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Issues separating 3D films (duplicates) and displaying content scraper missed -SOLVED
#1
Hello,

I have used Kodi for over 7 years and I am about to give up and ditch it, simply because its just become to complicated to do the simple tasks.

can someone please let me know if Kodi is able to overcome any of these issues I am now having below?

All of my questions have already been asked in the past, but I cannot locate any specific answers that provide real solutions or work-arounds.

-----------------------

Issue #1: Kodi - How to separate Home-menus to display content from a particular source, and NOT merge content with other menus when the file names are the same! (Example: 3D Films).


Example:
How do you separate all your 3D films that are in one directory on your server from standard movies in a separate directory in Kodi?

You can separate menu items based on play-lists as this post suggests:

"2 different categories in 2 different folders you create a playlist that only contains the folder you wish.For me I created an Anime folder and made the playlist only show media from that folder."
https://www.reddit.com/r/kodi/comments/3...rent_menu/

But this does NOT stop the movies for both 3D and standard versions from showing up as duplicates in the main Movie menus (this applies to ALL skins I have tried over the years).

Similar question on 3D content workarounds, but no solutions...
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...+3d+movies


-----------------------


Issue #2: Items missed by scraper are in accessible in Kodi AND not reported.


How come Kodi still won't show files the scraper cannot fine? This was never a problem with other media center apps such as Boxee. Other systems show you the files in your menus so you can still watch them, but let you edit the file names later, or add your own thumbnails. Can Kodi do this? Or is there some awesome skin that overcomes this problem?

Example:
What if you put in a student film not in IMDB? What if you want a menu for home videos? Is there a way for Kodi to now provide a generic thumbnail for this video and allow the user to add their own thumbnails later for items the scraper cannot resolve? (*You can browse source files, but not add them into the videos list to my knowledge).

Its like the scraper says "I don't know what this file is so lets throw it out of our playlist! Oh and lets not even tell the user what were doing!" and Kodi says "Sounds good to me!"

That's just ridiculous. Why doesn't Kodi's "Update" feature by default include an output of videos it cannot resolve (at the very least), like a text file you can save (if you wish at the prompt), so you can address it!

I mean how many of use have used a media center & Kodi for years and have a huge libraries, just to find out that a dozen videos (or more) are missed by the scraper? Many of us probably have many more and have no idea some videos are missing from our movie lists even now!

I think this is a application handicap, and I am surprised these problems haven't been addressed by now.

Example:
Most of my Music Videos not showing in Kodi after updating (scraper): How to still play these files?

Music Videos ARE renamed successfully using "Filebot" and its databases, but Kodi scraper will only show about 10% of them after updating the file. Oblivious Kodi can't find them all (especially rare artists), but why won't Kodi show a generic thumbnail with the video in the menu so it can still be played from within Kodi even if the scraper in Kodi doesn't find it?

-----------------------

All these issues were never a problem 10 years ago with apps like "Boxee" (back when they were around) or other apps. Are these features out of Kodi's reach without custom coding and add-ons? Or am I just a moron and totally missing some obvious features already in Kodi?

Thanks for any imput!


----------------------------------------------------------------
--------UPDATE: RESOLVED ISSUE—-----
----------------------------------------------------------------

I have resolved all these issues (and then some).

I have tried all the solutions in this thread to date, including alternative skins, or using video nodes etc. However, none of these solutions resolved all these issues and many solutions are more of a tedious work-around to a systemic lack in KODI’s basic functionality.

What I did to resolve these issues:

  1. Uninstall KODI including my profile data.
  2. Install “Emby - The open media solution” (https://emby.media/) Add all my video sources (each source has its own separate directory location on my media center). This includes Movies, 3D Movies, TV-Shows, and Music Videos.
  3. Reinstall KODI
  4. Install / Add KODI Emby App Source (https://emby.media/emby-for-kodi.html)

This process is simple and just takes minutes. Here is an outdated video showing an example, but the steps are very similar (see the current guide on Emby's site)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaecDPcXI3I

What this achieves:
  • Allows you to add sources from Emby (which can be a directory) as a separate menu item within KODI. Such as 3D Movies, Movies, Music Videos, etc. This prevents duplicate movies from showing in KODI (such as when you have a 3D version and standard version). *Note: This will work with ANY skin in KODI.
  • Emby assigns a generic thumbnail to items the scraper misses. You can change those at any time!!! And yes...these also show up in KODI because KODI is just displaying Emby's sources as you tell it to.
  • You can even just add your own home-videos in Emby, and they will also of course show up in KODI fine. You can add your own thumbnails etc!
  • Allows you to easily update thumbnails, meta-data, or any other items just by clicking-on the video in the Emby browser.
  • With KODI removing old videos was a PAIN, you had to manually do it. In Emby you just can delete the movie from your source. Emby will detect its gone and remove it from the movie/video listings.
  • Emby allows you to easily stream the videos to your Roku, media center, Laptop, or phones! This includes all your home-videos, movies, music videos etc. I tested this and it works perfectly with my Roku! The interface on smart devices can be the web-interface which runs just fine on those devices.
  • You can even stream all your content over the net
  • Emby allows you to add multiple users (just like Netflix) so those users progress in shows and how they group them does not interfere with yours. So make accounts for your family members!

Honestly Emby does 90% of the heavy lifting. And the interface for Emby is very nice! Its essentially your own personal Netflix / Hulu for your personal video or music libraries.

The Emby web interface is great too. So there is very little reason to use KODI. However, there is one short coming I did not like, the fact that Emby (since its web-based on PC) does not have a front end you can use a keyboard commands with. For our home we use a mini keyboard or wireless keyboard/mouse combo as a remote for our media center.

Because of this limitation I chose to install KODI for the nice front end it provides. Then use the Emby back-end which handles 90% of the rest of the work.

Either way I am happy with the solution.

*PS. - Note: Purchases Emby Premier access (similar to Plex's) gets you access to more apps, backup, folder sync, and other extras. It also gets you access to 'Emby Theater" (legacy version is still free), and this may be a good alternative to a better front end interface for your computers than KODI.
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#2
#1 video nodes (wiki). Define your own of those to suit your needs and use them (in a skin which supports them).

#2 Use the file view - it shows everything. The Movies (or Music or TV Shows) shows the library of scrapped files and their metadata. So by definition if the media didn't scrape (because of it's naming or simply by not being in the scraper database) then it won't be in the library and so won't be displayed.

For the latter, also look at the Add-on:Missing_Movie_Scanner (wiki), which will give you a list of media which is in your sources but not in your libraries.
|Banned add-ons (wiki)|Forum rules (wiki)|VPN policy (wiki)|First time user (wiki)|FAQs (wiki) Troubleshooting (wiki)|Add-ons (wiki)|Free content (wiki)|Debug Log (wiki)|

Kodi Blog Posts
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#3
Thanks for the reply DareenHill, your information is helpful.

Regarding #1 (3D Film Organization):

I just read the page on video nodes you provided. This provides directions on how to segregate videos based on criteria (such as directory location, or anything) using video nodes.

I am using "Aeon Nox" which this states "custom main-menu items can be set to a custom video node", and this will create a category for 3D Movies.

However, what I don't like is this requires people to manually create and edit XML files to do it. For a one time fix this will work to create a category for say "3D Movies" based on the directory they are stored in.

However, this does not remove duplicate files from the main videos from displaying (original film and the 3D version, which the scarper shows identical thumbnails).


Regarding #2:

Wouldn't using file view just show a list of files? This would eliminate much of the benefit of using a media center with thumbnails etc. And isn't this a big step backwards to resolve a percentage of files not displaying due to being missed by the scraper?

Thanks for suggesting the add-on "Missing_Movie_Scanner". I wish Kodi provided this feature by default, but I will add it in!

------------------------

As for resolving all these issues in a more practical way, I started looking into alternatives. Plex and Emby (previously Media Manager-3) have come a long way. And allowing all this meta data editing with a click of the mouse.

It looks like Emby works as a good back end as well for KODI (XBMC) to manage all your content much more easily. And you can still use the KODI front end if you want.

I think I will go this route and see how it does.

With Emby you can easily do the following:

*Multiple user profiles (example is one users can have subtitles enabled, another not, etc)
*Better remote access
*Allows downloading of subtitles naively, and skipping download of subtitles if they already exist with your media.
*Content scraper misses or mis-labels can easily be updated or changed.
*Provides its own front end, or you can use it with programs like KODI.

Also some nice supports nice addons like video-bookmarks so you can watch content from the server later.

I know it hasn't been around as long as KODI, but from what I have seen it looks pretty good.
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#4
(2016-05-03, 19:12)beetlejuice321 Wrote: Thanks for the reply DareenHill, your information is helpful.

Regarding #1 (3D Film Organization):

I just read the page on video nodes you provided. This provides directions on how to segregate videos based on criteria (such as directory location, or anything) using video nodes.

I am using "Aeon Nox" which this states "custom main-menu items can be set to a custom video node", and this will create a category for 3D Movies.

However, what I don't like is this requires people to manually create and edit XML files to do it. For a one time fix this will work to create a category for say "3D Movies" based on the directory they are stored in.

However, this does not remove duplicate files from the main videos from displaying (original film and the 3D version, which the scarper shows identical thumbnails).

Use a skin that allows you more flexibility in the main menu then. I use Aeon MQ6. I have smart playlists that are filled with my kids movie contents and my own. Each one has it's own entry in the main menu and navigating into one of them (say kids films) doesn't show any content from the other playlist. I removed the original Movies entry in the main menu (MQ6 is very customisable) so there is no option to see all the films listed together, unless you navigate to the files view.

Also, there is an add-on node editor that will let you create the nodes in Kodi's gui without having to edit the xml directly.
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#5
(2016-05-03, 19:12)beetlejuice321 Wrote: ...However, this does not remove duplicate files from the main videos from displaying (original film and the 3D version, which the scarper shows identical thumbnails).
Having multiple library entries for the same movie I believe is being worked on right now. I have the same movie encoded different ways so I get multiple entries too. Using a video node as suggested above is a good option.
(2016-05-03, 19:12)beetlejuice321 Wrote: Wouldn't using file view just show a list of files? This would eliminate much of the benefit of using a media center with thumbnails etc. And isn't this a big step backwards to resolve a percentage of files not displaying due to being missed by the scraper?...
The file view at least in estuary show the poster for movies that were successfully scraped in. In the file view I think there should be an option to refresh metadata and manually put in/select the correct movie though.
(2016-05-03, 19:12)beetlejuice321 Wrote: ...Allows downloading of subtitles naively, and skipping download of subtitles if they already exist with your media.
I believe that kodi looks for local subtitles first before downloading them. I do not have a subtitle downloader enabled all of my subtitles come from subtitle file stored with the movie.
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#6
Quote:Use a skin that allows you more flexibility in the main menu then. I use Aeon MQ6. I have smart playlists that are filled with my kids movie contents and my own. Each one has it's own entry in the main menu and navigating into one of them (say kids films) doesn't show any content from the other playlist. I removed the original Movies entry in the main menu (MQ6 is very customisable) so there is no option to see all the films listed together, unless you navigate to the files view.

Thanks black_eagle this is something I will try. I use Aeon Nox as my main skin, but I will try switching to Aeon MQ6 and give it a try.


Quote:The file view at least in estuary show the poster for movies that were successfully scraped in. In the file view I think there should be an option to refresh metadata and manually put in/select the correct movie though.

Thanks for the tip Av3nged. I wish this you could do this from the poster / thumbnail view though. I loved this feature in Boxee back in the day, sad its gone now. But I liked importing everything and getting posters from the scraper, and still seeing a generic thumbnail for stuff it missed. This way I can just fix a file name and re-scrape, or import my own thumbnail. It was nice to just do this at my leisure. Or I could ignore the issue and just play the movie as is, as long as I don't mind the generic thumbnail/poster that was assigned.

I am testing Emby now and will see how this goes, especially because I still have issues with music videos (especially foreign music videos). I am sure its the limitations in the scraper that KODI uses for music videos. Filebot (i use to rename files) can locate just about any music artist, and song names. But the music scraper in KODI has a hard time getting content on ever English speaking artists that are known. I think for music videos its probably better to create your own nfo data and thumbnails. And looks like Emby does that nicely and works well with KODI skins.
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#7
(2016-05-03, 19:49)black_eagle Wrote:
(2016-05-03, 19:12)beetlejuice321 Wrote:

Use a skin that allows you more flexibility in the main menu then. I use Aeon MQ6. I have smart playlists that are filled with my kids movie contents and my own. Each one has it's own entry in the main menu and navigating into one of them (say kids films) doesn't show any content from the other playlist. I removed the original Movies entry in the main menu (MQ6 is very customisable) so there is no option to see all the films listed together, unless you navigate to the files view.

I did the same with the only difference that I used smart playlist instead of videonodes . Kids, Cabaret, Other movies.. all are in different playlists and showing on the main menu and indeed, remove the original movies entry.
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#8
(2016-05-04, 03:29)beetlejuice321 Wrote:
Quote:Use a skin that allows you more flexibility in the main menu then. I use Aeon MQ6. I have smart playlists that are filled with my kids movie contents and my own. Each one has it's own entry in the main menu and navigating into one of them (say kids films) doesn't show any content from the other playlist. I removed the original Movies entry in the main menu (MQ6 is very customisable) so there is no option to see all the films listed together, unless you navigate to the files view.

Thanks black_eagle this is something I will try. I use Aeon Nox as my main skin, but I will try switching to Aeon MQ6 and give it a try.

You could also try the Silvo mod of Aeon Nox, it has all the clean looks of Nox but with the customization a power user needs.
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#9
as for the missed items on scraping - these can be logged in the new "activity log" of Kodi, if you enable it, so you'll see which movies where skipped
Reply
#10
----------------------------------------------------------------
--------UPDATE: RESOLVED ISSUE—-----
----------------------------------------------------------------

I have resolved all these issues (and then some).

I have tried all the solutions in this thread to date, including alternative skins, or using video nodes etc. However, none of these solutions resolved all these issues and many solutions are more of a tedious work-around to a systemic lack in KODI’s basic functionality.

What I did to resolve these issues:

Uninstall KODI including my profile data.
Install “Emby - The open media solution” (https://emby.media/) Add all my video sources (each source has its own separate directory location on my media center). This includes Movies, 3D Movies, TV-Shows, and Music Videos.
Reinstall KODI
Install / Add KODI Emby App Source (https://emby.media/emby-for-kodi.html)

This process is simple and just takes minutes. Here is an outdated video showing an example, but the steps are very similar (see the current guide on Emby's site)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaecDPcXI3I

What this achieves:
Allows you to add sources from Emby (which can be a directory) as a separate menu item within KODI. Such as 3D Movies, Movies, Music Videos, etc. This prevents duplicate movies from showing in KODI (such as when you have a 3D version and standard version). *Note: This will work with ANY skin in KODI.
Emby assigns a generic thumbnail to items the scraper misses. You can change those at any time!!! And yes...these also show up in KODI because KODI is just displaying Emby's sources as you tell it to.
You can even just add your own home-videos in Emby, and they will also of course show up in KODI fine. You can add your own thumbnails etc!
Allows you to easily update thumbnails, meta-data, or any other items just by clicking-on the video in the Emby browser.
With KODI removing old videos was a PAIN, you had to manually do it. In Emby you just can delete the movie from your source. Emby will detect its gone and remove it from the movie/video listings.
Emby allows you to easily stream the videos to your Roku, media center, Laptop, or phones! This includes all your home-videos, movies, music videos etc. I tested this and it works perfectly with my Roku! The interface on smart devices can be the web-interface which runs just fine on those devices.
You can even stream all your content over the net
Emby allows you to add multiple users (just like Netflix) so those users progress in shows and how they group them does not interfere with yours. So make accounts for your family members!

Honestly Emby does 90% of the heavy lifting. And the interface for Emby is very nice! Its essentially your own personal Netflix / Hulu for your personal video or music libraries.

The Emby web interface is great too. So there is very little reason to use KODI. However, there is one short coming I did not like, the fact that Emby (since its web-based on PC) does not have a front end you can use a keyboard commands with. For our home we use a mini keyboard or wireless keyboard/mouse combo as a remote for our media center.

Because of this limitation I chose to install KODI for the nice front end it provides. Then use the Emby back-end which handles 90% of the rest of the work.

Either way I am happy with the solution.
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#11
If you would have implemented the Tags I suggested long ago, this would not be an issue.
Reply
#12
"OzDrDj" I don't see any posts from you in this discussion. If you are referring to a suggestion you had in other posts, maybe try putting a link to that info next time.


As for my solution. I have found that "Emby Theater" is a great front end for Emby Server (instead of using a web-browser to view content, or KODI). It responds to keyboard input and works with any remotes.

I think Emby Server is just the way to go if you want to have flexibility to manage your media, meta-data, thumbnails, content sources, and streaming.

It also works perfectly well with KODI as a front end experience! So KODI fans can still use the skins they love.

But I have really fallen in love with the new Emby Theater. The way it shows actors profiles, suggested films, lets you manage user accounts, and create groups of films to watch under your profile is cool. And I have never found any way to easily do that in KODI with Emby Server. The KODI front end just doesn't allow that kind of interface unless someone wants to create a bunch of addons.

Emby Theater requires a premium subscription (even though Emby is all open source) but I don't mind paying. They have a lifetime plan you can buy one-time as well. It think $5 a month is well worth it though. Especially for the extras you get like streaming apps that 'just work' etc. I have had no issues browsing and streaming to phones, tablets, laptops, and Roku devices.
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