[Raging_Vampire]

Hi,
I'm a new user to XBMC and I really like it. It does ALMOST everything I need (including play Blu-Rays which is a big plus). The only problem is that I've ripped all my TV Show DVDs to HDD in the form of DVD folder structures (VIDEO_TS, etc. etc). I can't get the video library to pick them up as tv shows and scrape the information for them. I've reviewed all forum entries on naming conventions, I've eventried adding the file advancedsettings.xml and still no joy. Can someone advise me how to structure my TV Show collection so that XBMC can read them.

Currently my folders are structured for example:
TV Shows\Battlestar Galactica (2003)\Season 1\S01E1E2E3E4\VIDEO_TS (for disc one as an example)

This doesn't work. I've tried every permutation including moving "S01E1E2E3E4" up a level and leaving out "Season 1" but still nothing. Almost every forum post on the subject recommends re-coding the DVD into individual episodes, but I haven't the time to spend days re-coding, and I kinda feel this must be a common method of DVD storage, and I've got huge numbers of DVDs to rip so I shouldn't have to. Can anyone help Many thanks in advance.

[kricker]

I do not use Video_TS folders. I found it easier to dump the disc to iso or img files. An example of one I have is below:

Code:

Hero Factory - S01E01-02-03-04.img

This works for it showing as episode 1,2,3 and 4. Then I have bookmarks set so each episode starts at the appropriate place.

So maybe you could try:

Code:

TV Shows\Battlestar Galactica (2003)\Season 01\Battlestar Galactica - S01E1-02-03-4\VIDEO_TS

[KidKiwi]

...I haven't the time to spend days re-coding, and I kinda feel this must be a common method of DVD storage, and I've got huge numbers of DVDs to rip so I shouldn't have to.

I don't' use Video_TS folders either. I tried in the beginning, but always found there was some issue. I switched to individual .ISO files for each episode. They work as they should, and I've found they actually start faster than the the DVD format. While it's a lot of work, it is worth it IMO.

And...why re-encode. HDD space is cheap. Get a copy of Multi-shrink and use multiple sessions of DVDShrink to backup to individual files. You'll be glad you did