[McCordRM]

I'm creating folders for each individual movie and then creating my own NFO files for each. I'm doing this for future-proofing: no matter how popular a website is, it may eventually bite the dust. Therefore, I'd rather store all information about my movie collection locally and have media programs (like XBMC, currently) just read from them.

So, since I'm using XBMC, is there any way I can make it read the movie folder directly for artwork? Like so:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

     <movie>
            <title>Despicable Me</title>
            
            <sorttitle>Despicable Me 1</sorttitle>
            
            <year>2010</year>
            
            <plot>In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of minions, we discover Gru, planning the biggest heist in the history of the world. He is going to steal the moon. (Yes, the moon!) Gru delights in all things wicked. Armed with his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, he vanquishes all who stand in his way. Until the day he encounters the immense will of three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has ever seen: a potential Dad. The world's greatest villain has just met his greatest challenge: three little girls named Margo, Edith and Agnes.</plot>

            <tagline>Who's afraid of the Big Bad Gru?</tagline>
            
            <thumb aspect="poster">Despicable Me.jpg</thumb>

            <runtime>95</runtime>
            
            <mpaa>PG</mpaa>

            <genre>Animation</genre>
            <genre>Comedy</genre>
            <genre>Family</genre>          
            
            <set>Despicable Me Collection</set>

            <director>Pierre Coffin</director>
            <actor>
                <name>Steve Carell</name>
                <role>Gru</role>
                <order>0</order>
                <thumb>Steve Carell.jpg</thumb>
                </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Jason Segel</name>
                <role>Vector</role>
                <order>1</order>
                <thumb>Jason Segel.jpg</thumb>
                </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Russell Brand</name>
                <role>Dr. Nefario</role>
                <order>2</order>
                <thumb>Russell Brand.jpg</thumb>
                </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Julie Andrews</name>
                <role>Gru's Mom</role>
                <order>3</order>
                <thumb>Julie Andrews.jpg</thumb>
            </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Miranda Cosgrove</name>
                <role>Margo</role>
                <order>4</order>
                <thumb>Miranda Cosgrove.jpg</thumb>
            </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Dana Gaier</name>
                <role>Edith</role>
                <order>5</order>
                <thumb>Dana Gaier.jpg</thumb>
            </actor>
            <actor>
                <name>Elsie Fisher</name>
                <role>Agnes</role>
                <order>6</order>
                <thumb>Elsie Fisher.jpg</thumb>
            </actor>
     </movie>

You'll notice the lack of a Path for the THUMB tags since the files are located in the same folder as the movie. Any way to make XBMC recognize this?
(At some point my media server will get upgraded, meaning the drive letters will change, etc.

[jmarshall]

For actor thumbs? Just put them in .actors named as you have them, and drop the <thumb> stuff.

[tuareg]

I use Media Center Master for this and it does a wonderful job. It automatically creates folders for each movie, downloads backdrops, thumbs etc, when you do a metadata fetch and the data for each Movie/TV show is saved in the respective folder for permanence if you so desire.There are lot of options for actor thumbs etc too.I have chosen to make nfo files also and it does so easily. There is I think an option to make nfo files in one go too for the entire library. XBMC just scans from these folders when set to do so recursively. Changing drive letters etc only requires you to change the set scan folders in MCM.

[McCordRM]

I tried creating a .actors folder and putting the actor images in there. I name them with lower case, and used an underscore instead of a space. XMBC still isn't loading the images. I've tried refreshing the Movie Info as well.

[PatK]

Snore ZZZZzzzzzz.....

I can't believe that users are still not using one of the best features of XBMC, that is to scrape the meta-data from various online web sources directly into their library, then export their library as separate files!

Scrape done properly. All-Meta-data saved in the same folder as the movie, isn't that what the OP wants?

Should the web site die, disappear, get closed down.... or heaven forbid just not pay the bills. Your meta-data is still on your hard-drive quiet secure, should the XBMC library fail, a re-scan of your HD brings it all back as saved without the internet. Don't like the poster fanart etc.. use Artwork Downloader, they have a rating system that picks the best stuff.

If you ask me, this is a case of creating duplication manually the hard way, with 3rd party programs that seem to create issues not found in XBMC

[McCordRM]

Obviously, I'm still learning the system.
A few of my "collections", or "movie sets" have changed based on data changing at
TVDB.com. That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Also, stuff like "original title" for foreign
films, and some older American stuff, making my library a mess.

Anyhow, the only issue I'm having is the Actor photos not loading. Everything else seems to be
working fine.