Add custom titles to scraper library?
#1
Scrapers are working well for me 99% of the time, however these are some titles I have that I would like to add as Movies, in my Movies Library view, that are not "official releases" and not findable by any scraper of any type anywhere. The current result is - they do not appear at all. (except in the Videos list).

How can I add a title with a custom name of my own choosing, with a generic (or custom) "box" icon, to my Movies Library?
Even for a title where there are multiple discs this is often a problem as there is only one scraper title - so no distinction.

Yes one can go to The Movie Database and add titles - but what if it's your own personal home movie for instance or something?
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#2
I've just done something similar with my Movies ISO's that are special features DVD's. They won't scrape, so you can manually create a NFO file in the folder containing the Movie with all the correct info. Plus you can put fanart and coverart in the same folder (suppose for a home movie you could take a jpg still of a cool bit and the use that as your own personal fanart?) Then when you update library the scraper takes the NFO info and the two artwork files instead of looking online...

Fanart is labelled: moviename-fanart.jpg
Cover is labelled: moviename.tbn
NFO is labelled: moviename.NFO

NFO file is xml and the tags are described on this page.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Imp..._nfo_Files

Just put your own description in the plot section, that's what xbmc will display when you browse the library. Plus if you put the same <set>moviesetname</set> in all your home movie nfo's then you won't have loads of random home vids sprinkled amongst your Movies, they'll be collected under their own sub-section....


Hope this helps!

Jim
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#3
Thank you! That's exactly what I think I've been missing. I'll give it a try and hopefully resolve those few annoying titles that are unscraped.
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#4
igirl Wrote:Thank you! That's exactly what I think I've been missing. I'll give it a try and hopefully resolve those few annoying titles that are unscraped.

PS I forgot to say! I'm too lazy to do it for every title (have quite a few extra's DVD's - you know Lord of the Rings (two extra dvd's per movie!), etc). So I got all my thumbs and fanart exactly how I want them, then used XBMC's export library option to export a single NFO plus fanart/covers to each movie subfolder. Then I had a template NFO and fanart for each extra's DVD, which I could copy and just edit the relevant info (rather than re-invent the wheel).

I realise this won't work for exactly the same way for home movies, but it will create templates that you can copy and edit that you know have the right tags and will be read the right way (since XBMC made them itself)..... just a thought.
Jim
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#5
Jimmer Wrote:PS I forgot to say! I'm too lazy to do it for every title (have quite a few extra's DVD's - you know Lord of the Rings (two extra dvd's per movie!), etc). So I got all my thumbs and fanart exactly how I want them, then used XBMC's export library option to export a single NFO plus fanart/covers to each movie subfolder. Then I had a template NFO and fanart for each extra's DVD, which I could copy and just edit the relevant info (rather than re-invent the wheel).

I realise this won't work for exactly the same way for home movies, but it will create templates that you can copy and edit that you know have the right tags and will be read the right way (since XBMC made them itself)..... just a thought.
Jim

A perfect example of a case where extra scrapers are needed and not found, and "templates" can be quite useful then.

"To each movie subfolder" - that I think , assumes you're using Video_TS folders? I've converted everything to H.264 for faster access. but if I read this correctly, as long as moviename is identical for NFO, TBN etc., they can all reside in one level directory together - for multiple titles amongst the titles themselves.

As far as Export goes - I gave up after trying to bulk export the library off of one HDD (worked) and import to an identical directory on another HDD (sort of worked but links from the library to start the movies were all dead.) I don't think I tried Exporting as individual titles, maybe that's the way to go anyhow. Sorry, got OT.

Thanks again - more useful info!
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#6
igirl Wrote:A perfect example of a case where extra scrapers are needed and not found, and "templates" can be quite useful then.

"To each movie subfolder" - that I think , assumes you're using Video_TS folders? I've converted everything to H.264 for faster access. but if I read this correctly, as long as moviename is identical for NFO, TBN etc., they can all reside in one level directory together - for multiple titles amongst the titles themselves.

As far as Export goes - I gave up after trying to bulk export the library off of one HDD (worked) and import to an identical directory on another HDD (sort of worked but links from the library to start the movies were all dead.) I don't think I tried Exporting as individual titles, maybe that's the way to go anyhow. Sorry, got OT.

Thanks again - more useful info!

I have mkv's, xvid's and iso's (and a few video_ts folders) all in their own folders. For example, Apocolapyse Now Redux.iso lives in it's own similarly titled sub-folder in movies, as does Terminator.avi. Anyway it makes it easier to ascribe different scrapers to a particular movie if the main scraper does not work by context clicking on the movie's own folder only.

It's also for neatness, if there are seperate subtitle files, artwork, etc, you can keep it in a folder with the movie, rather than have loads of different files chucked together in one place.....

Jim
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#7
You can save yourself some time if your movies are all in folders as you can use

movie.nfo
movie.tbn
fanart.jpg
movie-trailer.mov

Save you having to rename them all the time it also means if you do a few at once you can rename them in bulk as they all have the same name
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#8
I currently have a redundant set of movies on different drives - 2, 2TB drives with directories of all Video_TS folders at root level - Another "main" drive with one directory of the same titles - all M4V/H.264 at root level (no folders). My goal was to leave the VTS drives as backups/or critical viewing and only use the H.264 drive as the main daily use one.

Other than being messy and more time consuming for custom NFO files - from what I can gather putting these files at root level along side the title (and all the other titles on the disc), should work just fine?

moviename-fanart.jpg
moviename.tbn
moviename.NFO

Out of approx. 500 titles, only about 25-30 won't get scraped properly - so it's not like I have to do every one. Creating 500 folders with titles to match the 500 M4V files inside on the other hand is a lot more work. OR - only create folders for the M4Vs that need manual "scraping", and let the rest sit at root level. Then these should work - movie.nfo movie.tbn fanart.jpg
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#9
Oh yeah, what you want to do will totally work - I've just been really anal about organising everything in sub-folders! It'll just dump the NFO's and JPGs in the big folder and name them according to your filenames...

Jim
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