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MQ4 - Where to start with "Artwork Downloader" add-on?
#1
Hi

New XBMC user, currently using the excellent Aeon MQ4 Skin and have just finished setting up all artwork for my music using the various artwork add-ons.

Need to start looking at Artwork Downloader for Movie and TV Shows, but must admit I am worried about letting it potentially run riot on my media files.

I already have a folder.jpg and fanart.jpg for each Movie, so I want to keep these and not have them overwritten.

I've read the wiki page for the Artwork Downloader add-on and read some of the pages in the 131 page thread, just to get a feel of some of the potential issues.

First question is what types of artwork files will I need for Aeon MQ4 ? Presumably it does not support all of them ? And I only want to download what artwork I actually require.

Movies:
Poster (poster.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Extrathumbs (thumb1.jpg to thumb4.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Discart (disc.png)
Wide_Banner_Icons (banner.jpg)
Thumb 16:9 (landscape.jpg)

TV Shows:
Poster (poster.jpg)
Season Posters (seasonx.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Characterart (character.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Wide_Banner_Icons (banner.jpg)
Season Banners (seasonbannerx.jpg)
Thumb 16:9 (landscape.jpg)
Season Thumb 16:9 (seasonx-landscape.jpg | seasonall-landscape.jpg)

Musicvideos:
Poster (poster.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Extrathumbs (thumb1.jpg to thumb4.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Discart (disc.png)

Second question, is there any way to just download the artwork for one particular movie and one TV Show as a test? So I can see the results before letting it run on all the media folders.

If anyone who knows what they are doing and has any tips for a newbie. with regard to Aeon MQ4 and the Artwork Downloader add-on I would really appreciate it.

Many thanks
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#2
Hi cw-kid

Firstly, I don't think you can class yourself as a XBMC noob at over 300 posts Tongue you're almost a veteran!

Anyway on to business; I like you it seems, am very picky when it comes to my artwork. I choose (and often create) my fanarts and posters very careful for each movie and show, however I do find that the artwork downloader is an excellent, time saving tool for the other types of artwork that MQ4 makes use of.

In answer to your first question, MQ4 use the following types of artwork:

Movies:
Poster (poster.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Extrathumbs (thumb1.jpg to thumb4.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Wide_Banner_Icons (banner.jpg)
Thumb 16:9 (landscape.jpg)

TV Shows:
Poster (poster.jpg)
Season Posters (seasonx.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Season Fanart (fanart.jpg within the season folder)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Wide_Banner_Icons (banner.jpg)
Thumb 16:9 (landscape.jpg)

Music videos:

I'm not sure, but I assume something similar to the other formats.

In answer to your second question, MQ4 and the Artwork downloader allow you to run the add-on in 4 different ways:

Solo Mode - It will gather and download all of the types of artwork you have specified, but only for the title you have selected
GUI Mode - It will bring up a list of the available artwork for the title you have selected, giving you previews, and will download which ever you choose
Auto Mode - It will gather and download all of the types of artwork you have specified, for all of your titles in that library (movies or TV Shows etc)
Custom Mode - I'm not entirely sure.

To run the add-on go into one of the libraries, press up until you are on the top menu, go right until the add-on tab is selected, and select one of the option listed above.

Finally if you go into the customization menu of the add-on you can select different options including which types of artwork you wish it to download or not,and if you want it to overwrite the current artwork you have, among others.

Hope that helps and answers your questions!
My fanart.tv & themoviedb.org accounts.

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#3
Samu-rai

Many thanks for your reply and explanation I really appreciate your help. I've only been using Linux and XBMC for about 3 months so still a newbie, was previously using Windows MCE for the last 6 years.

I am currently battling with a HDMI audio issue and my new Pioneer AVR, however when I have that resolved I will be back to this thread to see if I can setup my Movie and TV Show extra artwork using the artwork downloader add-on.

I did have a quick look at Ember Media Manager, it looks quite complex and I think if you invested the time to learn the program properly and you wanted to individually pick what artwork gets displayed for each Movie / TV Show it might be the way to go.

However I have not got time for that and have a large media collection, I wanted a quicker and faster way to get extra artwork etc. I already had artwork for Movies stored on my server, for DVD / Bluray covers and 1x fanart background for each movie from the Windows MCE system (My Movies.dk)

I have no artwork in my TV Series folders on the server, however XBMC universal scraper seems to have gotten me the basics, I have TV Show posters / covers, banners and fanart background and each episode has its own snap shot image.

Thanks
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#4
Yes I use Ember from time to time. It was dead for a long time, but am glad to see that the development has been revived.

I find that Ember is good for choosing the posters and fanarts, and once you have played around with it for a little while you will find it isn't as complex as it may seem to begin with.

What the artwork downloader is great at, and ember is currently not, is downloading the other types of art (logos, clearart, disc art etc). It also does this incredibly quickly, even for people like us with large media collections. I have seen it find and download all available artwork for more than 1000 movies in less than 15 minutes, which is pretty impressive I think!

One type of artwork that I love, but is harder to find at the moment, is season fanarts. MQ4 supports this, but as many of the websites and scrappers don't currently recognize this type of art easily, it does require you to do a lot of the hard work. The visual rewards I feel though are more than worth it.
My fanart.tv & themoviedb.org accounts.

Image
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#5
Do Poster.jpg take a higher priority over my existing Folder.jpg files? For each movie I already have the DVD front cover in a file called Folder.jpg.

It seems that Poster.jpg are also DVD front covers ?

I seem to remember previously when I was testing XBMC Eden and Aeon MQ3, that my existing movie covers as being displayed in XBMC, were being replaced by different covers / Poster.jpg's which I didn't want to happen.

As yet I have not ran the Artwork Downloader but in its options I have unchecked Movie Poster as a precaution.

Also is there a way to switch the views in MQ4 other than using the top menu ? Ideally would like a button on the remote control that can toggle through the different views.

Thanks

EDIT: Also what is Movie Thumb 16:9? that is not the movie cover as well ? Or is that like a screen capture image from the movie.

TV Shows:
Poster (poster.jpg)
Season Posters (seasonx.jpg)
FanArt (fanart.jpg)
Season Fanart (fanart.jpg within the season folder)
Extra_fanart (<image ID from provider>.jpg)
Clearart (clearart.png)
Logo (logo.png)
Wide_Banner_Icons (banner.jpg)
Thumb 16:9 (landscape.jpg)

So for MQ4 there is no need to select these artwork types in the Artwork Downloader options ?

Season Thumbs 16:9
Season Banners
Character Art

Thanks
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#6
OK here are some screen shots of my Artwork Downloader settings. I really need to make sure I get this right and not mess it up Wink

General

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Limit Artwork

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Movies

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Image

TV Shows

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TV Shows Continued

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Music Videos

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Advanced

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Add-on Info Is it the right version?

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Here is what I see in the Add-ons pull down menu. I don't appear to have a Solo mode to test getting the artwork for just this one movie.

Image

Thanks
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#7
Yes in Frodo poster.jpg takes priority over folder.jpg. Take a look at the FAQ, which explains the naming convention changes.

There should be away to change one of your remote control buttons to cycle through the active views. You will need to change the keyboard.xml to do this. I'll have a look at the MQ4 code when I get home and try and workout how you can do this.

Thumbs 16:9 is custom art that is used in the landscape view among others. Here is an example:

Image

As far as I am aware Season Thumbs 16:9, Season Banners & Character Art isn't supported in MQ4, but I could be wrong.

What version of MQ4 are you using? The latest version is 3.0 and should included the 'solo mode' option.

It looks like you may be using the most recent version of the add-on. Just make sure that it is the Frodo version rather than the Eden, but I assume it is.

In terms of configuring the different options it's really all personal preference, but if you deactivate the 'overwrite existing artwork' option then even if you have a type of art selected to download, if you already have this type of file in your collection it shouldn't override it in solo or auto mode.
My fanart.tv & themoviedb.org accounts.

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#8
Thanks

I think MQ4 is version 3.0.0 will have to double check but pretty sure. I didn't actually install the Artwork Downloader myself I am assuming the Aeon MQ4 Skin did it. So I guess that means the Artwork Downloader add-on must be the correct version.

Cheers Samu-rai
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#9
OK this is a bit odd, if I go in to a movie titles information page as shown on the screen shot below I get no option for Solo Mode, but this is when you would expect to see that option.

Image

However if I am on the wall view (my normal movie view) showing all the movie titles and if I press the up direction on the remote, to get on to the add-ons menu Solo Mode is then there as an option, if I click on it, it downloads artwork for whatever was the movie title I happened to be highlighting last before I pushed up on to the top menu.

So for example in the screen shot below the XVID version of 2001 was the movie title that was last highlighted as I pushed up on to the top menu and Solo mode downloaded artwork for this title only.

Image

In this example I pushed the down directional button on the remote which then also brings up the top menu, in this instance it was the Blu-ray 2010 movie title that was the last movie title highlighted and Solo mode downloaded artwork for that title.

Image

However on the Wall view at least, I have no means of being able to select movies titles that are in the middle row, for example the Blu-ray 2001 movie title there is no way to select that and select Solo Mode. Unless I am missing the obvious.

Image

Seems to me the logical thing should be that I should see the Solo mode when entering in to a movie information page.
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#10
I just checked in the XVID 2001 and Blu-ray 2010 movie folders on the server and the Artwork Add-on has created new folders called:

extrafanart and extrathumbs they both contain new images. I can't see however that it has downloaded any other new images such as Logos or banners etc.

Although having just said that XBMC is now displaying banners and logos for those two movies I just updated. So the question is where does it store these types of images if not in the movies folder on the WHS server?

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I think I am going to really like this Artwork Downloader add-on Big Grin

Thanks

Its also showing something else new. I presume that is clearart ?

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Here is a screen shot of what is in the movie folder, Ive still got some stuff in there from the mymovies.dk MCE system as well.

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#11
I've got Thumb 16:9 selected for movies, but its doesn't seem to have downloaded a landscape image for the two movies titles I updates via Solo mode, perhaps there just is no Thumb 16:9 artwork for those particular titles.

Image
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#12
I'm unsure about using the solo mode with the wall view. The only suggestion I could make at the moment would be to switch to another view when you run it this way.

The logos, clearart, banners etc should all be saved and stored in the movie folder. This is where it stores all mine anyway, so that's a bit weird!

The last screen shot looks to be of clear art yes. This is my favourite view for my TV shows, except I go to the 'Art' tab on the top menu, and switch it to show logos instead of clearart.

I agree that the artwork downloader (with the sites it scrapes) is very cool, and MQ4 does not reach 10% of its potential without the artwork it downloads.

(2013-04-10, 16:46)cw-kid Wrote: I've got Thumb 16:9 selected for movies, but its doesn't seem to have downloaded a landscape image for the two movies titles I updates via Solo mode, perhaps there just is no Thumb 16:9 artwork for those particular titles.

Image


I just had a look on fanart.tv and neither of these movies has 'landscape' art for it to download, hence why it does show any.
My fanart.tv & themoviedb.org accounts.

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#13
(2013-04-10, 16:48)Samu-rai Wrote: The logos, clearart, banners etc should all be saved and stored in the movie folder. This is where it stores all mine anyway, so that's a bit weird!

OK that's a little worrying then, are you using MySQL server database for XBMC ? I wonder if that might be related.

Thanks
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#14
I have everything stored on my NAS, but I don't use or have any real experience with MySQL and XBMC.

Sounds like that could be a good call as to why we are having these differences, but I guess if it's working there's no need to worry to much atm.
My fanart.tv & themoviedb.org accounts.

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#15
(2013-04-10, 18:13)Samu-rai Wrote: I have everything stored on my NAS, but I don't use or have any real experience with MySQL and XBMC.

Sounds like that could be a good call as to why we are having these differences, but I guess if it's working there's no need to worry to much atm.

Its working nicely but I will try and find out and ask the question in the Artwork Downloader add-on thread as to where the images are being stored? I am presuming they are getting cached in the local thumbnail folders on the XBMC PC, which is actually better than them being on the server for speed.

Once I am happy with my settings what is the best way to set it off going and downloading extra artwork for all Movies / TV Shows etc ?

Many thanks once again, I wasn't confident about trying this add-on out without someones assistance.

I just tried Solo Mode on Battlestar Galactica TV Show

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I don't seem to be getting extra thumbs here ?

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Looking in the folder on the server I can only see that a extrafanart folder has been created no extrathumbs folder is present.

Is that normal?

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Cheers
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MQ4 - Where to start with "Artwork Downloader" add-on?0