[ipsofacto]

Hi all -- I have been working with a small test installation of XMBC to see if it can work at home. As many noobs before, I have struggled with the naming conventions, especially when it comes to TV Shows from DVD rips (VIDEO_TS folders, specifically). I know that it is much preferred to convert the VIDEO_TS into something more granular (i.e. Handbreak), but I have limited time resources and don't want to spend hours editing my media library.

Things I have working now:
• Movies ripped from DVDs (using the VIDEO_TS folders) -- these are placed in a Movie folder on my drive, and if named correctly (MovieName (year)), there is nothing more to do than update the library -- very smooth!
• DVD Special Feature DVDs (also using the VIDEO_TS folder) -- these I have placed in a Special Feature folder on my drive, where I use a Media Manager (ViMediaManager) to manually look-up the meta information, change the title to 'MovieName Disc 2' or MovieName Bonus Disc' -- then take the poster art JPG and throw it on a PS droplet that adds a "Special Feature' triangle in the upper right corner (see my sample). This then shows up right next to the movie in the library. This, too, is not too bad, as a cost of time.

Things I am stumbling over:
• TV Shows -- I can get the TV shows to work, mostly. I have followed the wiki and forum posts and edited my advancedsettings.xml to show the season series. If the folder containing the VIDEO_TS folder is named correctly, the shows will appear. However, because the DVD order and the aired order are usually at odds, there is some amount of work that has to be undertaken in order for the shows to be correct. Additionally, special features on the DVDs are sometimes listed on TheTVDB.com, sometimes not (usually depending on the criteria if it was aired, not created for the DVD, I think).

Questions:
• Is there any way I can treat my TV Show DVD rips (VIDEO_TS folders) as Movies and just scrape the meta-info for just the season? I could then create a similar corner triangle logo with "Season 1, Disc 1" and edit the meta-info plot notes as to what is really on there (i.e. copy the DVD season information from an online source). This would be much more accurate and save scads of time.
• If that is unpossible, can I create a custom episodeguide.nfo file for my VIDEO_TS folder? Would this need to be in the VIDEO_TS folder, or above? and if I created a custom episodeguide.nfo, would I still have to name my enclosing folder "s01e01e02e03..." or would the custom episodeguide.nfo override this?

Thanks!

-if-

[ipsofacto]

Ok, I tried making a quick custom VIDEO_TS.nfo file with <episodedetails> entries for each episode (see example below) -- neither placing the .nfo file inside the VIDEO_TS folder or one directory above seems to work. I then tried again, this time with advancedsettings.xml stripped of the custom code for TV Show VIDEO_TS folders. Is it possible to get a custom .nfo file to work with a VIDEO_TS folder? Am I naming it incorrectly?

<episodedetails>
<title>Episode 207: Edgar Bergen</title>
<season>2</season>
<episode>7</episode>
</episodedetails>

[ipsofacto]

Newish question regarding TV Shows: Does anyone know if you can combine normal TheTVDB.com scraping with a custom episodedetail.nfo file for VIDEO_TS folders? Further, would that custom episode file need to be inside the VIDEO_TS folder, or in the directory above? Thanks!

[PatK]

If your movies are ripped DVD-Video files using a "VIDEO_TS" folder structure, like this:
C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO
C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.VOB
then you want to select the Scan Recursively option.

The video .nfo is beside the video file with the same name. The TV show .nfo is on the same level or one level up if there is season sub folders.
The DVD vs Aired date is set in the scrapers settings (set content) and follow the listing here http://thetvdb.com/?tab=advancedsearch

Stolen from http://download.xtreamer.net/Drivers/Ult...e-Rev1.pdf

I have a .nfo template for movies... but not for TV shows, I stumble through them... Somewhere in that big wiki above is sample templates for the .nfo I did a quick look around but they elude me at the moment.. oops here they are http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Imp...rt_library

Re: your last message... the simple answer is no, there is no combining scraper and custom in one go, but that wouldn't preclude you from either editing the scrape after the fact, or using 3rd party programs (such as Ember or XWMM) to custom modify the information in an .nfo I'd suggest just follow the information provided in the database until you're a little more sure of how things operate before diving into a lot of effort.

Sorry for delay, summer has been nice.

Questions:
• Is there any way I can treat my TV Show DVD rips (VIDEO_TS folders) as Movies and just scrape the meta-info for just the season? I could then create a similar corner triangle logo with "Season 1, Disc 1" and edit the meta-info plot notes as to what is really on there (i.e. copy the DVD season information from an online source). This would be much more accurate and save scads of time.
• If that is unpossible, can I create a custom episodeguide.nfo file for my VIDEO_TS folder? Would this need to be in the VIDEO_TS folder, or above? and if I created a custom episodeguide.nfo, would I still have to name my enclosing folder "s01e01e02e03..." or would the custom episodeguide.nfo override this?

1) You can, I'm not sure it's the way to go...in some BBC videos (thinking about the Planet Earth series) they are available as both TV episodes and documentary movies, so in that case you could place them in either, and the internet db will catch them. Check the web or the TVdb to see if what you want to scrape is listed. If you are making a custom .nfo for something that is not listed, consider posting it in the db so others will be able to take advantage of your hard work. I find that almost everything is available on a database somewhere... finding it can take a bit of sleuthing.

2) The .nfo is located at the same level of the video file... If your custom making the file, there would be no need for s01e01 names as you're not scraping an outside database... no scrape = whatever name you want. But if you want your video to reside in the library (with access to all the extra goodies) you'll have to scrape locally your .nfo

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=115052 message #2 and link

[ipsofacto]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, PatK.

I have my movie dvd scraping set up and it works well (VIDEO_TS). Adding a bonus feature DVD is not much more trouble. Getting TV Shows to populate correctly is more complex, and while scraping with TheTVDB.com works in large strokes, there are some gaps.

Example: I have seasons one and two of The Muppet Show on dvd (four discs per season). Using the correct naming conventions (sxxexx.. in combination with the REGEXP addition to the AdvancedSettings.xml) I am able to populate XMBC with the season and some special features (using s00exx appended to the folder name). Now, on disc four of season two, there's a music video featuring Weezer that doesn't show up in the specials (and the series is locked on TheTVDB.com).

The possible solutions I have come up with, are:

• Do nothing -- some things just fall through the cracks
• Make a custom .nfo file for the special feature(s) in question, and use this in tandem with the auto scraping -- the file would be named VIDEO_TS.nfo and contain one or more simple <episodedetails> entries -- unfortunately, your post suggests that this will not work
• Handle my TV Shows like I handle my bonus DVDs: set up a separate folder where I use ViMediaManager (I'm on a Mac) to look up the metadata and then custom edit -- unfortunately, I don't think ViMM likes the VIDEO_TS format, so the only scraping I get is the tvsho.nfo, poster.jpg, fanart.jpg, banner.jpg, and that's it. It doesn't 'see' my Season or sxxexx folders, so that's a bummer. Do pc media managers handle VIDEO_TS folders any better?
• Make XBMC handle the initial scraping, then export my library, find the .nfo in question, then edit/add the information, then *brain asplodes*

How would you handle this, given that you have to use VIDEO_TS folders?

-g-

[PatK]

If i's missing from the TVdb and it's locked... I'd appeal to get it unlocked. I'm sure you're not alone... once added, this addition will be forever for those who scrape.

Doing nothing is not a plan... nothing should fall through the cracks, but it wouldn't be the first time I've labelled something with the -trailer or stacked multiples. I'm a bit lazier and do have a folder of singles that are not scraped. I use handbrake for the most part and convert to MKV I don't have any iso or video_ts files