v17 Problems with Movie Sets and .nfo
#1
So I have a bunch of workout videos (P90X, X2, X3 series and others) that I want grouped into a set so that I don't have 30+ videos in a row to scroll through. Was going through and manual putting them into sets within Kodi but that was taking a long time.

Decided to try and change it via the .nfo as that would likely be quicker, but despite creating the proper lines as describe in the wiki the movie sets aren't being created.

So I went to some that I had put into movie sets manually inside Kodi to verify the proper .nfo information and in those there is no syntax like described in the Wiki and no text that matches the created movie set.

Can anyone help me with what I may be doing wrong? Can I put these videos into Movie Sets outside of Kodi that Kodi will recognize?

(I've also tried doing this using Ember Media Manager, but because there isn't a "collection" for them on TMDB (not allowed for training videos) it doesn't create any .nfo's)
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#2
Can you post your two nfo files so we can have a look
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#3
If your nfo files are on removable storage then they cannot be read in current version.
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#4
This one is in a set, created within Kodi but it's missing all the syntax you would expect to find:
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<movie xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <tmdb>499094</tmdb>
  <title>Hip Hop Abs - Ab Sculpt &amp; Total Body Burn</title>
  <originaltitle>Hip Hop Abs - Ab Sculpt &amp; Total Body Burn</originaltitle>
  <language>en-US</language>
  <releasedate>2007-01-01</releasedate>
  <rating>0</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
  <certification>USA:NR</certification>
  <tagline>Get flat, sexy abs without ever doing a single crunch or sit-up with Hip Hop Abs</tagline>
  <plot>Shaun shares more signature ab moves to get you the six-pack you've always wanted without a single sit-up or crunch.  A head-to-toe workout that combines cardio and total body sculpting with even more ab-defining moves. Have fun while you burn fat, revealing a leaner, tighter body.</plot>
  <runtime>70</runtime>
  <dateadded>2016-03-21 23:24:43</dateadded>
  <datemodified>2018-01-16 23:52:14</datemodified>
</movie>

This one has the syntax in the .nfo, but is not in a set in Kodi. Nor is there a Movie Set available to place it in with this name:
xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<movie xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <tmdb>353835</tmdb>
  <title>P90X: Ab Ripper X</title>
  <originaltitle>P90X: Ab Ripper X</originaltitle>
  <language>en-US</language>
  <year>2004</year>
  <releasedate>2004-04-10</releasedate>
  <rating>0</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
  <plot>Sculpt the six-pack abs of your dreams and benefit your health and physical performance.</plot>
  <runtime>17</runtime>
  <dateadded>2016-03-21 13:18:07</dateadded>
  <datemodified>2018-01-27 16:21:06</datemodified>
  <actor>
    <name>Tony Horton</name>
    <role>Himself</role>
    <thumb>http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/wlIhyrewTvlB4PCx7OmbebOhcWr.jpg</thumb>
  </actor>
  <set>
    <name>P90X Collection</name>
  </set>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <audio>
        <bitrate>109</bitrate>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <codec>MP3</codec>
      </audio>
      <video>
        <aspect>1.320</aspect>
        <bitrate>1313</bitrate>
        <codec>XVID</codec>
        <durationinseconds>1021</durationinseconds>
        <height>400</height>
        <scantype>Progressive</scantype>
        <width>528</width>
        <filesize>183314432</filesize>
      </video>
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
</movie>

My thought was, by editing the .nfo to add movie sets I could get around having to do it within Kodi.
Quote:If your nfo files are on removable storage then they cannot be read in current version.
Nope, they're on an internal drive.
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#5
Ok a few comments/questions...

  1. I have tested both your nfo files and they both worked and the second one created a Movie Set
  2. Are you sure the first one came from Kodi?
  3. Movie Sets with only one movie will not display as a Movie Set in the library unless you specifically enable it. A Movie Set with a single movie will not display in the Movie Set node
  4. Please read the Movie Set wiki page which will show alternate ways of creating Sets... http://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_sets
  5. You can also create Movie Sets using Chorus2
  6. Once you modified the NFO File, did you actually refresh the movie? see image...
Image
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#6
(2018-01-27, 23:40)thebundok Wrote: Nope, they're on an internal drive.

Do you use regular Kodi version for windows?
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#7
Sorry for the late reply... life...

I'm not sure which Kodi the "regular" version means, but I use the one downloaded from the Windows Store (UWP?). Are they functionally different?
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#8
Functional is same but UWP has some restrictions to accessing file system. Kodi can access only limited file types on removable and internal drives
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#9
I do wonder if I am the only one who considers Movies Sets to be one of the most poorly thought out and badly explained parts of Kodi.  The official wiki might as well be written in Greek (apologies to all Greek users of Kodi - but I hope you understand what I mean).  Maybe things will improve in Kodi 18.

I have scraped my entire library using Ember and manually edited all the movie sets in Ember so I have the correct movie posters, information, fanart etc.  Why I bothered I do not know as Kodi completely ignored the Ember movie set info and any information in the Ember thread on how to get it recognised would probably be easier to understand if it was written in Greek.

Is it really too much to ask that all movie set information should be held in a single NFO file (perhaps called something stunningly original such as "MovieSets.nfo").  I checked the individual nfo files for several movies which correctly include a line for the set - for example <set> Blade Runner Collection </set> but that was all.  If you manually edit in Kodi the set it will then include a line in the movie nfo for the set overview (which it gets wrong as often as it gets right - that is more of a TMDB issue and easy to manually fix) and the correct tmdb number (which is not much use if you have set up a personalised set, as I have for Studio Ghibli movies I own)

As I think the tone of this post indicates I am a very frustrated user of Kodi sets; there is clearly a lot of potential in sets but held back by inadequate design and worse implementation

I run Kodi on multiple machines at home.  I am currently running a portable version of Kodi.  All my movies and movie artwork is held on a NAS. I just want each machine to have access to same the information
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#10
So let me see if I understand this right...

You used a third party app to scrape artwork, metadata including movie sets, which then created nfo files for you. You then find it does not work, so you decide to come here and bitch about it? Is that right?

Why don't you head over to the Ember forum, where it can be explained to you what you did wrong.
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#11
(2018-01-27, 20:48)thebundok Wrote: So I went to some that I had put into movie sets manually inside Kodi to verify the proper .nfo information and in those there is no syntax like described in the Wiki and no text that matches the created movie set.
This NFO isn't created by Kodi. Kodi has no <tmdb> node. That NFO is created by Ember or similar.

(2018-01-27, 20:48)thebundok Wrote: I've also tried doing this using Ember Media Manager, but because there isn't a "collection" for them on TMDB (not allowed for training videos) it doesn't create any .nfo's
You can create custom sets in Ember. Simple use the right mouse button in the set tab/list and select "Create new set".

(2018-01-27, 23:40)thebundok Wrote: This one is in a set, created within Kodi but it's missing all the syntax you would expect to find:
This NFO isn't created by Kodi. Kodi has no <tmdb> node. That NFO is created by Ember or similar.
If you create create a set in Kodi, Kodi does not write or change any NFO. That only happens if you export your library to single files.

(2018-01-27, 23:40)thebundok Wrote: This one has the syntax in the .nfo, but is not in a set in Kodi. Nor is there a Movie Set available to place it in with this name:
- do you've reloaded this movie the let Kodi re-read the NFO?
- do you've enabled that movies will be grouped in sets (I think yes)
- do you've enabled that sets with only one movie inside will be showed as set?

(2018-03-20, 02:46)justin150 Wrote: Why I bothered I do not know as Kodi completely ignored the Ember movie set info and any information in the Ember thread on how to get it recognised would probably be easier to understand if it was written in Greek.
Come on... I mean english is not my native language, but it's so good that 99% of all users here can understand me. And the tutorials has images: Tutorial
But there also Greek Ember users, maybe one of them can help you ;-)

(2018-03-20, 02:46)justin150 Wrote: Is it really too much to ask that all movie set information should be held in a single NFO file (perhaps called something stunningly original such as "MovieSets.nfo").
If you had any idea about databases and what was needed to index the files, you would know that this would work even worse.

(2018-03-20, 02:46)justin150 Wrote: I checked the individual nfo files for several movies which correctly include a line for the set - for example <set> Blade Runner Collection </set> but that was all.
<set>bla</set> was the old node style, <set><name></name><overview></overview></set> is the new one. Kodi 16 and higher can read both, Ember adds also the TMDB set ID to this one.
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#12
Thank you @DanCooper
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#13
I don't know how I missed this, but I somehow never realized that despite having all your movies in sets (which in Kodi I could see my movie sets) it still wouldn't display them in sets until you tell Kodi to do so in Settings/Video/Show Movies as Sets. You can even include single movies that belong to a set to be shown as sets (a setting just underneath it).

That's all I was missing and it works just like I've been wanting it to now.
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#14
It is so nice to see that the great gods of Kodi programming are happy to patronise us mere users.

I am currently developing builds for 2 htpcs at home and the wife's new laptop and I will repeat my previous post, Movie sets in Kodi 17.6 are a shambles.  And for Team Kodi to complain that it is because I used a third party add on that their own forum recommends (and is actually very good, not Ember's fault that sets is shambles), is simple not good enough. 

I thought I would be sensible.  I use Kodi 17.6 and from one of my builds I manually edited every single set (all 25) so that it had the right art work, right overview etc. I should mention that all my movies are stored on a NAS and I have a folder which has all the movie artwork in one place

Why I bothered I do not know.  I went into another build (on same computer, yes I am using a portable version of Kodi as part of development work) and it simply did not pick up the changes in the artwork - obviously each build stores that information locally not in the actual movie folders.  I thought the sensible thing was to clean the database and see if that made a difference - no it did not.  All that happens is that the second build decides that the correct Movie set artwork should be the artwork for first film (in alphabetic order not even release order).  So every build I have to reset the whole thing manually. All the nfo for each film in the set needs is a line to ensure it picks up the right artwork something really difficult like <movieset-poster> file location </movieset-poster> (ideally similar for fanart etc for the set).  I could even accept, because storage space is not an issue, each nfo file for each movie in a set having to have a separate line in the nfo file for the correct set poster and/or fanart.  I haven't yet tried it but I do wonder whether it might be possible to simply copy the movie database file from the userdata/databases in the build with the correct set info across into the other build, I might try that and see if it makes any difference

Having gone back to Dan Cooper's tutorial there are references to MSAA which is not part of the official Kodi repo and the only version I could find was for Frodo not Krypton (it might work but loathed to try it).  I also have a feeling, based on the tutorial, that this might be yet another example of where the system fails to understand folder names which have spaces in them.  There is also a reference in the tutorial to having to link Ember and the Kodi build which I have never done and that assumes you already know what the right settings in Kodi are to make it work, I do not.

As for person who suggested that having a separate database would work worse - maybe you are right, I have only been programming for 35 years but never in python or XML and have never previously had any difficulties in linking databases in other languages, I guess it must be a particularity of python and/or XML.  Or alternatively (as I would appear from another thread on the forum that MSAA did have the ability to have all movie set artwork in one folder) that it is a duff explanation.

I guess I will just have to wait until Kodi 18 RC and see if it has improved, so far completely disappointed
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