Movies in NAS, XBMC with MySQL: where reside the thumbnails?
#1
I've been using XBMC in an unique box. Now I've split it in an Ubuntu Server and a Windows "Player" box. To make the Player more "disposable", I went through the XBMC "HOW-TO:Sync multiple libraries" tutorial. Everything works fine and I'm happy.

But I have some doubts:

1. Please confirm: all movie and TV shows data are now in the database, so no ".nfo" files are needed (I may delete them).
2. Where will the thumbnails be? Inside a folder somewhere in my Ubuntu server (this is a FILE server and has no XBMC on it)? Or the database has paths to each of the movies' folders (so every XBMC box on the network will get the thumbnail from every movie folder).
3. Please confirm: to setup new Collections, I have to enter the MySQL database and register new ones there, using "my own hands".
4. Please confirm: when I add new movies, by entering any XBMC and pressing "Update Library" will update the MySQL database, so another XBMC box will also be updated.

Thanks! XBMC is really a wonderful project!
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#2
Hi quintellarosa,

I'm no expert, but I use a similar setup to you.
(2012-04-07, 15:26)quintellarosa Wrote: 1. Please confirm: all movie and TV shows data are now in the database, so no ".nfo" files are needed (I may delete them).
In theory yes, but just to be on the safe side just move them to a different folder so you can put them back if you need to, and then in a few days or weeks when you're happy delete them.

Quote:2. Where will the thumbnails be? Inside a folder somewhere in my Ubuntu server (this is a FILE server and has no XBMC on it)? Or the database has paths to each of the movies' folders (so every XBMC box on the network will get the thumbnail from every movie folder).
By default your thumbnails will remain on the front-end box that has XBMC installed on it. I'm not sure about windows, but in Linux they are in ~/.xbmc/userdata/Thumbnails. To get around this I created a NFS share on my server, called Thumbnails and mounted it in my userdata folder instead on my two HTPC boxes this way the same Thumbnails are available to all instances of XBMC, and any change made by one affects them all.

There is probably something similar that can be done with windows but I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with windows to help.

Quote:3. Please confirm: to setup new Collections, I have to enter the MySQL database and register new ones there, using "my own hands".
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by new collections? If you mean a new movie or TV show then no just scrape the show as normal and the database will automatically be updated and available to all xbmc instances talking to the database. If you mean adding a new front-end, then all you have to do is add the database details into the advancedsettings,xml file, make sure the new front-end can see all the media files and you're good to go. If you mean something else then apologies for the misunderstanding.

Quote:4. Please confirm: when I add new movies, by entering any XBMC and pressing "Update Library" will update the MySQL database, so another XBMC box will also be update.
Yes, every box that talks to the MySQL database will get the same information without any additional intervention.

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#3
Thanks, fr1day!

1. I thought that... I'll do as you said.
2. I've seen the thumbnails inside my Windows box, although they have strange references (seems to be the ID of the movie), now I now where I can change them. It's enough.
3. By "Collections" I mean trilogies and the like. For instance: "Kung Fu Panda" is expected to be a trilogy, so you can activate the "Collections" option in your Movies Library. This way, you see a "Kung Fu Panda Collection" instead of "Kung Fu Panda", "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Kung Fu Panda 3". This info, however, must reside somewhere. It used to be inside the NFO file, inside a "<set></set>" tag. I've researched it and there's a "sets" table in MySQL that holds this info. You may see a sample here:
+-------+--------------------------------+
| idSet | strSet |
+-------+--------------------------------+
| 1 | Avatar Collection |
| 2 | The Batman Collection |
| 3 | Clash of the Titans collection |
| 4 | Fantastic Four Collection |
| 5 | Harry Potter Collection |
| 6 | Megamind Collection |
| 7 | Open Season Collection |
| 8 | The Shrek Collection |
| 9 | Terminator Saga |
| 10 | Batman Collection |
| 11 | The Lord of the Rings Trilogy |
| 12 | The Mummy Collection |
| 13 | Toy Story Collection |
| 14 | X-Men Collection |
| 15 | 101 Dalmatians |
| 16 | Aladdin |
| 17 | Barbie |
| 18 | Brother Bear |
| 19 | Cinderella |
| 20 | The Jungle Book |
| 21 | Lilo and Stitch |
| 22 | Men In Black |
| 23 | Mulan |
| 24 | Peter Pan |
| 25 | Tarzan |
| 26 | Terminator |
| 27 | The Bourne Identity |
| 28 | The Chronicles of Narnia |
| 29 | The Little Mermaid |
| 30 | The Mummy |
| 31 | The Rescuers |
| 32 | The X-Files |
| 33 | Top Gun |
| 34 | X-Men |
| 35 | Wallace & Gromit |
+-------+--------------------------------+
35 rows in set (0.00 sec)

I was just lazy to check if updating this by myself works... I'll check and post it back here.

4. Thanks!
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#4
i remember reading somewhere that you're supposed to delete the movies from your library, enable sets, then rescrape with tmdb or imdb
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#5
I'm still doing tests with this. I've found, for instance, that by clearing the "Movie Database", all data in the MySQL "Movie" table is deleted. So, there's no need to delete it by an SQL command.

Also, if you have an .nfo file for your movie, XBMC will prefer that info to populate your database instead of searching fresh data on the internet. That can be good, that can be bad. Depends on what you need. So, if you need to make your own sets, you may create your own .nfo files OR:

You may also change some data directly on the database, using SQL commands if you know how.

What I STILL don't know is how to use one folder for all thumbnails, since XBMC seems to bring poor quality thumbs and I like the better ones.

As soon as I find new info, I'll post them here.
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#6
You can just refresh individual titles (press "i" to get info, then refresh) that you want in sets as well to re-download that data from the scraper. NFO generated movie sets should also populate the DB, but I'm not 100% sure on this.
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#7
(2012-04-13, 05:52)Ned Scott Wrote: You can just refresh individual titles (press "i" to get info, then refresh) that you want in sets as well to re-download that data from the scraper.

I don't want to refresh each movie, because that would take too much time. It's impossible... I already have a lot of .tbn files, so I could use them.


(2012-04-13, 05:52)Ned Scott Wrote: NFO generated movie sets should also populate the DB, but I'm not 100% sure on this.

Yep. You're right. The .nfo files are read and then the info is used to populate the DB. So, the sets also go to the database.
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Movies in NAS, XBMC with MySQL: where reside the thumbnails?0