[Pdubbbs]

If you're using Universal Media Scraper...according to the docs, Kodi scrapes local data first, then goes out to the interwebs to scrape metadata (depending on your config of the scraper). I use Aeon MQ8 modded currently, It pulls in metacritic info automatically from the time that data was first queried and written to the NFO, but if you want the latest info from the source you'll have to manually reload via the context menu from within kodi. I have to do this currently for Rotten tomato scores because TMM doesn't know how to write that info the the NFO file.....hopefully that's being put in the works.

so, if you re-scraped in tmm, wouldn't it update the ratings? Then it's just a matter of having kodi update its data, which I'm still trying to understand, I've been deleted movies on kodi, and then it would re-add it, with updated info. I will take a look at that reload feature in the context menu. I have actually disabled that kodi does any scraping, so that I can see 100% results of what Im doing in tmm. In theory, if one is mastering tmm, and having all the folders with nfo and artwork, then there is no need for kodi to do any further scraping on its own. especially when kodi does this, it doesn't go into that movie folder but its own database? So if I wanted to share my movies, they wouldn't be the up to date version I would have been used to on kodi?

I tried the local data only approach first also, the issue is that many skins, by design, are built to use underlying services like the skin helper service and the extended info service that use a movies IMDB id or TMDB id to query movie from the internet to get the latest possible info.  You can absolutely use local data only for a lot of things (artwork, some metadata) ...but in my experience, it only gets you so far. But it all boils down to what skin/setup you're using and how much up-to-date info about the movie you're wanting. 
Another benefit to using TMM is that some skins (i just recently found this out) require items like media source type, resolution type, audio format, to be in the name to be properly flagged inside of Kodi. As far as naming conventions go, I think it's ugly to have all that info in a file name, but it serves a functional purpose inside of Kodi. 

Here is my current naming scheme if you're wanting to do something similar


In my own mind, I use TMM now as a "starting point" so-to-speak to make sure that the correct movie is recognized by kodi and a "break glass in case of emergency" method in case i have to start all over again inside of kodi, I know that with NFO files if i have to rebuild the DB all over again from scratch, Kodi will scrape the correct movie every time because that information has already been hard coded to an NFO.

In the last month I've come a long way too. I had all my movies with no folders or anything just bare "What's Eating Gilbert Grape.mkv", and Im on mac, so for the comment of the file I added the year. Put I realized that putting the year in for every new movie manually is a hassle, and if I ever switched to windows, I would loose that comment column info.

So now I have it as "All or Nothing (2002) 1080p EAC3 (72.0)" and same as you all the folders, nfo, artwork etc. I can also add the subtitles srt to this if the movie is missing it. With my single file ocd, I had to remux the mkv to add the srt, which is a hassle. The 72 is the metascore, which the majority of my movies have, if not I fallback on the imdb score.

Like you mentioned, I see the benefit of only having to do that initial search and scrape once. I have movies in cold storage, so transfer movies every few months into local storage, so my kodi  library is always somewhat temporary. I also like to share my collection. So having to search,match,scrape every time the movie is being utilized would be a hassle.

Since I need to redo my entire 3K movie collection, I am trying to understand every aspect of tmm, and kodi, and how it all works, so I do it right the first time. I don't think I have it in me to have to do a second go!

I will do what you do, and add the Video Codec, will be good to know what that is, because  I could see me replacing all my h264, once we get to h266 or h267 ;P

Not sure if I care so much about blu ray vs. web dl. Can usually tell that based on the audio codec being dts or eac3.

Im assuming that all the artwork needs to be as files, in the same folder as the mkv to work in kodi or other programs? I was thinking I could have an artwork subfolder, so that when I'm in the movie folder I would have the mkv,nfo,srt,and art work folder. Might make it a bit cleaner.