[THRobinson]

So... let's see if I follow...

You export as separate files, which makes the nfo's and jpgs and that dumps it into your movie folder. So for each movie there will be I guess 3 extra sidecars, (nfo, poster, fanart).

If I were to format my C:\, reinstall Win7 and XBMC... when I start up XBMC, I simply click the folder and scan for new content and it will pull the information from those files? I'm not worried about watch status... I've watched everything I own at least once, I'm not even sure what the point of that feature is really.

Then when it scans it'll dump the data to the C:\users\user\appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata folder, then I can delete all those extra sidecar files?

I don't use the nfo files because they seem like a bit of a pain. If I have 1000 movies, I'm stuck with a folder with 4000 files in it. Plus it was my understanding that after the nfo was made, if you wanted to update it, it's not a simple right-click the movie and refresh, I'd have to go in and edit the file or recreate it.

But... if I can export, wipe the system out, reinstall, and simply scan and rebuild my database... then delete the extra 3000 files when done... that's not so bad. If it's faster than the Import... like I said, it was a full hour before it even started to copy the data over. Should have been done and ready way faster than that... I was thinking 10min to export, should be 10-15min to import. Not 2 hours.

[saitoh183]

So... let's see if I follow...

You export as separate files, which makes the nfo's and jpgs and that dumps it into your movie folder. So for each movie there will be I guess 3 extra sidecars, (nfo, poster, fanart).

If I were to format my C:\, reinstall Win7 and XBMC... when I start up XBMC, I simply click the folder and scan for new content and it will pull the information from those files? I'm not worried about watch status... I've watched everything I own at least once, I'm not even sure what the point of that feature is really.

Then when it scans it'll dump the data to the C:\users\user\appdata\roaming\xbmc\userdata folder, then I can delete all those extra sidecar files?

I don't use the nfo files because they seem like a bit of a pain. If I have 1000 movies, I'm stuck with a folder with 4000 files in it. Plus it was my understanding that after the nfo was made, if you wanted to update it, it's not a simple right-click the movie and refresh, I'd have to go in and edit the file or recreate it.

But... if I can export, wipe the system out, reinstall, and simply scan and rebuild my database... then delete the extra 3000 files when done... that's not so bad. If it's faster than the Import... like I said, it was a full hour before it even started to copy the data over. Should have been done and ready way faster than that... I was thinking 10min to export, should be 10-15min to import. Not 2 hours.

If you decided to keep the info, when you refresh, it will say that there is a local file and if you want to use it or scan from internet. So you will always have the choice. What is good about watched status is if your like me and you collect shows/movies and have multiple ongoing shows, thats how you keep track...anyways if you dont need it, thats fine. When you export if you dont want the actor thumbnails, make sure you say no to actors or it will extract them as well. I dont understand why people are so scared of nfo files, it helps maintaining library much easier. If you want to back it up, look into some sort of syncing software.