*Official* MyMovies For Dune Thread - Page 31

I'm using My Movies and the Dune. Why not post on this thread? Although it's not a My Movies issue, I am using My Movies+ Dune. I would have a better chance of reaching someone with a similar setup to mine on this thread. What other thread would I post in?

I'll check with you next time before I decide to post on this thread. Make sure I'm compliant. j/k

I never experienced this issue with Apollo 13 on any other player. Including HTPC + TMT 5. Something the Dune doesn't like about Apollo 13 for sure.

Curious, why that trick? I didn't think to try it. Does that work when it's touchy about starting a disc. Be good to know.

I've been doing ClownBD ISOs since I started ripping, but might be switching to MKV soon. For me, the whole reason to buy a Dune and start ripping was to get rid of all the menus and other junk that I found so useless on Blu-ray. I didn't like having to fight with every disc I put in just to play the movie.

Insert disc; wait on black screen; wait for "loading" animation; wait for unskippable FBI warning; wait on black screen; preview starts to play, hit Menu -- no, not allowed; hit skip -- okay; another preview, hit skip; wait for more menu crap to load; wait for menu to animate; select play movie; wait for menu to animate; wait on black screen; EXTREMELY LOUD dts demo starts, scaring the cat; hit skip; wait on black screen; movie finally begins.

Just about every disc is this bad, and each one is different in terms of the fastest way to get to the movie. Even with the fastest player available at the time (Oppo), I found it all so unnecessary, and I have no patience for the unnecessary.

Because the subject of this thread is specifically MyMovies for Dune. There are plenty of people using Dune without MyMovies, and they won't be listening here. Since your issue has nothing to do with MyMovies, you're more likely to find someone that can help on this Dune Smart mega-thread or this Dune Base/Prime 3.0 mega-thread.

I read about that trick on a forum somewhere. I think it helped with Avatar, too.

I guess it works because it interrupts the loading before it gets to the problem point.

Thanks guys

OK, so I liked the first Dune as a replacement for my MyMovies client, so I got a second one. The first one has its index located on attached (internal) storage, which MyMovies diligently writes all changes made via collection manager. ALl is well MyMovies wise on the 1st Dune MM client.

But now, how can I incorporate a second Dune into my MyMovies setup and have it's index updated as well?

My guess is this is when a common index (on the network) is required. Otherwise I'm guessing you would have to manually copy the updated index to each drive but this is just my guess. Smarter guys on this thread will know better but I don't see where you can send the update to multiple locations.

MM doesn't support this directly. Might I suggest rsync? You could write the index to your server, then rsync to each Dune. Conceivably you could also rsync from one Dune to the other.

Thanks Scott. That's what I figured I'd have to do. Thank you by the way for making the Dune rsync installer.

But you lose the automatic updates no? That is, I'll have to trigger a rsync each time anything updates the collection. If I change a category, add or delete a movies, etc.

I guess I can set something up to run a couple times a day in event manager.

What I'd prefer is to have the "main" Dune hold the "real" index and get all the automatic updates. This is the Dune in the theater. For other, less important Dunes, I'd like to sync their data from the "main" Dune.

What is the best what to do that? Can you help with the command lines? I'm pretty rusty on rsync.

Yes you would have to trigger an rsync run every time the index has changed. To sync others from the main Dune you would telnet in to the first Dune and run rsync from there to the second. This is likely to cause noticeable hiccups in movie playback on both Dunes, so I wouldn't recommend doing this on a fixed schedule unless you're sure nobody will be watching. (If you wanted to get really fancy, you could first check via IP Control that both Dunes are in standby and cancel the rsync if not.)

Let's take the details to PM, or maybe I should write up something on my wiki for this case.

Thanks Scott. With the prime directive being to have Dune #1 automatically updated my goal is to:

A. Keep Dune #1 synced automatically (so let MM do it)
B. Automate sync of Dune #2
C. Force B on demand

Goal B could be scheduled at night or early AM. At least then it would be in sync once a day. And one could use C when it's important to sync immediately.

Would be good to think of a way to decide if a sync (of Dune #2) was needed at all, before the rsync. Most days there will be no changes.

For B
I was thinking Not sure I know how to automate a Telnet script.

We can take off-line if you wish. I'd be grateful for the instructions and help.
Edited by GetGray - 9/30/12 at 6:18pm

Note the trailing slash (or lack thereof) on the paths is significant, and I'm not sure if I've got it right. This assumes your local storages each have a storage_name of Index.

And if any of the three disks involved is NTFS, add --modify-window=2 to both lines.

NTFS on the server where I'd schedule the scripts (or maybe from desktop, also NTFS). I'll have to install one of the rsync Windows ports, too.

Something I just thought of along these lines. My Dune is named "Dune" in SMB. In your example is "//dune1.lan" the SMB name or should I use an IP address? If SMB, where can you change the name of a Dune to something that is not a duplicate? I didn't remember seeing it in the settings.

Use IP address here. For the SMB server, there is a way to give each Dune a unique name. It's somewhere in the setup options.

if all your files are on a NAS or a server, and not on an internal drive of one of the dunes, then you can use the same index for both dunes. No need to use rsync, just point the second dune to the index on the first one (assuming they're both on the same network) and create a shortcut. Alternatively you can put the index on your NAS/server and create a shortcut to it on both dunes.

Again : this is working ONLY if you don't have file on a drive attached to a dune.

Mr Eric, Thanks for the option. Media files are on the MM server. Only the index is stored locally on the Dune. That's the easy button if I can handle the lag time from the index not being on-board.

Here's the next-level need. We need to be able to store the index file on multiple dunes using multiple templates. e.g. 5x11 covers for the large screen, maybe 3x5 on the smaller flat panel. MM would have to implement that to get any level of automation, but that's what's needed, IMO.

Unless someone can whip up a standalone program to generate the dune index from MM. One wouldn't think it would be that hard. If my windows programming skills were better I'd tackle it. That would cure both needs.

so if everything is on your server, the best way would be to have the index stored there also. If your network is 1Gbs, you shouldn't have any noticeable lag browsing the index.

Having 2 different templates (one for each dune) might be very problematic...I can't see any easy possibility to do it.

In theory :
Possibility N°1 : have a master index on your server, this one will be used by Dune N°1, use rsynch to synch master index to the second dune, use duneEditor to change the index in Dune 2 (you might also need to change manually the boxart icons to fit a 3x5 wall). As MM doesn't re-write the dune_folder.txt when you just update the index, those changes should stay. Problem : every time you need to do a full update the changes will be overwritten by the default template you use (in this case you will need to use duneEditor again).

Possibility N°2 : create a second template with 3x5 wall. Run only full updates twice to 2 different locations : 1 full update to dune 1 using the 5x11 template, another full update to dune 2 using the 3x5 template. problem : this is going to slow down a lot the full process.

To be investigated : use yadis with 2 installs, one for each dune, each one with it's own export path and template. very easy to set up and highly customizable (much more than MM IMO). Problem : no ipad app with yadis, purely dedicated to dune and not to collection management (physical discs) and 2 databases to maintain (not such a big deal in reality).

PS : not sure but I think that Zappiti is able to export to more than one dune...
Edited by Mr Eric - 10/1/12 at 5:43am

Mr Eric: (or anyone), is it possible to make a MyMovies Dune Template that shows the rear cover, too?

if i'm not wrong it could be possible if the team could give us the coding to use it : each part of the template is based on the mm data (so virtually you could insert anything you see in collection management) and has its own coding line. but unfortunately I already asked the team for some other parts I would like to use and never had any answer...

no code to call the correct data = no possibility to add it to the template.

Which team, MM or Dune?
Edited by GetGray - 11/8/12 at 5:10pm

MM.

"Use IP address here. For the SMB server, there is a way to give each Dune a unique name. It's somewhere in the setup options."


To change the name of each Dune (using SMB) --

Go to the Setp, and look under Applications.

Once in that area, look under SAMBA.

In there, you will be able to rename each Dune to a unique name.

Obviously, if you are using IP addresses, for this particular issue- this will not be relevent. However, it does make it easier to monitor things on other parts of the network...

Question for folks:

I'm having problems with launching TV shows (single episode files), and see the dreaded "can't open URL" message per this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1453449/still-having-problems-with-cannot-open-url-error-message

I've wrestled with this a bunch, and am stumped. Right now my best guess as to the problem is that when I view TV shows in Collection Manager, I find they've been added with a drive letter, and not the UNC path. This, in turn, seems to lead to the "red X" next to a "blank entry" path in the metadata configuration screen. My question is how I can reconfigure MM to use a UNC path for each and every one of those TV episodes, without my having to manually edit all of them. That, or a way to delete and re-add all of those episodes such that the UNC path is used.

Or, I guess, any other theories on why I'm seeing the storage_name issue! (short summary duplicated below in case it sparks a memory — searches in this thread for the term seem to focus on movies on attached drives, not on a server)

Thank you for any suggestions!

AV


I now get a similar, but slightly different, error message. Previously it was saying it couldn't open from \\SERVER\SHARE\DIRECTORY\MOVIEFILENAME.EXT.

Now, I can play BluRay ISOs and DVD TS_VIDEO folders, but I can't launch single file TV episodes. I get the error message below:

Failed to open URL

URL: storage_name:///VIDEO/TV/Game of Thrones/01x01 - Winter is Coming.ts

The big change is the "storage_name". Any ideas how to resolve that?

ok, let's go on here as this is the official topic

1. normally to change a path, you just need to pick one file and change the path for this one, then MM will ask you if you want to change it for every files with the same path, so you don't need to go through all of them one by one and change it manually.
2. if you've got "storage_name" while your files are in your NAS, then the path are not correctly set up. Go to the dune configuration in MM, select your path (after you changed it to UNC of course. See #1 for that), it should be marked with the red cross, clikc "configure path" just under, select SMB or NFS for files in your NAS and fill in the fields for username and password. Once done the mark should be green. Run a full export.
3. remember that SMB can cause the double smb access bug if your files and index are on the same share. Solution : use a nfs shorcut on the dune for the index and smb for path files in MM, or simply export the index to a local drive attached to the dune and use whatever you want for you files.

Myself and some others were experiencing some issues with our Dune indexes missing updates made on the server (WHS). I also needed to setup a second Dune. Originally I had a PC with CM running set to put the index on the Dune. Worked for me 99% of the time. For a friend here much less. Binnerup doesn't support writing the Dune index to a SMB share from WHS, but for some inexplicable reason, it's an option in CM. Anyway, even if he did, it will only do one location, not multiple if you have or want more than one Dune.

Anyway it was a problem. And updating 2 was a problem. I looked at running rsync as discussed previously in this thread, but it was a little complicated to setup, and so I kept procrastinating setting it up and trying. I had been using the Windows Allway Sync'n Go software for unrelated reasons for years. Decided to give it a try.

I setup Allway Sync on my WHS. Pointed the WHS Dune index builds to a local drive on the server. Pointed CM on the desktop to the same folder on the server. In Allway Sync. created a sync job to do a one way sync including propagating deletions from server to Dune1. Set it up in Windows scheduler on the server to run every hour.

This is working flawlessly. If I delete a file on the dune, the WHS puts it back. If I edit a movie on the Server via CM, right on schedule ONLY the affected files are updated on the Dune, either added, deleted, or changed. Takes seconds. Now my indexes are on the Dune with an installed 2.5" hard drive, soon to be changed to a SSD, where IMO they should be. Snappy performance on the Dune. MM is happy because it's writing the index out to one place. I get automatic hourly updates, and can easily manually kick of an update with a few clicks. Allway Sync software is reasonably intuitive to setup, easy to use. And cheap enough for the pro version (~20 USD) . http://allwaysync.com/

Add as many sync jobs as you like, one for every Dune you want auto-updated. Maintenance free, nothing to babysit, just set it up and forget it. Accidentally power off a Dune, or prefer to have it completely off?, no problem. It will get the next full update when you turn it back on.

Need any help setting it up, ask. I think this is an excellent setup, highly recommend.
Edited by GetGray - 1/25/13 at 6:29am

Thank you for the response! I vaguely remember a message about changing all file paths, but wasn't clear on what it meant and so avoided it. I will try again and report back.

As to the SMB bug, at this point I do not think that's an issue as I am storing the MM index on a local drive attached to the Dune (and nothing else). I went this route as I understand it will help accelerate navigation on the Dune (versus storing the MM index in the SMB movie share — ie, \\movies\dune).

More soon, with thanks!

AV

Need any help setting it up, ask. I think this is an excellent setup, highly recommend.

I also have 2 dune players and use WHS. I use Collection Management to export the database to one of Dune's hard drives. I've been copying over the whole database to the second dune player about once a week. It works, but it takes quite a while. Can I use the software mentioned, and point it to the database on the Dune and have it synced onto the second dune? Or does the database have to be located on a PC?

This sounds great. Have you had any hiccups when it runs while you're watching a movie on the Dune?

I know if I run rsync, it causes a brief hiccup in the video and audio, even if there's nothing to transfer. If there's a lot of files that need to transfer, the video will freeze for the entire time.

I'm not sure about Allway Sync in that use model, but you could telnet to one Dune and run rsync to the other. That would result in the fastest sync. It would require a small amount of Linux command-line. If you want to go this route I can provide more detail.