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I'm about to start relying heavily on media scrappers for my entire collection soon (which will include both movies, music and games/ROMS), but first I want to ensure I have a complete grasp of the "best practices" for this sort of thing. I've done several tests on my own, but I just want to clarify my structure.
For instance, I'd like to have a backup of my collection in a zip file so I don't have to rely on scrappers in the future for media I've already curated (via things like TheGamesDB, etc). So here is what I want to know. If I had a folder containing all my NFO files for data, another for all my cover art, another for all my fan art, then dropped those into the a folder from say a .Zip file I backed them up with, shouldn't I be able to just tell Kodi where those directory paths are and not have to use scrappers for things? IE: Wouldn't my media always just load locally as long as I have those backed up?
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DaVu
Team-Kodi Member
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While using Kodis "export library" function, you have 2 choices
- export to separated files
- export to a single file
The first one stores (by choice), the NFO file next to the movie file in a specific folder (if you have your movies separated in folders), the artwork (fanart, cover) and the actor thumbs also in a seperated folder under the movie folder
The 2nd stores all movie informations (similar to NFO files) in a single xml-file.
So, if you want to store all movie infos (including fanart and such), I would recommend the first option. Depending on where your data is stored (NAS, USB-HDDs, internal HDDs) those informations/files are as save as your media.
AFAICT you can't separate those in a zip file and point kodi to it. Instead just keep the files next to the media files. If you setup a source, Kodi will check for existing (local) media information first before trying to scrape online.
Backups are a complete different thing and from my POV it should be done completely. What I mean is, what kind of sense does it make to backup the NFO files and artwork but don't do backups for the media files themselves. If you backup those media files, too...then just use the first export function and backup the media information at the same time. Then it would be done completely at one task.
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Thanks a lot for the helpful info above. If I may, just a few follow up questions. I'm starting with my games library, so much of this would relate to that to start. It seems that NFO files are always created right in the root folder next to the content (unlike things like thumbnails which seem to be segregated out into their own folders). Is that always the case? Also, why do some media scrappers seem to work a lot better than others, even though the are all pointing to the same online scrapper? For instance, Rom Collection Browser seems pretty terrible at pulling down all the meta data and images for my collection (not to mention not reading the local info correctly most the times when populating a new collection), while Advanced Launcher does it perfectly almost every time.
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RCB and AL aren't just scrapers for a games library. They are both completely separate games addons, developed by different people, and that's why they function differently. Games library does not exist yet. No ETA either, but it will be here eventually.
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nickr
Retired Team-Kodi Member
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Pedant hat on.
Correct: scrape, scraper, scraped.
Not correct: scrap, scrapper, scrapped.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
