[poster72]

Searching forums i assure you, but haven't found what i need yet. I have always used ember to put all the artwork and so on with each movie in its own folder. Last i know Ember wasn't working with IMDB and you had to do it manually, but it worked. I have since removed the program and cant make sense of what may be going on with any new updates for ember.

I wanted to start using kodi's built in scraper for ease. It mostly works but i am guessing i have naming convention problems or something.

Issues/questions

1) Again, movies are placed in their own folder. The movie folder shows the movie artwork and info, but when you go in to the folder and view the .iso file, there is no artwork or info. Why wouldn't it associate the .iso with the same as the folder? is there a way to force this?

2) If you have a movie in two parts such as lord of the rings, i suppose its best to put both movies in one folder (LOTR Disc01.iso, LOTR Disc02.iso). If you select combine split video items, it only shows up as one, but my player wont automatically play the second movie file after the first. Being the second part doesnt show up there is no way to select it. Is it supposed to play the second automatically?

3) in the case of movies that have sequels, is there a way to keep them in order by listing but still be able to be able to be scanned automatically? Examples: Indiana Jones I - Raiders of the lost ark, Indiana Jones II - Temple of Doom both are found fine. Indiana Jones III - The Last crusade doesnt work. "Star Wars Episode 1..."-6 works fine. Lord of the rings i cant find a way to work either, tried "The Lord of The Rings Volume 1 - The Fellowship of the Ring". in place of volume i tried I, Part 1, anything to keep their positions when listing, but then they aren't found automatically in scan.

4) in the case of TV shows my layout is Family Guy/Season 12/Family Guy S12D01.iso,Family Guy S12D02.iso. At the family guy folder level it seems to get artwork, but not at the season level as i would expect. Is this possible? I understand i may want to rename by full disc .ISO files in this fashion "S12E01E02E03" to help pick which episodes?

5) mostly i want to be able to add movies to the collection without it requiring an external scraper and so much effort. Are there any new scrapers that automatically work? Should Kodi be sufficient on its own?

[brazen1]

One of the many beauties of Kodi is to automate what can be. I've never found a need to use an external program for what Kodi already has built in.
I use artwork downloader within Kodi.
Enable everything for movies, tv, and music videos and enable use local files in it's config.
Enable update library on startup in Kodi settings.
When adding a source, select tmdb.

Titles with multi discs are hit and miss to load and play the next part, especially iso's.

Naming convention is everything. To check that your titles are named properly when diagnosing a scraping problem, go to tmdb.org for movies and start typing your titles name. When it appears, name it exactly as tmdb lists it. The year is usually the scrape problem. If you refresh a title name in Kodi, it too will try to find and list it as it should be named.

[poster72]

do you keep each of your movies in their own folders? if so, does the artwork show up on only the folder or both the folder and the actual movie file within the folder?

are there new external scrapers that actually work without too much effort?

[brazen1]

Yes, all my titles are in their own folders within a category folder such as MOVIES.
All the artwork is downloaded into the folder beside the title file.
There is an exception. If you are using file structure and not placing inside a container such as an iso, some artwork will appear inside the bdmv folder. I'm not sure why this happens but I hope it's modified someday.
I don't know about any new external scrapers that work without much effort because I use Kodi with artwork downloader which requires no effort once it's configured.

[poster72]

well, this has been some help thanks. Enable use of local files question, if i understand you are saying enabling this will make the files appear in the same folder as the video file, and will then show artwork on the file not just the folder above?

it seems if i have a mix of folders, some with existing .nfo from ember and some with nothing, kodi will only scan those with nothing and do what it needs? I always assumed kodi kept a database elsewhere of all the files it downloads for each movie because i do not see them in my movies directory after scanning.

[brazen1]

Use local files means that when a scraper, such as artwork downloader, is scanning your title folders for artwork, it will see that there is already local artwork and not download what is existing. If something is missing, it will download directly into the folder your title is contained in unless you have set settings for artwork to download and save someplace else.

I used nfo's in the past. They created problems for me. I deleted all of them. Do not use the 'Export Library' function unless you like duplicate artwork. This is because the syntax is different between scrapers.

Kodi does cache artwork. The cache takes time (Days) to update. There are tools to expedite the process but personally I don't mind the wait and changes are seldom. I've used the tools to do it and that too created problems.

If you follow what I suggested, I'm pretty sure you'll achieve what you seek.

[poster72]

"If something is missing, it will download directly into the folder your title is contained in unless you have set settings for artwork to download and save someplace else."

Hmm, i have never set anything to my knowledge, but it has never downloaded files to the folder the movie is in. I assumed it keeps a local database on C:/users or something? Do you know what setting it is that makes it store in a given location?

As far as caching artwork...what do you mean exactly? If i do a scan it downloads stuff immediately (not sure where to?).

Sorry for so many questions, it seems it should be easy but it is not.

[brazen1]

Do you know what setting it is that makes it store in a given location?

When you add a source, you are prompted if you would like to update for that source. Select YES. This caches your titles into the Kodi db file I don't suggest you mess with. Provided you set up artwork downloader add-on as suggested before hand, your source will scan in all your titles to the db file and artwork downloader will commence downloading artwork into your title folders. Kodi will also cache some into the thumbnails folder/files.

[scott967]

I think default behavior is to store a URL to an on-line image in the database. That triggers Kodi to retrieve the remote image and store it in the thumbnail cache. "Use local files" I think tells AD to save the actual image to the movie folder (optionally overwriting existing file if any) and store the location/filename in the database. Again, this gets cached by Kodi to thumbnail cache.

WRT movie nfo files, if they exist they always get used during a video scan. If you set scraper to "local only" if no nfo exists that movie won't be added to the database.

scott s.
.

[Powerhouse]

Built in scraper is great, if your library has been setup correctly. But what you really should do, is grab one of the external Managers (personally I use MediaElch and love all the features it has). This will download and name all the artwork, fanart, disc, etc images to the folder of each movie, and Kodi will look awesome. Sure, it will take a little time to work its magic (depending upon the size of your library), but once it's done, you wont have to make any changes in Kodi ever again. Reload Kodi on a different PC, point to your media, and everything gets pulled right in, no messing in Kodi at all.

Plus as a bonus, in MediaElch, it also does Music, as well as Movies and TV Shows.

[poster72]

powerhouse, have you used ember as well? i was about to go back to it as my solution. It does help when it comes to movies i have that are not in the movie databases, and oddly enough i have quite a few when it comes to concerts and such.

i found a note that says ember 1.3 will work for auto scraping (without manually putting the IMDB number in) as long as you are not cascading the sources it pulls from. Not sure if this is true but i was used to that program and kind of liked it. If mediaelch is easy to use i may give it a go. Seems there were so many options as to what you needed for Kodi/xbmc to view things properly from ember.

Thanks all for the help