[Gamester17]

Ideas wich could possible make a such scan less intrusive (less noticable for the user):
- it could be made optional.
- the process could be threaded to run in the background in its own seperate thread (on idle).
- it could be made to run only a second loop scan on existing library items like plooger suggests.
- it could feature all of the above.

Also note that a such scan for high-resolution video files would not be implemnted in XBMC for Xbox but only the other XBMC platforms (XBMC for Linux/Mac/Windows) where the hardware and underlying operating-system have more resources to offer XBMC.

[plooger]

Also note that a such scan for high-resolution video files would not be implemnted in XBMC for Xbox but only the other XBMC platforms (XBMC for Linux/Mac/Windows) where the hardware and underlying operating-system have more resources to offer XBMC.

This would seem reasonable, though I'd think the "only on idle" feature would provide a suitable workaround for XBMC/Xbox users wanting the scanning to be handled by a single device (the Xbox).

However, I would hope that the Xbox variant would still implement the feature at the display and/or NFO level (perhaps similar to this "supplemental nfo" request), if, in the end, XBMC/Xbox lacks the ability to do the deep media scan, itself.

Further, with the ability to pull this supplemental info from a NFO file paired with the media file, the media info scanning could also be handled by external library utilities (XBMC Media Companion, DVDProfiler, MeD Movie Manager?) or homemade scripts.

[Clumsy]

I would also want the xbox to be able to handle the scanning. That way, I could keep 2 versions of a movie in the same folder, highdef and lowdef - and filter out the highdef one in the library

[aaronb]

I would also want the xbox to be able to handle the scanning. That way, I could keep 2 versions of a movie in the same folder, highdef and lowdef - and filter out the highdef one in the library

I agree. My whole reason for wanting something like this is because I'm not planning on retiring all of my Xboxes, and the WAF takes a hit when she tries to play something in the bedroom and the Xbox locks up because it's a 720p x264 file.

[plooger]

I would also want the xbox to be able to handle the scanning. That way, I could keep 2 versions of a movie in the same folder, highdef and lowdef - and filter out the highdef one in the library

This wouldn't require that the *Xbox* do the scanning, only that XBMC has a way to read-in the detailed media information (like through the NFO files), having been produced by another process, and then act upon the information.

As a short-term solution, adding new db fields and nfo tags would allow the "market" to start developing scripts for populating the info, while the developers could (should they care to) work on making the necessary changes to act on the information. XBMC/Xbox deep-scanning could be added later, relying on manual editing or third-party apps in the short-term.

[plooger]

p.s. This seems to possibly overlap with the "adult content" flag being discussed over here. (i.e. hide/show entries based on content type or attributes)

[Gamester17]

As a short term solution/workaround to the issue of detecting high-definition videos maybe scraper support to scan the file-name for "720p", "1080i", and "1080p" could be added to the IMDb and TVDB scrapers, so if the scraper detects that somewhere in the file-name then it assumes the video is of that resolution and enters that information into the database.

Good enough as a workaround?

[SandmanCL]

@Gamester17: I think your solution was suggested previously in this thread. Personally I would prefer that information about resolution audio could be stored read from an .nfo associated with each file.

[CapnBry]

If you were going to open and read a file, why would you choose to open an .nfo file as opposed to opening and reading the actual file like, oh I dunno, the thumbnail generator does:

Code:

16:26:02 T:4068 M:904224768    INFO: ffmpeg: Input #0, matroska, from 'C:\Documents and Settings\bmayland\My Documents\DVDs\Hot Rod.mkv':
16:26:02 T:4068 M:904224768    INFO: ffmpeg:   Duration: 01:27:57.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
16:26:02 T:4068 M:904224768    INFO: ffmpeg:     Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264,yuv420p, 720x366 [PAR 186:157 DAR 22320:9577], 23.98 tb(r)
16:26:02 T:4068 M:904224768    INFO: ffmpeg:     Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: 0x0000, 48000 Hz, stereo

I'll look into it tonight and see what I can come up with maybe.

[SandmanCL]

CapnBry -- while getting the information from the file itself is possible (although the thumbnail generator doesn't work on the xbox), I think it would be a huge overhead and scanning a music library would take forever. Basing it on the filename or an .nfo would mean that people that aren't interested in this feature wouldn't be affected.

[Gamester17]

the thumbnail generator doesn't work on the xbox

it is not that it doesn't work, it is just that no one has even tried porting it from the linuxport branch to the xbox (trunk) version of XBMC, and like suggested for the thumbnail generator feature; if it is added to the Xbox then it should be disables by default as those users who want it could enable it from the GUI under settings (that way it would not affect people that aren't interested in this feature). Again, it could also be added so it does not do this scan on the the first scraper run when it gathers metadata information online via the IMDb and TheTVDB scraper, but instead it could be made to run a seperate scan after when it is not scraping metadata informartion, ...same goes for the thumbnail generator.

Otherwise I think that scraping the "720p"/"1080i"/"1080p" from the file-name is better than from NFO files, as to be honest, how many people want to sit and create NFO files for all their videos just to add this tag, it would be better if XBMC could handle this automaticly somehow with the user having to create NFO files.

[SandmanCL]

Otherwise I think that scraping the "720p"/"1080i"/"1080p" from the file-name is better than from NFO files, as to be honest, how many people want to sit and create NFO files for all their videos just to add this tag, it would be better if XBMC could handle this automaticly somehow with the user having to create NFO files.

Fair enough. I can live with both. I tend to rename my files to a 'human friendly' format but I suppose scene releases already have the resolution in the filename so your suggestion makes sense.

That said -- Tell me what the NFO should look like and I'll provide a shell (*nix) script to automatically create an NFO per high-res file. I'm sure someone would provide a windows equivalent as well

[midgetspy]

Well it's been a while but I just wanted to pop in and say that I still want this feature more than any other, I hope some day a decision can be made and a dev will put it in :0) Thanks guys!

[harryzimm]

Just adding my vote, hopefully we'll see it in the near future.

[CapnBry]

I've spent some free time over the last week screwing around with this concept. Here's what I've got so far.

Here's what I probe:
Video: stream number, language, codec, format, width, height, display aspect, frame rate
Audio: stream number, language, codec, sample rate, channels

Video's "format" probably isn't useful, it is just the internal format of the video data, e.g. yuv420p. Other than that, this information is remarkably similar to the information already held in memory in the CDVDStreamInfo classes for CDVDPlayer material. What I was thinking for this first stab is to add something like this to IPlayer:
int GetFileStreamCount();
bool GetFileStreamInfo(int iStream, CDVDStreamInfo& pStreamInfo);

I don't know if there's any advantage to creating a new CStreamInfo class that doesn't come from the dvdplayer core. Then way up in application before we do an IPlayer::CloseFile() just see if there is stream info and if there is, copy it to the CFileInfo for the currently playing item. Finally have that object commit the information to the database.

The first question would be, should the StreamInfo be split into multiple tables? At first I thought this would be a good idea but I'm wondering if it would just be easier to pull all from one.

CFileInfo will also need to load this information from the database, just like it does for CVideoInfoTag. Now here comes the big question, how is it exposed to the skins? The issue is that there can be multiple audio and video streams which means the information should probably be flattened for use in list items. How the heck would that work? I mean should there be IsVideoSD IsVideo720 IsVideo1080 to determine if it is HD? The next problem is the audio track info. Being able to display a "Dolby Digital 5.1" logo or something would be nice but that would mean having a list item tag for each type of audio which could get out of hand.

So long story short, that's how it could work as a first attempt. The next step after that would probably be adding it when a thumb is extracted and then on video library scan (correct me if I'm wrong but this doesn't open the file at all currently). What else am I missing here?