I was not asking for any change to be made to xbmc, just if some setting existed in xbmc. Obviously my question was based on a flawed understanding of how xbmc works so it's again moot.

Thanks to all for helping me through what seems like difficult first steps with xbmc

So where ARE you from?

(2013-07-18, 09:58)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]Where i live, copying a simple thumbnail of a copyrighted picture from the web could be considered technically illegal whereas it's considered OK in the USA under their fair use provisions. Unfortunately we have no such fair use luxury here which places those in my country that use scraper on potentially shaky ground . But as this is not related to xbmc, this is also moot.

I had no idea they had such strict laws in some countries.
Interesting.

mod edit: please respect the privacy of our users ;-)

I'd rather not say where i'm from. You know, my paranoia and all

---

Haha, seeing that my IP was used to determine where i posted from and then make such info public, maybe my paranoia is not baseless

But interesting reference which i'll have to read and digest.

Why do you export? Make a backup of your DB instead. But wait, thatfile can also be opened and examined. File mode seams like only safe path. But then again what if somebody gets hold of your NAS?

(2013-07-19, 09:12)pecinko Wrote: [ -> ]But then again what if somebody gets hold of your NAS?

Especially now that everyone knows where you live.

(2013-07-19, 08:54)skylarking Wrote: [ -> ]seeing that my IP was used to determine where i posted from and then make such info public, maybe my paranoia is not baseless

our apologies. this should not have happened.