New Home for Ember Media Manager (Official Thread)

(2012-04-25 14:38)leftywhat Wrote:  

(2012-04-25 13:12)DanCooper Wrote:  

(2012-04-25 12:17)leftywhat Wrote:  Dan, also having a issue I posted here, are you able to comment? Is it due to actor images or something?

That could be....
just look in the XBMC logfile, maybe there is something useful.

Ah looks to be slower due to downloading the images of actors!! Sent you pm with link to text file from log.

When I set debug mode on in xbmc I can see it downloading the actor images from the URLs listed in Ember.

I've noticed once you've added a movie in xbmc, when you remove the files folder/remove from library and clean the library, when you re-add the same movie files and re-do it all, it doesn't need to download the actors again. I think its the function "CVideoDatabase"

It must get stored in the xbmc database. Say if one movie has Eddy Murphy in it, that movie downloads his image, when another movie has Eddy Murphy in it, does XBMC download his image again going via the url put in the nfo via ember, or does it link to xbmc database? Slightly getting off topic... soz, but at least I know now why it takes longer when I have net connection compared to when I don't.

I guess other people knew all this, or they just don't care or notice?

I'm thinking of removing the actor images links from the .nfo files Ember created. I assume theres a setting in Ember to not put links to the actors in the nfo it creates? Thing is if there if no link in the nfo, what does xbmc do, does it then go look for the images or leaves them blank?

There is an option in the Ember (see Movies-> Scrapers images & Trailers-> "Do Not Save URLs to NFO). If this option is enabled, the actor-photo-, poster- and fanarts-links are not stored in the NFO.

Please make a test and tell us then whether the XBMC images only once downloaded.

(2012-04-25 15:21)DanCooper Wrote:  

(2012-04-25 14:38)leftywhat Wrote:  

(2012-04-25 13:12)DanCooper Wrote:  That could be....
just look in the XBMC logfile, maybe there is something useful.

Ah looks to be slower due to downloading the images of actors!! Sent you pm with link to text file from log.

When I set debug mode on in xbmc I can see it downloading the actor images from the URLs listed in Ember.

I've noticed once you've added a movie in xbmc, when you remove the files folder/remove from library and clean the library, when you re-add the same movie files and re-do it all, it doesn't need to download the actors again. I think its the function "CVideoDatabase"

It must get stored in the xbmc database. Say if one movie has Eddy Murphy in it, that movie downloads his image, when another movie has Eddy Murphy in it, does XBMC download his image again going via the url put in the nfo via ember, or does it link to xbmc database? Slightly getting off topic... soz, but at least I know now why it takes longer when I have net connection compared to when I don't.

I guess other people knew all this, or they just don't care or notice?

I'm thinking of removing the actor images links from the .nfo files Ember created. I assume theres a setting in Ember to not put links to the actors in the nfo it creates? Thing is if there if no link in the nfo, what does xbmc do, does it then go look for the images or leaves them blank?

There is an option in the Ember (see Movies-> Scrapers images & Trailers-> "Do Not Save URLs to NFO). If this option is enabled, the actor-photo-, poster- and fanarts-links are not stored in the NFO.

Please make a test and tell us then whether the XBMC images only once downloaded.

I turned that setting on, the actor photo url's are still present in the nfo files created via ember.
The alternative poster and fanart links are removed, however you can leave these links in the nfo anyway, as they don't automatically download when you set up your movies in xbmc.

Its a bit ridiculous, for example in Anchorman, it has 46 actors with links to their image. I think I'm going to set actor limit to maybe 5 people or something. I think you can do that by going to settings > movies > scrapers - data > cast limit: 5? And I'll tick the box that only gets actors that have images. Then I think thats a good option, rather than having 50 actors (which maybe 30 have images).

I really would like to know though if a actor image has been downloaded once into the xbmc database, does the next movie with the same actor get the image from the xbmc database, or does it re-download the actors image and add it into the database.

(2012-04-25 15:53)leftywhat Wrote:  I turned that setting on, the actor photo url's are still present in the nfo files created via ember.
The alternative poster and fanart links are removed

hmmm, thats true
I will check this. But i think XBMC need a link to display a picture...

Alternative (XBMC wiki):
Actor thumbnails

You can add actor thumbnails to any movie or TV show by adding an '.actors' folder in the corresponding movie / TV show / Epsiode directory. You may need to use the command line to create this directory in Windows.
The folder can then contain actor images using the following naming convention:

Videos\path\.actors\actor_name.tbn (spaces replaced with underscores)

(2012-04-25 16:02)DanCooper Wrote:  

(2012-04-25 15:53)leftywhat Wrote:  I turned that setting on, the actor photo url's are still present in the nfo files created via ember.
The alternative poster and fanart links are removed

hmmm, thats true
I will check this. But i think XBMC need a link to display a picture...

Alternative (XBMC wiki):
Actor thumbnails

You can add actor thumbnails to any movie or TV show by adding an '.actors' folder in the corresponding movie / TV show / Epsiode directory. You may need to use the command line to create this directory in Windows.
The folder can then contain actor images using the following naming convention:

Videos\path\.actors\actor_name.tbn (spaces replaced with underscores)

So ideally, if possible, I'd just set in Ember, Actors to 5, select the box only pick actors with images, and then if possible, when scrapping get ember to save into a .actors directory within the movie folder directory.
Don't think Ember has that option for the last bit?

Probably be easier if Ember had a box option to not put in the URL image links for the actors, then you're movies library should be quick to update into xbmc database as its not going to auto-download the actor images from the web.

Also what does Enable Actors Cache do?

Btw, my head hurts, thats enough for me today

(2012-04-25 16:22)leftywhat Wrote:  So ideally, if possible, I'd just set in Ember, Actors to 5, select the box only pick actors with images, and then if possible, when scrapping get ember to save into a .actors directory within the movie folder directory.
Don't think Ember has that option for the last bit?

What does Enable Actors Cache do?

I have tested it with a fresh install of XBMC: No links, no pictures. Looks like XBMC would not manage the actors in the database.
Nice idea, acting with more than 5. but I would prefer all actors without pictures.

I think Actors Cache save the pictures in Ember-DB to display it from cache instead of each time to feed from inet.

(2012-04-25 16:30)DanCooper Wrote:  I have tested it with a fresh install of XBMC: No links, no pictures. Looks like XBMC would not manage the actors in the database.
Nice idea, acting with more than 5. but I would prefer all actors without pictures.

I think Actors Cache save the pictures in Ember-DB to display it from cache instead of each time to feed from inet.

Ok so that means for every movie, XBMC is going to read the actors URL from Embers NFO file and download the picture and put it into the XBMC database every time. So if you have 12 movies with Eddy Murphy, its going to download that same image 12 times.

If you have say, 400 movies, with url links to the actors image in the nfo and there might be say 50 actors per movie, thats going to take some time to update to xbmc database. Not ideal.

You're right though, I'd prefer to have the actors names (all of them), without images. But it doesn't look like Ember has an option not to put URL links of actors images into the NFO file, so I guess that leaves me with two options.

A. Leave it as is, which means it will take some time for xbmc database to create
B. Set actors limit to 5 or 10, and tick the box that only gets actors with images

Hrm.

(2012-04-25 16:42)leftywhat Wrote:  Ok so that means for every movie, XBMC is going to read the actors URL from Embers NFO file and download the picture and put it into the XBMC database every time. So if you have 12 movies with Eddy Murphy, its going to download that same image 12 times.

If you have say, 400 movies, with url links to the actors image in the nfo and there might be say 50 actors per movie, thats going to take some time to update to xbmc database. Not ideal.

Sorry, my mistake. I have previously tested incorrectly.

I have now tested the following:
Film 1: Actor 1 with a link
Movie 2: Actor 1 without link

In both the same image from film1 Actor 1 is displayed.

XBMC manages the actor pictures!

(2012-04-24 15:22)HiSoC8Y Wrote:  how to retain the sets that i created for YAMJ?

I loaded my library into the latest 1.3.0.5, but when i go to sets manager, my previously created sets are not present.

why?

Anyone

(2012-04-25 18:34)HiSoC8Y Wrote:  

(2012-04-24 15:22)HiSoC8Y Wrote:  how to retain the sets that i created for YAMJ?

I loaded my library into the latest 1.3.0.5, but when i go to sets manager, my previously created sets are not present.

why?

Anyone

Normally, all sets are stored in the settings.xml (check your XML). But I do not know the difference between the normal and the YAMJ set's.
Normally, all sets are read from the NFO's at the first read of the database. Was the first DB update the module already enabled?

it actually did read the first time i added a test source, but that was a test, with only few movies.

now that i added my main library, it didnt identify all the sets

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btw, all my NFOs have the set tag in them, it's just EMM is not reading it.