[MonSoon12]

I will add to MC to have One or the other naming convention, specially since like yourself, some use Movie Set Artwork Automator and others Artwork Beef.

I am guessing that each movie in Main Folder: Iron Man Collection, has its own sub folder?
ie: Iron Man Collection\Iron Man (2008)\Iron Man (2008).mkv

If that is the case, then for the movie scraper if you select Movies are in separate folders that match the title, then Kodi would pick up the poster.jpg/png image instead of <moviename>-poster.jpg/png
But I use the <moviename>-poster etc format with no hassles.
As for movieset images, logo, clearart etc, that is correct for MSAA but not for Artwork Beef. Again, I will have options for the user to select the naming of these files.

I am not sure if MSAA supports extrafanart/extrathumbs for Movie Sets, or if it does, how the naming should be.

I don't mind moving to Artwork Beef as Artwork Downloader is no longer supported, but need to know if MC does, so I can get the files renamed accordingly.
Yes, each individual movie in the set has a sub folder
Sub Folder: Iron Man (2008)
extrafanart
extrathumbs
banner.jpg
clearart.png
disc.png
fanart.jpg
Iron Man (2008) ~ {BR-XviD - 720p}.avi
Iron Man (2008) ~ {BR-XviD - 720p}.nfo
Iron Man (2008) ~ {BR-XviD - 720p}-trailer.mp4
landscape.jpg
logo.png
poster.jpg

Damn you are right, I didn't select that option for movies in separate folders with the source and scraper. You just saved me sooo much time!
The OCD in me, just likes the consistency if banner, disc etc don't have to use the <moviename>-poster format. I would prefer not too.

[bsoriano]

Hello Rob,

I use MC constantly, and one feature which, if included, would make my life a lot easier is if MC could search and/or refresh on a source by source basis.  I have a large collection, 5500+ movies, 20,000+ episodes in 500+ tv shows, and it takes a long time to search for newly added movies and/or tv shows/episodes, and it also takes a long time to refresh.

I seem to remember that in the past you mentioned that searching/refreshing by source would not be feasible, but that was more than one year ago, and I wonder if the situation has changed at all in order for this to be feasible. 

Before you mentioned to have a separate instance of MC with just the sources I add to regularly, and I do that, but my latest movies source has grown to 1,850 movies, and I only have two tv show root folders, so every day for a search or refresh, all of my tv shows/episodes have to be scanned.

Again, please let me know if this is something you would consider, and if you have any other tips that could help me reduce the scanning times for my large collection.

Thanks!

Bart

EDIT: Rob, since now you have a Root Folder filter, I guess what I am looking for is for the Search and Refresh functions to honor the folder filter.  Is this doable or are the filters only for visualization?

[bobrap]

Hey, Bart.
I'm in just about the same situation as you having a fairly large collection.  What I do is select the source/folder I want to search/refresh from the source tab.  Saves me a bunch of wait time.  Don't know if that is what you were looking for, just thought I'd throw something out there.

[bsoriano]

Hey, Bart.
I'm in just about the same situation as you having a fairly large collection.  What I do is select the source/folder I want to search/refresh from the source tab.  Saves me a bunch of wait time.  Don't know if that is what you were looking for, just thought I'd throw something out there.

 Thanks! I am not sure how to go about this.  You go to the Folders tab first? Select the folder from the list and then do a Save & Refresh? Or is it another way? Thanks for your help.

Or is it that you select the root folder in the Filters, and then do a Search or Refresh? That does not work with Search, it searches all of the root folders, I have not tried with Refresh.

[bobrap]

In the movie section, I go to the folder tab and it shows all of my sources:


when I want search or refresh, I just de3select all but the drive I want to use, save and exit.  Only the selected folder will show in MC.  Pretty much the same with TV.

[bsoriano]

In the movie section, I go to the folder tab and it shows all of my sources:


when I want search or refresh, I just de3select all but the drive I want to use, save and exit.  Only the selected folder will show in MC.  Pretty much the same with TV.

Ah, OK! That makes sense, thank you so much!

I guess the only drawback is that when you select all of the folders again and Save, it triggers a refresh of the whole collection.

Regards,

Bart

[bobrap]

Unfortunately, yes.  It's something I can live with.

[ended84]

OK, so how Kodi works is when set for scraping with Local Information Only scraper.
First Kodi will check if there is a local nfo.
Then checks for local artwork, actors, trailers.
If the artwork is not local, then - and only then - will it use the url in the nfo to download the artwork from the internet.
the same goes for Trailers. If Kodi finds a local trailer file, it Almost Famous (2000)-trailer.mp4, Kodi will use this path for the trailer first.

The urls in the nfo are only like a second-option for Kodi if the media is not located with the video file.

So, in my case where I have my actor thumbs saved in a central location (thanks to MC), I need to make sure that those URLs are accurate in my NFO file, correct?
Example:

    <actor>
        <id>0041089</id>
        <name>Martin Starr</name>
        <role>Todd</role>
        <thumb>nfs://192.168.2.5/data/stuff/misc/KODI/art/thumbs/M/Martin_Starr_0041089.jpg</thumb>
        <order>2</order>
    </actor>

A problem that I am running into is that MC and another program (Ember) have very different ideas on how to format a NFO, so when I try to use Ember to fill in what MC is missing, I lose my nice 'local-only' setup.
I wish one of these programs would allow updating only a certain section of the NFO... I know, wishful thinking that two entirely seperate programs would write code to account for one another...

[vbat99]

Hello Rob,

I use MC constantly, and one feature which, if included, would make my life a lot easier is if MC could search and/or refresh on a source by source basis.  I have a large collection, 5500+ movies, 20,000+ episodes in 500+ tv shows, and it takes a long time to search for newly added movies and/or tv shows/episodes, and it also takes a long time to refresh.

I seem to remember that in the past you mentioned that searching/refreshing by source would not be feasible, but that was more than one year ago, and I wonder if the situation has changed at all in order for this to be feasible. 

Before you mentioned to have a separate instance of MC with just the sources I add to regularly, and I do that, but my latest movies source has grown to 1,850 movies, and I only have two tv show root folders, so every day for a search or refresh, all of my tv shows/episodes have to be scanned.

Again, please let me know if this is something you would consider, and if you have any other tips that could help me reduce the scanning times for my large collection.

Thanks!

Bart

EDIT: Rob, since now you have a Root Folder filter, I guess what I am looking for is for the Search and Refresh functions to honor the folder filter.  Is this doable or are the filters only for visualization?

As bobrap has replied already, his suggestions are what is currently available.
But, I have had some thoughts on how to do this quicker, specially for movies.....if we use similar technique as Kodi does. (if option All Movies are in folders, then if folder already exists in database, move on without scanning inside folder).
Also yeah, I could try some sort of Search drop box so a user could to select to search a specific root folder for new movies.

As for TV Series, I'm not sure. I feel maybe a CRC of each season folder and if different scan the season folder. This would mean needing to store the CRC against each folder, but might be an option.
But, One thing that will speed up searching during TV search, is to lock any series that has
a. Ended
b. on Hiatus (ie: series current season has ended, waiting for new season)

I've done the above on my MC for my tv series and when I add new episodes its blazingly quick now.

As for Refresh, there might be some options I can do to speed this up. Currently for Movies, MC drops all movies and scans every root folder for nfo's and adds them as if they are found for the first time.
Why this is, is so all data is refreshed from nfo.
MC could keep the database intact, and if a nfo is found, check if exists already and skip, else add to the database. But then how to know if an nfo has been removed.?? and also it won't update manually added data to the nfo.

Still thinking of what can be done.

If there are any suggestions, I'm open to anyones ideas.

[vbat99]

OK, so how Kodi works is when set for scraping with Local Information Only scraper.
First Kodi will check if there is a local nfo.
Then checks for local artwork, actors, trailers.
If the artwork is not local, then - and only then - will it use the url in the nfo to download the artwork from the internet.
the same goes for Trailers. If Kodi finds a local trailer file, it Almost Famous (2000)-trailer.mp4, Kodi will use this path for the trailer first.

The urls in the nfo are only like a second-option for Kodi if the media is not located with the video file.

So, in my case where I have my actor thumbs saved in a central location (thanks to MC), I need to make sure that those URLs are accurate in my NFO file, correct?
Example:

    <actor>
        <id>0041089</id>
        <name>Martin Starr</name>
        <role>Todd</role>
        <thumb>nfs://192.168.2.5/data/stuff/misc/KODI/art/thumbs/M/Martin_Starr_0041089.jpg</thumb>
        <order>2</order>
    </actor>

A problem that I am running into is that MC and another program (Ember) have very different ideas on how to format a NFO, so when I try to use Ember to fill in what MC is missing, I lose my nice 'local-only' setup.
I wish one of these programs would allow updating only a certain section of the NFO... I know, wishful thinking that two entirely seperate programs would write code to account for one another...

Yep, so the actors thumb url is now nfs://192.168.2.5/data/stuff/misc/KODI/art/thumbs/M/Martin_Starr_0041089.jpg and not a http url.

What data is missing form MC that requires Ember?
Unfortunately, without knowing what Ember sets, or what the data is for, MC just loads the nfo and any tag not known about gets discarded. Then on Write nfo, MC writes the data we know about.

[bsoriano]

Hello Rob,

I use MC constantly, and one feature which, if included, would make my life a lot easier is if MC could search and/or refresh on a source by source basis.  I have a large collection, 5500+ movies, 20,000+ episodes in 500+ tv shows, and it takes a long time to search for newly added movies and/or tv shows/episodes, and it also takes a long time to refresh.

I seem to remember that in the past you mentioned that searching/refreshing by source would not be feasible, but that was more than one year ago, and I wonder if the situation has changed at all in order for this to be feasible. 

Before you mentioned to have a separate instance of MC with just the sources I add to regularly, and I do that, but my latest movies source has grown to 1,850 movies, and I only have two tv show root folders, so every day for a search or refresh, all of my tv shows/episodes have to be scanned.

Again, please let me know if this is something you would consider, and if you have any other tips that could help me reduce the scanning times for my large collection.

Thanks!

Bart

EDIT: Rob, since now you have a Root Folder filter, I guess what I am looking for is for the Search and Refresh functions to honor the folder filter.  Is this doable or are the filters only for visualization?

As bobrap has replied already, his suggestions are what is currently available.
But, I have had some thoughts on how to do this quicker, specially for movies.....if we use similar technique as Kodi does. (if option All Movies are in folders, then if folder already exists in database, move on without scanning inside folder).
Also yeah, I could try some sort of Search drop box so a user could to select to search a specific root folder for new movies.

As for TV Series, I'm not sure. I feel maybe a CRC of each season folder and if different scan the season folder. This would mean needing to store the CRC against each folder, but might be an option.
But, One thing that will speed up searching during TV search, is to lock any series that has
a. Ended
b. on Hiatus (ie: series current season has ended, waiting for new season)

I've done the above on my MC for my tv series and when I add new episodes its blazingly quick now.

As for Refresh, there might be some options I can do to speed this up. Currently for Movies, MC drops all movies and scans every root folder for nfo's and adds them as if they are found for the first time.
Why this is, is so all data is refreshed from nfo.
MC could keep the database intact, and if a nfo is found, check if exists already and skip, else add to the database. But then how to know if an nfo has been removed.?? and also it won't update manually added data to the nfo.

Still thinking of what can be done.

If there are any suggestions, I'm open to anyones ideas. 

 Thanks Rob! In terms of Search, both of your ideas for movies sound good to me, as well as those for TV Shows.  I will lock all of my tv shows that can be locked as per your suggestion, so that I speed up my TV Show adding of episodes.

As for Refresh, I am not sure what would be a good way, but I can certainly live without any different functionality here if you add the Search part, since I am usually doing a lot more adds than changes or deletions.  

Again, thanks for considering all of this!

Regards,

Bart

[ended84]

What data is missing form MC that requires Ember? 

 I was trying it out to see if it would save posters differently to solve some odd KODI issues with displaying only some of my posters.
I also had it getting themes for TVTunes and Landscapes. Allthough, now, I'm not sure if there is a difference in the Landscapes and the Fanarts.
I also tried out it's Kodi Interface connection with mixed results.

The certral actors folder is what is making me figure out every little detail of MC so I can just use it.

[vbat99]

New Release.
Media Companion 3.711b

New options - If user has multiple movie root folders, now can right click the search for new button to select a specific root folder to search.
Movie browser tab now shows original title, and is editable. Movie Table view also now shows original title column.

New:

• Movie - Right click Search button to show list of Active movie Root Folders, and select which root folder(s) to search for new movies.
  
• Movie - Display Original Title in browser tab. Allow saving of altered original title.
  
• Movie - Table View, add Original Title column.
  

Fixed:

• TV - Fix scraping Actors from TVDb if series has not actors (don't cause a crash, and continue with the scrape).
  
• MC - Possible fix for permission error when renaming extrafanart/extrathumb images to new format.
  
• MC - possible fix to movie studio filter and to fix extrafanart/extrathumbs rename issue.
  
• Movie - Fix Select multiple Tags for removal.
  
• Movie - Fix Save changed image if cropping Fanart.
  
• Movie - Fix rescrape Genre's displaying and saving with comma as separator character.
  
• Movie - Change Movie if user selects to keep artwork, also keep trailer if present.
  
• Movie - Add to Change Movie tab, option to not delete trailer in cases that user has placed trailer with movie.
  

And, Please, if you experience any crashes, create a Ticket on Media Companion's SourceForge site
Feedback would be appreciated.

Download Link for MC 3.711b x86 & x64

Revision History

[bsoriano]

New Release.Media Companion 3.711bNew options - If user has multiple movie root folders, now can right click the search for new button to select a specific root folder to search.
Movie browser tab now shows original title, and is editable. Movie Table view also now shows original title column.

New:

• Movie - Right click Search button to show list of Active movie Root Folders, and select which root folder(s) to search for new movies.
  
• Movie - Display Original Title in browser tab. Allow saving of altered original title.
  
• Movie - Table View, add Original Title column.
  

Fixed:

• TV - Fix scraping Actors from TVDb if series has not actors (don't cause a crash, and continue with the scrape).
  
• MC - Possible fix for permission error when renaming extrafanart/extrathumb images to new format.
  
• MC - possible fix to movie studio filter and to fix extrafanart/extrathumbs rename issue.
  
• Movie - Fix Select multiple Tags for removal.
  
• Movie - Fix Save changed image if cropping Fanart.
  
• Movie - Fix rescrape Genre's displaying and saving with comma as separator character.
  
• Movie - Change Movie if user selects to keep artwork, also keep trailer if present.
  
• Movie - Add to Change Movie tab, option to not delete trailer in cases that user has placed trailer with movie.
  

And, Please, if you experience any crashes, create a Ticket on Media Companion's SourceForge siteFeedback would be appreciated.Download Link for MC 3.711b x86 & x64Revision History 

Thank you so much Rob! Searching just one of my root folders for movies works great!

Given that you were already able to do this, would it be possible to replicate the functionality for Refresh?

Regards,

Bart

[vbat99]

Thank you so much Rob! Searching just one of my root folders for movies works great!

Given that you were already able to do this, would it be possible to replicate the functionality for Refresh?

Regards,

Bart

I did have a look at the Refresh function but the complexities of converting this to a single root folder refresh is substancial. So at this time, no. Not for Refresh.
To improve Refresh, please ensure you have selected Use multiple threaded version where available in Preferences -> Common. This will scan all root folders at the same time, instead of one at a time.

Rob.