AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support - Page 90

post #2671 of 2975
12/6/12 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Guinness77 View Post

I am trying to figure out the best way to store my movies.
I store my music like this :
music/artist/album/
in the folder I store the music files and the cover.jpg
What is the standard way to store movies? I am going to start organizing, and just want to make sure i do this correctly before I start XBMC. Is there a certain way to name the cover files?
I have another question:
Is there a way to have XBMC store the cover art for the movies and music locally on my HTPC SSD instead of relying on the server?
Thanks

It's changing in Frodo, though the old way is still supported, since you are starting out follow Frodo style. Root folder, then single movie folder with movie name and optional (year). In the individual movie title folder, extrafanart and .actors folders. There are filenaming conventions, if you want you can include media info in the filename (see xmbc wiki). The new artwork standard names are variations of moviefilename-poster.jpg, moviefilename-banner.jpg, etc.

The per-xbmc client artwork/thumbnail cache setup is changing. Note that XBMC currently has a local store for the cache (in your userdata). Frodo has option for centralized cache storage that can be shared. I think in most cases if you use a movie "scrapper" what you get is a URL pointing to the artwork, not a download copy (there is an addon artwork downloader for that). XBMC will download from the URL to your cache. I guess if you then use library->export you can get XBMC to copy out the cached artwork to your media file folders. Now that Frodo is at beta 2 I am just starting to seriously play with the features (still using default Confluence skin in it).

I've found it helpful to use an offline media manager (media companion on windows, other options are ember media manager or media center master). I would suggest getting your movies set first, before working on TV shows. Also there are some considerations about "stacked" movie files, and movie "sets", capabilities I don't use so you might want to read up on those before starting to set things up.

scott s.
.
Reply
Reply
post #2672 of 2975
12/6/12 at 11:12pm
Quick question, how can I get to the menu of an entire blu ray that's copied to the disk using xbmc? Like in a standalone player you get to choose bonus material or a certain thumbnailed chapter/scene?
Reply
Reply
post #2673 of 2975
12/7/12 at 12:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by holyindian View Post

Quick question, how can I get to the menu of an entire blu ray that's copied to the disk using xbmc? Like in a standalone player you get to choose bonus material or a certain thumbnailed chapter/scene?

You can't natively with xbmc - you would have to set-up playback using an external player eg TMT or PowerDVD.
Reply
Reply
post #2674 of 2975
12/7/12 at 6:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by scott967 View Post

It's changing in Frodo, though the old way is still supported, since you are starting out follow Frodo style. Root folder, then single movie folder with movie name and optional (year). In the individual movie title folder, extrafanart and .actors folders. There are filenaming conventions, if you want you can include media info in the filename (see xmbc wiki). The new artwork standard names are variations of moviefilename-poster.jpg, moviefilename-banner.jpg, etc.
The per-xbmc client artwork/thumbnail cache setup is changing. Note that XBMC currently has a local store for the cache (in your userdata). Frodo has option for centralized cache storage that can be shared. I think in most cases if you use a movie "scrapper" what you get is a URL pointing to the artwork, not a download copy (there is an addon artwork downloader for that). XBMC will download from the URL to your cache. I guess if you then use library->export you can get XBMC to copy out the cached artwork to your media file folders. Now that Frodo is at beta 2 I am just starting to seriously play with the features (still using default Confluence skin in it).
I've found it helpful to use an offline media manager (media companion on windows, other options are ember media manager or media center master). I would suggest getting your movies set first, before working on TV shows. Also there are some considerations about "stacked" movie files, and movie "sets", capabilities I don't use so you might want to read up on those before starting to set things up.
scott s.
.

Thank you very much. I have been looking at the wiki, but the naming system seems to refer to Eden. I also cannot find anything on artwork.
I must be looking in the wrong location.
Do you have a link that shows the Frodo naming and artwork?
This will be alot of work, but it should be worth it in the end.
Reply
Reply
post #2675 of 2975
12/7/12 at 7:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rstarr View Post

Running Eden on Win7. I use MCM for my metadata. When I add new movie sets or collections, XBMC no longer lists them as sets in my movies library. It just lists each movie individually as if they are not part of a set.
This only happens when a new set is added to the library. Existing sets are still displayed as sets. And it is not a metadata problem. If I remove an existing set from my library and then add it back, it is no longer recognized as a set, even though no metadata has changed.
Any thoughts? Thanks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

I have no thoughts other than to confirm that it isn't working for me either
Since I'm new to XBMC, I didn't realize that it had ever worked smile.gif None of my trilogies or anthologies show up as collections. Only mildly annoying, but I'd be interested in a fix as well

I had the biggest pain with movie sets for a long time, but a couple of months ago I installed the Movie Sets addon from the passion.xbmc.org repo. You can get it from the link or from the repo in Get Add Ons.

The only problem I have found with it is that downloading fanart from it doesn't work very well, but if you are using an external metadata/fanart/poster organizer you can simply browse to the folder of one of the movies in the set and grab the image there. Also, apparently, it doesnt like saving artwork to network drives so I suggest creating an EXTRAARTWORK (or similar) folder in your main movies directory to attempt to save set artwork to...if you plan on saving artwork from Movie Sets at all. Movie Sets will find artwork-a-plenty, but downloading it is hit or miss. Just a heads up.

It's fairly easy to use. If you already have group movies into sets initialized in the settings then you will no doubt already have at least one set. When you go into Movie Sets addon, you can select any set, right click it (or simply hit enter on a set) and select to add another set or remove a set. Or control artwork for the set. Hope this helps.
Reply
Reply
post #2676 of 2975
12/7/12 at 10:11am
Does XBMC has a tutorial on setting up Frodo?

Such as how to setup HD Audio pass through via HDMI?

Adding movie libraries and creating playlists, etc?
Reply
Reply
post #2677 of 2975
12/7/12 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Guinness77 View Post

Thank you very much. I have been looking at the wiki, but the naming system seems to refer to Eden. I also cannot find anything on artwork.
I must be looking in the wrong location.
Do you have a link that shows the Frodo naming and artwork?
This will be alot of work, but it should be worth it in the end.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1294647/xbmc-media-center-setup-guide-knowlege-base-support/0_50#post_19574625
Post 4 of this thread, don't worry for now. I actually started with Frodo Beta, and I've never used any XBMC release prior but the naming convention worked.

Also, as most others here recommend, I use Media Center Master.

It's been over a year now since I converted all of my largely unsorted movie collection into the proper structure and added metadata, but if I were to start now with a bunch of hit or miss titles all dumped into one folder sorted by title names I would do it this way
  • Create a new Movie folder on the same drive (for faster copy) as your current collection
  • Download/install media center master and set it according to this guide, but only point it at the new (empty) movie folder
  • Set MCM to autoscan every minute
  • Until your library is cleaned up use "Rename Folders During Fetch" and "Rename Files Too" in MCM settings
  • Follow the download link from this article and install a Files2Folder shell extension LINK
  • Do a minimial cleanup of your filenames (they don't have to be perfect but remove trailing junk)
  • After each filename conversion, right click and choose files2folder
  • Copy the completed folder to MCM's scan directory (The new, empty movie folder)
  • Provide the IMDB title for any conflicts

I skipped the part of copying them one by one when I did it, and MCM had a field day with some of my movies and TV shows. It's hard to determine what's going on after a large scan and rename, but the whole process shouldn't take very long since MCM and the shell extension do a majority of the grunt work
Reply
Reply
post #2678 of 2975
12/7/12 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by smokarz View Post

Does XBMC has a tutorial on setting up Frodo?
Such as how to setup HD Audio pass through via HDMI?
Adding movie libraries and creating playlists, etc?

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=146911
Reply
Reply
post #2679 of 2975
12/7/12 at 1:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Guinness77 View Post

Thank you very much. I have been looking at the wiki, but the naming system seems to refer to Eden. I also cannot find anything on artwork.
I must be looking in the wrong location.
Do you have a link that shows the Frodo naming and artwork?
This will be alot of work, but it should be worth it in the end.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC%20v12%20%28Frodo%29%20FAQ

item 1.15

Note a lot of stuff about "artwork" isn't well documented in particular how a given skin uses artwork.

scott s.
.
Reply
Reply
post #2680 of 2975
12/8/12 at 4:45am
I have MKV file with many embedded subtitles in it. It's weird that subtitle selection is inside the Audio option instead of the Subtitle option. Why is that so?
Reply
Reply
post #2681 of 2975
12/8/12 at 8:17am
you said it yourself, because the subs are embedded. external subs would be manipulated by the subtitles options, allowing you to change font/color/style. those embedded subs are hard coded into the media file and not subject to the same manipulation. being embedded, they may be under audio options because they are considered alternate audio options? this is my understanding of it anyway.
Reply
Reply
post #2682 of 2975
12/8/12 at 8:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1294647/xbmc-media-center-setup-guide-knowlege-base-support/0_50#post_19574625
Post 4 of this thread, don't worry for now. I actually started with Frodo Beta, and I've never used any XBMC release prior but the naming convention worked.
Also, as most others here recommend, I use Media Center Master.
It's been over a year now since I converted all of my largely unsorted movie collection into the proper structure and added metadata, but if I were to start now with a bunch of hit or miss titles all dumped into one folder sorted by title names I would do it this way
  • Create a new Movie folder on the same drive (for faster copy) as your current collection
  • Download/install media center master and set it according to this guide, but only point it at the new (empty) movie folder
  • Set MCM to autoscan every minute
  • Until your library is cleaned up use "Rename Folders During Fetch" and "Rename Files Too" in MCM settings
  • Follow the download link from this article and install a Files2Folder shell extension LINK
  • Do a minimial cleanup of your filenames (they don't have to be perfect but remove trailing junk)
  • After each filename conversion, right click and choose files2folder
  • Copy the completed folder to MCM's scan directory (The new, empty movie folder)
  • Provide the IMDB title for any conflicts
I skipped the part of copying them one by one when I did it, and MCM had a field day with some of my movies and TV shows. It's hard to determine what's going on after a large scan and rename, but the whole process shouldn't take very long since MCM and the shell extension do a majority of the grunt work

Quote:
Originally Posted by scott967 View Post

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC%20v12%20%28Frodo%29%20FAQ
item 1.15
Note a lot of stuff about "artwork" isn't well documented in particular how a given skin uses artwork.
scott s.
.

Thank you. I will have to get started on this soon and try MCM. Hopefully it all goes well.


I have most of my files mirrored with backup drives. What is the easiest way to duplicate all these changes without copying TB's of data again?

Thanks
Reply
Reply
post #2683 of 2975
12/8/12 at 8:46am
Regarding the Media Center Master, is there a way to prevent it from creating a folder by itself and re-arrange my files into it?

This is my first time using XBMC and MCM. I already grabbed all the metadata in MCM. But in XBMC, the data is not showing. Any reason why? I'm using the default Confluence skin.


The default IMDB scraper add on in the XMBC cannot be used. I don't wanna use TMDB. Where can I get the new IMDB add on?
Edited by Skylinestar - 12/8/12 at 9:47am
Reply
Reply
post #2684 of 2975
12/8/12 at 12:33pm
Hi guys,

Just installed Frodo and trying to set up main menu icons for my separate movie folders. Is this possible with Frodo?

Here's my movie library structure:

D:\Action
D:\Comedy
D:\Family

Within each of those folder, there are subfolders for each movie.

D:\Action\Spiderman (2011)
D:\Action\Thor (2011)

What I like to do is create Main Menu icons for each of the above main folders:

So in the main menu, I would have icons/buttons for 'Action', 'Comedy', and 'Family' that would take me directly to the movies in those folders.

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks
Reply
Reply
post #2685 of 2975
12/8/12 at 1:56pm
So I updated to Frodo Beta 2.

I get a script error a lot, randomitems.py.

Also a few movies lost their cover art.


Anyone know what to do about this?

Thanks,
Ser
Reply
Reply
post #2686 of 2975
12/8/12 at 2:10pm
If your going that far - how about installing Beta 3 (released today) smile.gif
Reply
Reply
post #2687 of 2975
12/8/12 at 2:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by steelman1991 View Post

If your going that far - how about installing Beta 3 (released today) smile.gif


ahhh man...i just installed Aeon MQ4 and went through config.

what's news?
Reply
Reply
post #2688 of 2975
12/8/12 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by steelman1991 View Post

If your going that far - how about installing Beta 3 (released today) smile.gif

wow that was ridiculously fast.
Reply
Reply
post #2689 of 2975
12/8/12 at 6:07pm
does anyone have frodo set up with a ceton or homerun- whats the best way to configure it with frontend/backend and you need a seperate epg too right? I know theres a wiki at xbmc.org, just looking for some personal experiences.
Reply
Reply
post #2690 of 2975
12/8/12 at 6:18pm
A few posts back I am asking pretty much the same thing. I have my hdhomerun setup with mediaportal frontend and backend but cannot get the guide to show channel information. So i need a separate EPG program or addon? I was thinking frodo had that natively.
Reply
Reply
post #2691 of 2975
12/8/12 at 7:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hifiaudio2 View Post

A few posts back I am asking pretty much the same thing. I have my hdhomerun setup with mediaportal frontend and backend but cannot get the guide to show channel information. So i need a separate EPG program or addon? I was thinking frodo had that natively.

Im not sure I understanf your setup could you explain it in a bit more detail? So your thinking of swithcing from media portal to xbmc or your using mediaportal for your front/back end with xbmc? How does that work? It seems like there would be a better solution than to use a complete other media center for your front/back end to be able to get the functioanlity of a pvr in xbmc. Is that just like what people were doing with the addon that takes you to wmc from xbmc- all the functionality would be in mediaportal basically.
Reply
Reply
post #2692 of 2975
12/8/12 at 7:57pm
if you simply want to use xbmc as your pvr/live tv viewer, then all you need to install is the mediaportal or argustv servers. you do not need their front ends, as xbmc will be your front end. if you check the xmbc wiki pages for pvr, you will see all the backends listed and where to grab them, along with tutorial links for installing/configuring the servers for each different backend. I am personally disappointed that wmc cannot be used as a backend. configuring mp or argus is quite a pain in the butt sometimes, especially if other things on your pc are not working correctly. wmc just always works and is relatively easy to configure.
Reply
Reply
post #2693 of 2975
12/8/12 at 8:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by henbone11 View Post

if you simply want to use xbmc as your pvr/live tv viewer, then all you need to install is the mediaportal or argustv servers. you do not need their front ends, as xbmc will be your front end. if you check the xmbc wiki pages for pvr, you will see all the backends listed and where to grab them, along with tutorial links for installing/configuring the servers for each different backend. I am personally disappointed that wmc cannot be used as a backend. configuring mp or argus is quite a pain in the butt sometimes, especially if other things on your pc are not working correctly. wmc just always works and is relatively easy to configure.

Thankyou, yeah ive skimmed over that before. Am I understanding you correctly though, you ae using mediaportal as your frontend as well? how does that coinside with xbmc?
Reply
Reply
post #2694 of 2975
12/8/12 at 8:22pm
On my setup I had mediaportal server as the backend, and I thought I had to install the Mediaportal add on for the front end as well. If I dont need that I will remove it. So XBMC has everything I need already embedded into it to communicate with the Mediaportal backend server and give me an EPG as well?

I can currently get it to tune live TV with my HDhomerun (ClearQAM), but cannot get any guide data.
Reply
Reply
post #2695 of 2975
12/9/12 at 3:12pm
Anyone know there stuff with the video playback settings?

For video that is not progressive I usually have de-interlace set to on and method set to auto select.

I never know what to set the video scaling method to, for any type of video?

I have a 6450 and i3 cpu.
Reply
Reply
post #2696 of 2975
12/9/12 at 4:50pm
Anyone also waiting for the new version of Aeon for frodo? And DLNA for hdhomerun so we can use the PVR capability of frodo...can't wait!
Reply
Reply
post #2697 of 2975
12/9/12 at 6:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ymarker View Post

Anyone also waiting for the new version of Aeon for frodo? And DLNA for hdhomerun so we can use the PVR capability of frodo...can't wait!

I have an HD homerun. How would the DLNA function combine with XBMC's new PVR? Just curious.
Reply
Reply
post #2698 of 2975
12/9/12 at 6:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tdx View Post

I have an HD homerun. How would the DLNA function combine with XBMC's new PVR? Just curious.

I don't think it will. There are already options though for integrating the HDHomerun with XBMC PVR, like NextPVR.
Reply
Reply
post #2699 of 2975
12/10/12 at 3:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tdx View Post

I have an HD homerun. How would the DLNA function combine with XBMC's new PVR? Just curious.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1443383/silicondust-hdhomerun-dlna-livetv-on-almost-any-device
Reply
Reply
post #2700 of 2975
12/14/12 at 5:07pm
Did they ever fix the issues with Dolby Digital Plus audio with the new audio engine? I tried one of the Frodo betas a while back and got slow stuttering playback with screwed up audio when trying to play my HDDVD rips of the Bourne movies. I'm still using the DanielAE pre-Frodo build from April that supports 10 bit encodes and it plays back all my HD audio formats without issue. I would really like to try out some of the new features in the Frodo RC1 but I don't want to mess with it if it won't playback all my files without issue. Another problem I was having with older builds was that forced PGS subtitles in Bluray ISOs and MKVs did not display correctly and would just flash by really quickly. Does this still happen or did they fix it in Frodo?

Also, I know they changed the way cached thumbnails are stored but since I am using a shared MySQL database with path substitution for my thumbnails would it be OK to continue using this or would I need to get rid of the path substitution entries in my advancedsettings.xml and let XBMC sync the thumbnails and cache them on each PC? I'd rather keep using path substitution since one of the PCs is using a small SSD and my thumbnails folder was already over 10 gigs before I started using path substitution.
Edited by Joe 6 Pack - 12/14/12 at 7:25pm
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers
AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support