I've just started using Kodi 18 Leia on both my PC and my new Android TV Box. I'm impressed with how easy it was to setup and use.
However, with the Movies section, I have a small query regarding metadata. In the main movies interface, users can select Categories:
- Recently Added
- Genres
- Titles
- Years
- Actors
- Directors
- Studios
- Countries
- Tags
How do I add a Category to display a Movie Collection? I've tried editing the categories for the movies section to show "Sets", but that does not seem to work.
I just figured it would be easier to find related movies in a library if we can group them by natural collection (Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Harry Potter, etc)
Hello @
Dzomlija
Good to hear you are having a smooth run with the setup.
Movie Collections are called
Sets within the Kodi interface. (shorter word, easier to work with).
The Sets category should automatically display once a Set is scraped into your library, otherwise it is a hidden button. If you are not seeing it, then that means you have no Set information scraped into your library.
How have you added your movies to the library? Or maybe you haven't and are still using Videos>Files?
Might be of use to you...
Quick_start_guide (wiki) as well as links in My Signature below.
(2019-01-31, 09:28)Karellen Wrote: [ -> ]Hello @Dzomlija
Good to hear you are having a smooth run with the setup.
Movie Collections are called Sets within the Kodi interface. (shorter word, easier to work with).
The Sets category should automatically display once a Set is scraped into your library, otherwise it is a hidden button. If you are not seeing it, then that means you have no Set information scraped into your library.
How have you added your movies to the library? Or maybe you haven't and are still using Videos>Files?
Might be of use to you... Quick_start_guide (wiki) as well as links in My Signature below.
Thanks for the reply.
Setting up Kodi on my Andoid TV Box was a breeze, but I've run in to a glitch on the Windows version. Whenever I attempt to add a source to Movies by clicking on "Enter files section" and then clicking on "Add Videos...", I do not see local hard disks or the ability to browse for a local network share using "Windows network (SMB)" as I did on the Android box.
I suppose I could perhaps use the "Windodws video library", but I do not keep my Movies or TV Series in that folder.
If it is of importance, the x64 installer (kodi-18.0-Leia-x64.exe) I downloaded today for Kodi 18 Leia would not run on Windows 10 Pro x64, even after disabling Kaspersky Total Security, so I instead installed from the Windows Store.
I've uploaded some screenshots to OneDrive to illustrate the issues:
Kodi Screenshots 2019-01-31 (No Local Drives Displayed)
(2019-01-31, 10:12)Dzomlija Wrote: [ -> ]Whenever I attempt to add a source to Movies by clicking on "Enter files section" and then clicking on "Add Videos...", I do not see local hard disks or the ability to browse for a local network share using "Windows network (SMB)"
Ok, don't use the Windows Store version on your PC. Read my post here...
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=339891 The Store version was never meant to be available for PC use, but Micro$oft Store rules required us if we wanted it available for XBox.
Rest assured that the exe installer does run on Windows 10. Were you able to install it? If yes, what happened when you tried to start it?
(2019-01-31, 10:31)Karellen Wrote: [ -> ] (2019-01-31, 10:12)Dzomlija Wrote: [ -> ]Whenever I attempt to add a source to Movies by clicking on "Enter files section" and then clicking on "Add Videos...", I do not see local hard disks or the ability to browse for a local network share using "Windows network (SMB)"
Ok, don't use the Windows Store version on your PC. Read my post here... https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=339891 The Store version was never meant to be available for PC use, but Micro$oft Store rules required us if we wanted it available for XBox.
Rest assured that the exe installer does run on Windows 10. Were you able to install it? If yes, what happened when you tried to start it?
The file I downloaded (kodi-18.0-Leia-x64.exe) does not run at all, even after uninstalling the Windows Store version...
Ok, so it is installed but not running.
It is strange it is not working. Do you have fairly current hardware? Graphics card from the last 8 years?
You will need to provide a
Debug Log so we can see what is causing it to crash. Can you follow this guide to do that...
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=323719
But this now seems to be a radically different question from your original one regarding Sets, so I will move your post to the Windows forum.
Check if it's being mistakenly blocked or quarantined by your anti-virus software.
(2019-01-31, 10:59)DarrenHill Wrote: [ -> ]Check if it's being mistakenly blocked or quarantined by your anti-virus software.
Actually, it was the installer itself that was not running, not Kodi.
- I resolved the problem on Windows 10 by right-clicking the installer "kodi-18.0-Leia-x64.exe" and then selecting "Troubleshoot compatibility".
- After the troubleshooter finished, I click "Try recommended settings", which set the compatibility settings to Windows 8.
- At this point in the troubleshooter I clicked "Test run the program...", allowed Kodi to install, and then cancelled the Windows Troubleshooter.
- It would appear now that Kodi 18 is running fine with no compatibility settings applied in Windows, and I'm now setting up my Library.
Question
oes Kodi need to run on my local PC to share the library over uPNP to my Android TV Box, or does the sharing happen over a background service?
You need some sort of uPNP/DLNA server (of which Kodi is one example) enabled and running.
There is one built into Win10, which you can enable. See
here for details.
If not then either run Kodi, or one of
many other options.
(2019-01-31, 15:27)DarrenHill Wrote: [ -> ]You need some sort of uPNP/DLNA server (of which Kodi is one example) enabled and running.
There is one built into Win10, which you can enable. See here for details.
If not then either run Kodi, or one of many other options.
I've enabled the KODI options under "Settings/Services/UPnP/DLNA", and can successfully browse and play media from my KODI Library when I use my old Mede8er MED600X3D.
However, when I attempt to add a new video source into KODI on my Android TV Box through "Enter files section/Add Videos/Browse/uPnP Devices", then the KODI server is not listed, even though the server is running.
KODI runs great on my PC, but I'd really like to share it's library to the tv box without having to go through the whole effort of setting up media sources from the start and "scraping" for metadata all over again.
Also (assuming I can get the KODI-KODI uPnP connection issues resolved), is there any way to share the KODI Library to other devices on my network without requiring the main KODI interface to be running on my computer (the server containg all the media)
As a test try enabling the built-in Win10 one and see if that can be seen. Aim there is to eliminate things like firewalls blocking things between the devices (the Windows firewall for example). Also if that works then you can use it to share what's on your PC without needing Kodi at all on that end.
Media shared by uPNP/DLNA can only be played, it can't be scraped into Kodi's library.
If you're wanting that you might be better sharing the media from your PC by SMB or NFS (although you'll need to install a seperate server software for NFS - SMB is built in to Windows but you're then on the fun of SMB1 vs SMB2/3 and Android support for those).
(2019-01-31, 16:11)DarrenHill Wrote: [ -> ]As a test try enabling the built-in Win10 one and see if that can be seen. Aim there is to eliminate things like firewalls blocking things between the devices (the Windows firewall for example). Also if that works then you can use it to share what's on your PC without needing Kodi at all on that end.
Media shared by uPNP/DLNA can only be played, it can't be scraped into Kodi's library.
If you're wanting that you might be better sharing the media from your PC by SMB or NFS (although you'll need to install a seperate server software for NFS - SMB is built in to Windows but you're then on the fun of SMB1 vs SMB2/3 and Android support for those).
Nope. Turning on the built-in Windows uPnP server didn't help at all.
How can it be the firewall, when I see both KODI (Kodi uPnP) and PROMETHEUS (Windows Media uPnP) when I connect using my old Mede8er box? But when I try to connect using the Android version of KODI, then I see neither uPnP library?
Here is a OneDrive share of screenshots of my Mede8er box showing both uPnP shares:
Mede8er uPnP
I could perhaps access the library over local network shares, but it's cumbersome and requires "scraping" to be performed on all client machines for Movies and TV Shows.
Using uPnP sharing is quicker to share the library. And just to clarify why I'd prefer to us KODI, it's because it has a great user interface that is cleaner and easier to use than the default system provided by my media box.
A good point re the other box
It may still be something like that on the new box though, or possibly some other network issue/setting allowing access by the old box but not the new one.
I'm at work at the moment and can't access OneDrive. Will have a look later if I get chance.
One point I would say, you're terminology is a little confusing. In Kodi we refer to the library as the media plus the scraped metadata, and that can't be shared over uPNP. You're just trying to share the media itself, without metadata, which is possible by uPNP. That said you don't actually need to scrape anything if you're sharing via SMB or NFS, you just use the file mode (videos > files on the main menu bar). The scraping is gathering metadata and using that plus the media to form the library on the device, but if you just want to see/access the media then files mode will work in the same way as uPNP.
(2019-01-31, 16:47)DarrenHill Wrote: [ -> ]A good point re the other box :) It may still be something like that on the new box though, or possibly some other network issue/setting allowing access by the old box but not the new one.
I'm at work at the moment and can't access OneDrive. Will have a look later if I get chance.
One point I would say, you're terminology is a little confusing. In Kodi we refer to the library as the media plus the scraped metadata, and that can't be shared over uPNP. You're just trying to share the media itself, without metadata, which is possible by uPNP. That said you don't actually need to scrape anything if you're sharing via SMB or NFS, you just use the file mode (videos > files on the main menu bar). The scraping is gathering metadata and using that plus the media to form the library on the device, but if you just want to see/access the media then files mode will work in the same way as uPNP.
Sorry if I'm being confusing. It's not intentional...
I want to access more than just the media itself. An important part of the Movies and TV shows experience is the metadata. Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but the Android TV Box I've been on about is not the only one.
There are as of this morning, 4 of them connected to my home network. It is for this reason that accessing the "Movies" and "Series" network shares is inconvenient. It means having to setup video sources and scraping meta data 4 times over, where only onc would do. It took around 90 minutes to scrape the metadata for just one media box (I have a slow 4Mb internet connection), and that needs to be repeated over 3 more set-top boxes.
I did create a little workaround by exporting the entire KODI Library to a single file, and then changing all the local paths ("F:\Movies\" and "G:\Series") to correct SMB paths ("smb://media/movies" and "smb://media/series") and then importing the library in each KODI instance. That may have saved a lot of time, but is still slow and cumbersome.
Surely there has to be a way for one instance of KODI to share it's Library and all associated metadata with other instances of KODI on the network?
That way I can maintain a single KODI library whose changes will automatically propagate to other KODI clients on the network.
You can do it with
MySQL (wiki).
As I said before uPNP doesn't share metadata, just the media. So it's not what you want, as per that last description.