Kodi Community Forum

Still working my way through using Ember and I have a couple questions.

First, I use the Video Extras add-on and I'm now finding Ember is trying to scrape information from these Extras nested folders, specifically for TV Shows. Is there a way to exclude these specific folders?

Second, when re-scraping a TV Show to try and fix some issues with metadata and all, Ember seems to be doing something but there is no indication of it. I can't select other media or menus or anything, if I exit it says it's canceling all current processes and just waiting takes FOREVER. Over 10 minutes so far to rescrape season 4 of The Walking Dead. Is this a bug or something else I'm unaware of?

Last, I don't want local actor artwork in every single folder, yet I keep getting it. I don't understand why.

Thanks!

Will the next version have the option to disable and clean the <dateadded /> and <datemodified /> fields?

Dan : Bug --->manually changing MPAA rating does not work UNLESS I manually insert the rating in the Box underneath it .

(2015-07-19, 18:44)shaktoo Wrote: [ -> ]Dan : Bug --->manually changing MPAA rating does not work UNLESS I manually insert the rating in the Box underneath it .

Doubleclick the value in the listbox.

(2015-07-19, 19:18)DanCooper Wrote: [ -> ]

(2015-07-19, 18:44)shaktoo Wrote: [ -> ]Dan : Bug --->manually changing MPAA rating does not work UNLESS I manually insert the rating in the Box underneath it .

Doubleclick the value in the listbox.

Thanks Dan ! such a silly mistake on my behalf !!

Hi!! Have just starting to use this program. It's Awesome thanks a lot.
Have 1 issue though. Kodi scrapes all the actors' thumbnails in the Thumbnails folder within Kodi. While Ember has a .actors folder and thumbnails with every movie.
How can I set Ember to scrape the actors' thumbnails into the main Kodi thumbnails folder. Alternatively maybe someone can show me a way to automatically move these from the .actor folder to the main thumbnail folder in kodi.
I have 5 instances of Kodi at home with the files residing on a NAS and using MySQL database for sharing across all instances.
any help will be appreciated. not capable of coding but can follow instructions...

(2015-07-20, 16:03)P_Jamula Wrote: [ -> ]Hi!! Have just starting to use this program. It's Awesome thanks a lot.
Have 1 issue though. Kodi scrapes all the actors' thumbnails in the Thumbnails folder within Kodi. While Ember has a .actors folder and thumbnails with every movie.
How can I set Ember to scrape the actors' thumbnails into the main Kodi thumbnails folder. Alternatively maybe someone can show me a way to automatically move these from the .actor folder to the main thumbnail folder in kodi.
I have 5 instances of Kodi at home with the files residing on a NAS and using MySQL database for sharing across all instances.
any help will be appreciated. not capable of coding but can follow instructions...

It's not possible. Kodi does not support a global actor thumbs folder.
But you can disable actor thumbs downloading in Ember. Kodi use the URL in NFO to downloading the thumbs while importing into Kodi DB, if no local thumb is saved in movie folder.

(2015-07-20, 16:11)DanCooper Wrote: [ -> ]

(2015-07-20, 16:03)P_Jamula Wrote: [ -> ]Hi!! Have just starting to use this program. It's Awesome thanks a lot.
Have 1 issue though. Kodi scrapes all the actors' thumbnails in the Thumbnails folder within Kodi. While Ember has a .actors folder and thumbnails with every movie.
How can I set Ember to scrape the actors' thumbnails into the main Kodi thumbnails folder. Alternatively maybe someone can show me a way to automatically move these from the .actor folder to the main thumbnail folder in kodi.
I have 5 instances of Kodi at home with the files residing on a NAS and using MySQL database for sharing across all instances.
any help will be appreciated. not capable of coding but can follow instructions...

It's not possible. Kodi does not support a global actor thumbs folder.
But you can disable actor thumbs downloading in Ember. Kodi use the URL in NFO to downloading the thumbs while importing into Kodi DB, if no local thumb is saved in movie folder.

WOW..... What a quick Response..... great help it works!!!!!!! Thanks a lot...
and keep up the wonderful work.....

(2015-07-20, 16:11)DanCooper Wrote: [ -> ]It's not possible. Kodi does not support a global actor thumbs folder.

There's two issues the OP is addressing - the apparent duplication of local artwork due to the texture cache, and the lack of a global actor/cast folder.

All local artwork will be "duplicated" by the texture cache - that's the point of having the cache, although it's not really duplication as the cached artwork is optimised for the local device (size, format, image quality) and is no longer the same as the original artwork. The only way to avoid this "duplication" is to not use local artwork, which the OP seems happy with (until the remote artwork is no longer available, of course).

However, a "global" actors folder might still be possible, but would need to be implemented by Ember.

For instance, Ember could populate a single folder (located somewhere in the media library, ie. Movies/.actors) with actor artwork for *all* movies (or it could be an actor folder per source).

There'd be nothing for Ember to download if an actor is already present in this "global" folder. Use a, b, c etc. sub-folders a la Thumbnails to avoid 10,000 image files in a single folder. You could even use a hash as the filename. Whatever, these are implementation details...

Ember would then store this "global" local actor artwork location in the NFO - this is the tricky bit, as the actor artwork url would need to be in nfs://, smb://, Z:\, /var/media, etc. format as it would be Kodi eventually reading and caching the artwork, and Kodi would need an absolute path to the "global" folder.

Then, when Kodi imports the NFO, it would import all the local actor artwork from this "global" actor folder - all the benefits of local artwork, but without the duplicate actor artwork (same actor, different movies etc.) splatted throughout the media library.

Obvious downside is that it would be very easy to "break" actor artwork by altering the "global" actor folder location. "Locking" the absolute path into the NFO would make switching from nfs:// to smb:// difficult (the NFO would need to be rewritten with the updated path), and using a mixture of nfs:// and smb:// to refer to the same media library would be impossible.

One final downside is that anyone crazy enough to export their library from within Kodi would still create individual .actor folders alongside each movie, but I can't see why anyone would want to do this when using Ember.

Last thing, actor artwork would need to be in the correct orientation (see my previous post on this).

(2015-07-20, 22:24)Milhouse Wrote: [ -> ]

(2015-07-20, 16:11)DanCooper Wrote: [ -> ]It's not possible. Kodi does not support a global actor thumbs folder.

There's two issues the OP is addressing - the apparent duplication of local artwork due to the texture cache, and the lack of a global actor/cast folder.

All local artwork will be "duplicated" by the texture cache - that's the point of having the cache, although it's not really duplication as the cached artwork is optimised for the local device (size, format, image quality) and is no longer the same as the original artwork. The only way to avoid this "duplication" is to not use local artwork, which the OP seems happy with (until the remote artwork is no longer available, of course).

However, a "global" actors folder might still be possible, but would need to be implemented by Ember.

For instance, Ember could populate a single folder (located somewhere in the media library, ie. Movies/.actors) with actor artwork for *all* movies (or it could be an actor folder per source).

There'd be nothing for Ember to download if an actor is already present in this "global" folder. Use a, b, c etc. sub-folders a la Thumbnails to avoid 10,000 image files in a single folder. You could even use a hash as the filename. Whatever, these are implementation details...

Ember would then store this "global" local actor artwork location in the NFO - this is the tricky bit, as the actor artwork url would need to be in nfs://, smb://, Z:\, /var/media, etc. format as it would be Kodi eventually reading and caching the artwork, and Kodi would need an absolute path to the "global" folder.

Then, when Kodi imports the NFO, it would import all the local actor artwork from this "global" actor folder - all the benefits of local artwork, but without the duplicate actor artwork (same actor, different movies etc.) splatted throughout the media library.

Obvious downside is that it would be very easy to "break" actor artwork by altering the "global" actor folder location. "Locking" the absolute path into the NFO would make switching from nfs:// to smb:// difficult (the NFO would need to be rewritten with the updated path), and using a mixture of nfs:// and smb:// to refer to the same media library would be impossible.

One final downside is that anyone crazy enough to export their library from within Kodi would still create individual .actor folders alongside each movie, but I can't see why anyone would want to do this when using Ember.

Last thing, actor artwork would need to be in the correct orientation (see my previous post on this).

HHHmmmm!!!
ok not being a techie.. I just need to know if my assumptions are correct.
Background: I have 5 instances of Kodi running 14.2 release.
my library is on a NAS
all 5 instances sharing the same library and MYSQL also on NAS
have substituted the path of Thumbnails, playlists, sources.xml and mediasources.xml on NAS being shared by all instances.
if I scrape the movie media with all options excluding the actors with Ember and then use local NFO for populating the library in Kodi will Kodi get the actor thumbs while adding to library and place them in the thumbs folder?? should this not avoid duplication??
all other movie related artwork is in the movie folder.
also except for my main Kodi installation where I scrape and update library the other instances are all residing on small (256GB) SSD Windows 7 mini PC's
any simple input on this will be appreciated...thanks...

(2015-07-20, 22:24)Milhouse Wrote: [ -> ]

(2015-07-20, 16:11)DanCooper Wrote: [ -> ]It's not possible. Kodi does not support a global actor thumbs folder.

There's two issues the OP is addressing - the apparent duplication of local artwork due to the texture cache, and the lack of a global actor/cast folder.

All local artwork will be "duplicated" by the texture cache - that's the point of having the cache, although it's not really duplication as the cached artwork is optimised for the local device (size, format, image quality) and is no longer the same as the original artwork. The only way to avoid this "duplication" is to not use local artwork, which the OP seems happy with (until the remote artwork is no longer available, of course).

However, a "global" actors folder might still be possible, but would need to be implemented by Ember.

For instance, Ember could populate a single folder (located somewhere in the media library, ie. Movies/.actors) with actor artwork for *all* movies (or it could be an actor folder per source).

There'd be nothing for Ember to download if an actor is already present in this "global" folder. Use a, b, c etc. sub-folders a la Thumbnails to avoid 10,000 image files in a single folder. You could even use a hash as the filename. Whatever, these are implementation details...

Ember would then store this "global" local actor artwork location in the NFO - this is the tricky bit, as the actor artwork url would need to be in nfs://, smb://, Z:\, /var/media, etc. format as it would be Kodi eventually reading and caching the artwork, and Kodi would need an absolute path to the "global" folder.

Then, when Kodi imports the NFO, it would import all the local actor artwork from this "global" actor folder - all the benefits of local artwork, but without the duplicate actor artwork (same actor, different movies etc.) splatted throughout the media library.

Obvious downside is that it would be very easy to "break" actor artwork by altering the "global" actor folder location. "Locking" the absolute path into the NFO would make switching from nfs:// to smb:// difficult (the NFO would need to be rewritten with the updated path), and using a mixture of nfs:// and smb:// to refer to the same media library would be impossible.

One final downside is that anyone crazy enough to export their library from within Kodi would still create individual .actor folders alongside each movie, but I can't see why anyone would want to do this when using Ember.

Last thing, actor artwork would need to be in the correct orientation (see my previous post on this).

Great idea. I've added this to bug tracker as enhancement: Link

(2015-07-21, 09:48)P_Jamula Wrote: [ -> ]have substituted the path of Thumbnails

Do not use Path Substitution for thumbnails if your intention is to share thumbnails between clients - it doesn't work (can't work, won't work, will cause problems).

See contents of the orange box on the path substitution (wiki) page for details.

(2015-07-21, 09:48)P_Jamula Wrote: [ -> ]will Kodi get the actor thumbs while adding to library and place them in the thumbs folder?? should this not avoid duplication??

The images in the Thumbnails folder are optimized versions of the original artwork (local or remote) and this artwork is not identical to the original artwork so technically speaking it is not a "duplicate".

Downloading artwork from the internet will eliminate the local storage of original artwork, but will result in a slight delay when the artwork is displayed the first time (it has to be downloaded from the internet). Each of your clients will be downloading this same artwork, whereas with local storage you would only download it once (Ember would do this for you).

With 5 clients, you either download the artwork once (Ember, to local storage) and cache 5 times (each client). Or each of your clients downloads and caches the same artwork (5 downloads, 5 caches). Storage is usually a lot more plentiful than bandwidth.

It's also possible that the internet-based artwork may disappear before all your clients have downloaded and cached the artwork, in which case they'll show a blank image, and this is really the biggest disadvantage of using remote artwork. Given the opportunity you should use local artwork every time.

(2015-07-21, 09:48)P_Jamula Wrote: [ -> ]the other instances are all residing on small (256GB) SSD Windows 7 mini PC's

Why are you using Path Substitution for thumbnails

I have heard, you can now see all of the images, information of movies, series being on external hard drives not being running / plugged in? Is that correct?

Just upgraded to Isengard. The upgrade was funky on my mysql library, so I deleted it and started over. Thanks to Ember I don't lose all my watched information (as I am fastidious about keeping it updated).

Movie scraping bug:

This bug has been around for a long time and I've not reported this previously as there is a workaround but here goes. When scraping a new movie using
(Re)Scrape Selected Movies / Ask (Require Input If No Exact Match)
a dialog sometimes appears when there are multiple matches. If I keep the existing selection and press ok, everything works. If I choose a different selection and press ok, everything works. If I choose a different selection, then decide the first selection was correct and choose that again and press ok the movie will not be scraped at all.
I can always go back in and rescrape the movie again but it is an annoyance.