Indexing and flagging offline removable DVD Video discs in the library database?

Indexing and flagging offline removable DVD Video discs in the library database? - Printable Version

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- Harry Muscle - 2010-09-30

pecinko Wrote:Aren't you breaking file=0 check this way? The other thing - this should probably go to nfo file for consistency, and you'll have to provide nfo support in either way.

But maybe I'm all astray.

Yes you are correct, it would break the file=0 size check ... it was an idea I wanted to throw out and see what happens. But I like you idea of just simply including this in the standard .nfo file.

So how about we add an extra field to the .nfo file called

<medianumber>

I figure it's a bit more generic than <discnumber> ... but I'm totally open to any other suggestions, etc.

Thanks,
Harry

- pecinko - 2010-09-30

Harry Muscle Wrote:If/when actual offline media support get's added, the naming of files will be identical to what you name them now (ie: .mkv, .avi, etc.). XBMC will just have to have a way of knowing that when those files can't be found, don't remove them from the library but instead ask for them.
Harry

I might sound stupid (it's not that difficult as I actually am) but do I understand you right:

With stubs you are in fact proposing support for additional nfo files, but with different extensions?

- Harry Muscle - 2010-09-30

pecinko Wrote:I might sound stupid (it's not that difficult as I actually am) but do I understand you right:

With stubs you are in fact proposing support for additional nfo files, but with different extensions?

No, that's not it.

Stub files will stay zero size like originally intended, I simply had an idea I threw out there that I think made things a little confusing.

Here's how it would work. Let's say you have two DVDs you want to add to your XBMC library, Finding Nemo, and Bug's Life. You would create two empty files where ever you store the rest of your digital media files called:

Finding Nemo (2003).dvd
Bug's Life (2000).dvd

Btw, I'm guessing on the years of those movies Smile

Then you would ask XBMC to scan that location for new files and it would detect those files and add the items to the library. When you select the item from XBMC to play it, XBMC would present you with a dialog box asking you to insert the DVD.

I think were things got confusing was my idea of including the DVD number (some people have custom DVD collections based on numbers, not titles) inside the file, but like pointed out, this is probably not the best idea. It's probably better to just include such DVD number info inside an .nfo file if the user wishes to create an extra .nfo file with this info in it.

Thanks,
Harry

- Harry Muscle - 2010-09-30

The patch is up on trac: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/10384

Thanks,
Harry

- pecinko - 2010-09-30

Harry Muscle Wrote:I think were things got confusing was my idea of including the DVD number (some people have custom DVD collections based on numbers, not titles) inside the file, but like pointed

Well I'am one of them as I can't imagine myself diving into 250 kid's DVDs in order to find one by name. Not mentioning space it would take on shelves.

I wrongly understood the purpose of patch to be for XBMC telling me collection number of DVD, so I don't need to switch to file mode all the time to check file name. I already know it's offline simply but not being able to play it. I don't care much for media type either (it looks fancy in skins) but rather for actual content on it.

Anyways, thanks for your time and sorry for a delay caused.

- da-anda - 2010-10-01

Hey Harry,

Harry Muscle Wrote:Unfortunately I'd have to disagree with the .offline extension. Offline files are those that aren't there ... the official term for the kind of support that I'm adding is stub files. Files that are there (therefore not offline) but represent another media (ie: DVD, Bluray, etc.).

I'm also fine with a different suffix then .offline, but for me "offline" means that the file/video is not accessible right away and you have to insert, plug or turn on some device/media in order to access it. But maybe offline has some different meaning for people with English as their mother toung. I didn't know "stub" until now and had to ask a dictionary (dict.leo.org), but the translations didn't make any sense to me in this context.

Harry Muscle Wrote:We also need to differenciate between which type of media is represents, since for example for HDDVD there's no point in asking the user to put in the disc since XBMC can't play them anyway.

although XBMC itself can't play HDDVD natively, you can still watch them using external players etc. But independent from that, it should/could still prompt you to insert the disc if you like to watch that movie.

- da-anda - 2010-10-01

Harry Muscle Wrote:Yes you are correct, it would break the file=0 size check ... it was an idea I wanted to throw out and see what happens. But I like you idea of just simply including this in the standard .nfo file.

So how about we add an extra field to the .nfo file called

<medianumber>

I figure it's a bit more generic than <discnumber> ... but I'm totally open to any other suggestions, etc.

Why are you guys that focused on numbers as disc labels. Just make that thing generic and call it "medianame" then. How somebody is labeling his discs is up to him, isn't it? "medianumber" is indicating that it has to be a number no matter what.

- da-anda - 2010-10-01

Harry Muscle Wrote:If/when actual offline media support get's added, the naming of files will be identical to what you name them now (ie: .mkv, .avi, etc.). XBMC will just have to have a way of knowing that when those files can't be found, don't remove them from the library but instead ask for them.

I think we need a mixture and can't strictly seperate offline files from stub files. Having USB-HDDs, NAS etc. with movie collections, your description of offline-files is working just fine. But for removeable media like DVD, where one could have several movies on one disc, you might like to have a offline/stub index on your HDD in order to ease things up on recreating a library etc. While it's not a big deal to plug some high capacity storages (USB-HDDs) and index them one after another, it's becoming a pain in the a... having to add one disc after another in order to index offline files from such "low capacity storages". So for those you might want to create a mixture of .offline and stub files? But maybe that's stuff that has to be enhanced in conjunction with real offline-support. For now I'm fine with the stub-files, as those exactly fit my needs - but I always try to think as openminded and flexible as possible - that's why I was writing this.

Oh, and thanks for the patch and your work on it. If I now manage to compile XBMC myself it's going to be a perfect day Wink

- pecinko - 2010-10-01

da-anda Wrote:Why are you guys that focused on numbers as disc labels. Just make that thing generic and call it "medianame" then. How somebody is labeling his discs is up to him, isn't it? "medianumber" is indicating that it has to be a number no matter what.

I see your point. I guess I owe an explanation why it looks as I'm insisting on it Smile

FILES mode: I can open folder and see what disc I have to put

Finding.Nemo.DVD.(2005).105 so I just go and grab disc N.105. In order to add such a movie I need only to make empty file and name it properly, no need for making and editing NFOs. Such file can happily coexist with others even in case user don't use subfolders to organize content. It's also worth noticing that "Finding.Nemo.DVD.(2005)" naming convention is regularly used by popular -convertors- we use to make our movies.

MOVIE mode: Same as above. I can put DVD or HDD or BR in file name if I want, but it's not mandatory. XBMC tells me disc number derived from extension and I decide if it can or can't be played in XBMC. Nothing is stopping me to put it in HDD player if I own one.

In either case movie name is shown in XBMC so I can search my collection by name if I don't care about numbers, though they're IMO a must with large collections.

NFO files: In case tag like <offline>105</offline> is added i can populate library from nfo files or export to ones if I want to. But again, it's not mandatory and I can do it without them as described above.

For all this to work file size of offline movies _must_ be zero.

Now this describes easiest way as I see it, but your mileage may vary.

So, kudos to Harry for a patch. It's just that my approach and my preferences are different.

- Harry Muscle - 2010-10-02

da-anda Wrote:Why are you guys that focused on numbers as disc labels. Just make that thing generic and call it "medianame" then. How somebody is labeling his discs is up to him, isn't it? "medianumber" is indicating that it has to be a number no matter what.

I like it, good idea.

Thanks,
Harry

- da-anda - 2010-10-02

sorry for bothering again - it just came to my mind. Do you guys feel that after a disc has been inserted, that XBMC should check if it's the correct disc by comparing disc-labels? Or do you think this is more related to offline media support and the users should be intelligent enough to find and insert the correct disc? Smile

- da-anda - 2010-10-02

pecinko Wrote: I see your point. I guess I owe an explanation why it looks as I'm insisting on it

I already got your point and it of course makes sense for large DVD collections to start numbering them, but imagine you'd like to have two different collections (maybe one for bought movies and one for private ones, or yours and the ones of your room mate etc) - there you have to be able to distinguish between those - that's why I think the medianame should be a string and not strictly a number, as it's not flexible enough.

pecinko Wrote:FILES mode: I can open folder and see what disc I have to put Finding.Nemo.DVD.(2005).105 so I just go and grab disc N.105. In order to add such a movie I need only to make empty file and name it properly, no need for making and editing NFOs...

MOVIE mode: Same as above. I can put DVD or HDD or BR in file name if I want, but it's not mandatory. XBMC tells me disc number derived from extension and I decide if it can or can't be played in XBMC. Nothing is stopping me to put it in HDD player if I own one.

As Harry already mentioned, the problem is, that you have to tell XBMC which file extensions are playable movies in order to index them. With your approach you would have to add all numbers from 001 to 999 as playable file extension or tweak a lot in XBMC. So that's not an option, is it?

So, in order to have the medianame/number detectable in the file name, I suggested to prefix it with some special string that's indicating that this is the media name. So instead of:
Finding.Nemo.DVD.(2005).105

you would write:

Finding.Nemo.(2005).#105.dvd (assuming the indicating string is #)

So also no need for a special NFO key, althought this should also be supported. Could you live with this? It's not much different from your proposal.

- pecinko - 2010-10-02

da-anda Wrote:..but imagine you'd like to have two different collections (maybe one for bought movies and one for private ones, or ..

I have this situation and I'm using profiles built-in function to separate them.

Quote:With your approach you would have to add all numbers from 001 to 999 as playable file extension or tweak a lot in XBMC. So that's not an option, is it?

I thought file size check could help with that (standard extensions + zero files with digits only extension gets indexed.

Quote:Finding.Nemo.(2005).#105.dvd (assuming the indicating string is #)

So also no need for a special NFO key, althought this should also be supported. Could you live with this? It's not much different from your proposal.

Sure. Peace.

- Harry Muscle - 2010-10-04

da-anda Wrote:sorry for bothering again - it just came to my mind. Do you guys feel that after a disc has been inserted, that XBMC should check if it's the correct disc by comparing disc-labels? Or do you think this is more related to offline media support and the users should be intelligent enough to find and insert the correct disc?

I'm really hoping the user is smart enough to figure out that if they wanna play "Finding Nemo" they need to insert the disc for "Finding Nemo" Big Grin

Harry

- fidoboy - 2010-10-04

Harry Muscle Wrote:I'm really hoping the user is smart enough to figure out that if they wanna play "Finding Nemo" they need to insert the disc for "Finding Nemo"

Harry

Well, i think that after asking the user with a small dialog, when the user inserts the disc, XBMC should search for the filename into the inserted DVD disc. The really interesting thing for this useful feature could be that you can have two separated libraries or menu entries one for online database and another one for your offline database (DVD discs)

i'm waiting for this feature since two years ago, when i first installed XBMC. I really can't understand why this is not added yet into XBMC or my be now it can be acomplished using an addon.

regards,