xexe Wrote:I still say a central repository organized by scraper id. As far as I can tell it solves every problem still being faced with the only down side it wont work in file view mode (but it will work in file view mode if you also have library mode set up).

Based on what I am hearing XBMC is becoming more library orientated anyway.

IMHO its the way to go.

Jezz_X Wrote:Because as much as you AEON fanboys might not like to admit it AEON and djh don't dictate poilcy. Its been called fanart from day one all the sites we scrape it from call it fanart so fanart it shall remain

So I have to ask why ?

Sure its nice to have a bunch of extra images and you can allready do most of this now with hacks and background loading but we don't need to support every variation of a format that someone comes up with.

EG: tvshows the default for many years was Wide Icons (and it still is) djh_ then decided to use posters instead (thats fine) then he changed his mind again and went for 16x9 cropped fanart style with a logo. Where does it end ? how many different types of icons should we force users to fetch just so XBMC can look decent.

Thats the whole point of a "standard" you have the default and thats what should be used. If skins like AEON decide to go against the "standard" then its up to their users to fix what ever so they can use it. Its not the responsability of XBMC to make sure it can fetch every single different Idea that anyone can come up with past future and present. Its the resonsibility of the skins to follow "the standard" and if not thats their issue

P.S everything above is my personal opinion and does not reflect the team in general

xexe Wrote:This is what we keep coming back to. There really is no such thing as standard naming. What you are proposing is IMDB specific naming for your country. It is to specific to be scalable and is not a good identifier as IMDB could change their policy on (TV),(V) type naming at any moment (if they cared to) breaking this entire scheme. Also MANY user simply will not rename folder or video files. I am one of those users, renaming is the simple way out, there is always a better solution.

I think we need to take a deep breath and re-evaluate the problem and the responses from XBMC devs to the proposed solutions.

I have been here long enough to know the current solution path is not going to be accepted.

AnalogKid Wrote:I don't think this is really about file mode vs library, I know for me personally, library mode is the far superior.
This is really more about taking a brand new installation and having XBMC gather all the media and art into the library, preferably without relying in a scraper, and certainly without having to manually configure stuff.
Today, even with a superbly organised library (no art), a scraper will pull art for a movie (but it's often not the choice of art the USER wants, so they have to then manually override the scraper choice).
Also, it's great that XBMC can export it's library, but... the thumbs it exports are low res, not original artwork.

A lot of the additional scraping tools really come from a world (that I support) where folks simply cannot trust IMDB etc to always be around, and so we like to scrape the best quality artwork to our systems and know they are 'safe'.. we have them forever then.
I have seen instances were art that WAS available online has been removed, and potentially lost forever.

xexe Wrote:File mode artwork relies on either having one movie per folder and using whatever artwork is there OR using regex to match the artwork to the video name.

However if you use library mode it will, using various mechanisms we dont need to care about, know what the movie is based on the scraper. Once you know what the movie is you can easily imagine a situation where you have your own central repository of images organised by movies ids (id based on whatever your favourite scraper is).

This is better as you do not need to worry about movie identification from filename as part of this project. It is also perfectly scalable and by definition 100% accurate.

The driving goal as I see it is to have human readable, 100% accurate, organised artwork that other tools can manipulate. Absolutely nothing says they have to live beside the video files and it makes alot more sense to have them in one place rather than spread all over the FS.

Once you have the central repository other tools can manuipulate it in any way users like. if they want them beside the videos then other tools can do it. If they want something else something else can do it. Having the data centrally makes alot more sense.

It also covers situations you guys havent even discussed yet, like the fact XBMC is multi user capable via profiles. By the time you add all current and future variables to you artwork filenames its going to be completely silly. I could go on all day finding examples that cause problems like hows this for a legitimate movie name that wont work on fatx:

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Terror (1991)

But i predict that someone will say "well how often does that happen?". Well my answer is once is too many.

Or "This is a silly movie no one will have".... Well how about "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)" nominated for two golden globes.

As i have said before take a step back and look at what I am saying.

xexe Wrote:Edit: Been thinking about it since I posted. I was quite interested in this project when there was a chance it was going to end in globally unique and individually identifiable artwork image names (i.e. user could centrally store and share artwork removing the scraping burden and allowing for hand chosen artwork packs to be created etc). As the current consensus is just another on disk user specific naming scheme it doesn't really interest me so much. I likely wont be posting much on it again. Good luck

xexe Wrote:If profiles are irrelevant how do I add 3 new users on the same network after I have set up all my own artwork? Do you propose that user2 has to rename all my artwork or demands that I do it so they can add their artwork... or do they simply replace mine?

Quote:You say "Movie.avi" will simply NOT work with any scraper in the world. Actually all you need is Movie.nfo and it does work. I have these simple URL nfos for every movie and tvshow. My video files and folder names often (but not always) bear no decodable relation to themovie name. As it simply does not matter to me using library mode are you suggesting i rename and rescan my entire collection to comply with this naming or that the scehme is just not for people like me? What about scene users that simply wont rename files or folders ever since its against scene rules. You see my point.

Quote:I have little XBMC music experience so I cannot comment on that.


I am not trying to be a PITA but I am just one dude, wait til 10,000 more users find out hey have to change how they organize to use this feature. We better have covered all the bases covered justifying why they have to do all this manual renaming before that point or there will be IRC hell to pay Especially since XBMC quite happily handles how they have their stuff named this now.

Gangsta Wrote:Hi again xexe, I do hope you come back and read this, as it seems that we are only in disagreement over the filename issue. (eg the name of the actual movie, as opposed to the name of the artwork - which is whats really up for discussion here) and your input is invaluable.

The idea of 'media packs' for a film sounds good, the ability to post up a single archive that has been carefully crafted for a particular movie.

By media pack (or artwork pack), however we describe it, I mean a set of posters, thumbs, fanart, etc, etc that have been carefully selected to contain similar style elements, colours and the likes for a single film, that will be appealing to look at (when displayed together in a skin). As opposed to having to 'fix' all the stuff from the scrapers when they just download the first available images from each site.

Just an idea, but perhaps the archive could contain an xml, defining what movie the pack is aimed at this could be the IMDB, TMDB, thetvdb, or all of the above. Somekind of simple loader script, possibly a python script running inside XBMC looks through the archives available - and build a list of these ID's. Next it looks at the XBMC database to see if you have any of the films, if you do, then it copies the contents of the archive out (into a folder you specify) and adds the filename *That you already have* to the start of it.

Sorry im really crap at describing things. But i'll try an example.

Media Pack:

Code:

I Robot.mediapack.zip
--mediainfo.xml
--.movie.poster.landscape
--.movie.poster.portrait
--.movie.fanart.HiRes
--.movie.fanart1.HiRes
--.movie.fanart.LoRes
--.movie.widebanner
--.movie.widebanner1
......
and so on

the XML would contain something like

Code:

<mediatype>movie</mediatype>
<mediaids>
  <mediaid>
    <source>IMDB</source>
    <sourceid>tt7846383</sourceid>
  </mediaid>
  <mediaid>
    <source>AllMovie</source>
    <sourceid>286093</sourceid>
  </mediaid>
...........
etc

The important thing is that the name of the archive is totally IRRELEVANT, it is merely a placeholder for a human readable name so that you can find and download packs easily - IT DOES NOT need to match the name of the media file on your hard disc. The script takes care of matching the archive to your media file.

In the example above, say your movie filename was

I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi

then once you had run the script, it would create the files

Code:

I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.poster.landscape
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.poster.portrait
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.fanart.HiRes
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.fanart1.HiRes
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.fanart.LoRes
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.widebanner
I,-robot-[2004]-ws-xvid-dvdrip-ac3.avi.movie.widebanner1
......
and so on

therefore packs could be created on one machine and easily deployed to another.