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typo · 2013-01-24, 17:53

I'v been using xbmc for a few week now. my process is to use files bot to rename my files/tv shows then place them into my share and have xbmc scan and scrap all the info. I recently started looking into a media manager software. Whats the incentive to using one if i get all the needed info from xbmc when it scrapes after using file bot to correctly name each file. My media is only being accessed from xbmc on my raspberry pi. All my media is stored on my windows pc on a SMB share.

Manticore · (This post was last modified: 2013-01-24, 18:00 by Manticore.)

If you cant think of a good reason to use an external media manager then why use one?

20 people can give you 20 reasons to use and to not use one. The question is - "What do you want it to do and can it be done natively via xbmc?"

When you know what you want it will be easier to get answers

typo · 2013-01-24, 18:29

Again since i'm only accessing my media via xbmc i dont need a lot of the bells and whistles a media manager has to offer. By scraping with a media manager will it allow xbmc to scrape my content faster?

Glorious1 · 2013-01-24, 19:21

As Manticore said, if you're happy with what you're doing, don't complicate your life with a media manager.

Yes, sure if everything is already scraped by your media manager, XBMC will scan in new media items much faster. It will already have the artwork and metadata in the NFO file, it won't need to do much more.

You seem to be asking what can a media manager offer that XBMC doesn't already do. Well, a lot of things. You may want to play with one to find out and see if it's for you. I don't know other media managers, but with the one I use (ViMediaManager), you can automatically rename media, folders and associated files according to preset patterns. You can control what artwork gets used when there are alternatives available for posters, for instance. You can edit the metadata such as plot, add actors and their images if they are missing. You can essentially build the metadata and artwork for movies that aren't in the databases, such as home movies. You can edit watched status and create movie sets. And just peruse your library in more ways than with XBMC. Lots of stuff.

fma965 · 2013-01-24, 19:34

If you have a raspberry pi and all your media is on NAS or something then it would be best to use a media manager and have all the movie/tvshow information on the NAS or USB rather than the slow SD Card in a pi.

>>X<< · 2013-01-24, 19:41

In simple terms its all about customizing your library exactly the way you want it as Glorious1 described.

Having local artwork nfo's also has a few advantages, if your running multiple machines from the same source they will all be identical in appearance, if something goes wrong you can just rescrape your library and everything's back how it was before.

If your happy with XBMC doing the scraping then you really don't need to use one.

**gabbott** · 2013-01-24, 19:41

(2013-01-24, 19:34)fma965 Wrote: If you have a raspberry pi and all your media is on NAS or something then it would be best to use a media manager and have all the movie/tvshow information on the NAS or USB rather than the slow SD Card in a pi.

A media manager won't accomplish that. XBMC always caches the artwork whether it's retrieved from a NAS or the internet, doesn't matter. Path substitution would be the work around for that type of problem.

FlashPan · 2013-01-24, 20:15

I guess the long and the short of it is...that if you wipe you pc, pi, mac or whatever the device you are using and use a media manager:

A: will not have to search/grab/download everything from the internet which "can" take hours. Everything is local which means faster scrapping
B: more control of which box cover, fanart etc you want
C: easier to manage "mis-scrapped" movies/tv shows
D: much less work if you run more than 1 xbmc device
E: easier to add in home movies
F: internet doesn't need to be running/working (see point A)
G: Enable to manually edit the data (nfo file)

Minus-es are: which ever piece of software you will use (eg: Ember) needs to be monitored and supported to communicate/connect to external web services to download the relevant info/pics etc.

Personally I feel that even if you have only 1 xbmc device it is still worth use a media manager, over time your collection will grow and so will your scanning/scraping time.

Cheers

**gabbott** · (This post was last modified: 2013-01-24, 20:25 by gabbott.)

(2013-01-24, 20:15)FlashPan Wrote: Personally I feel that even if you have only 1 xbmc device it is still worth use a media manager, over time your collection will grow and so will your scanning/scraping time.

Cheers

One thing to think about is the universal scraper has some flexibility that most media mangers don't have Wink

scanning/scraping time, if you have a large library, would only be long at initial scrape (a media manager would also need time to scrape that content as well as the media manager needs internet access). If you are re-installing your XBMC install there is the export/import library options.

Glorious1 · 2013-01-24, 20:32

(2013-01-24, 20:24)gabbott Wrote: One thing to think about is the universal scraper has some flexibility that most media mangers don't have

Could you elaborate on that a bit?

**gabbott** · 2013-01-24, 20:39

@Glorious1, sure... if you check out the settings of that scraper you'll find you can get pretty granular on setting what info comes from what site. You could get ratings from rottentomatoes, a plot outline from IMDB, the tagline from themoviedb....

typo · 2013-01-24, 20:42

Well i got a lot of useful information and started fooling with ember media manager.

Thanks..

Glorious1 · 2013-01-24, 20:42

Thanks, I never looked at that before, I guess because I haven't been using XBMC for scraping. Interesting.