Posts: 132
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
3
2014-07-22, 23:21
(This post was last modified: 2014-07-22, 23:22 by apachehaovk.)
Hello all! 2 quick questions for ya if you dont mind.
1 - I have an xbmc media center setup with a few internal and external hard drives. I am upgrading to a new mobo, proc etc... and will be re-installing windows. Provided I have the drives with the media on them named EXACTLY the same and have them set to the same drive letters, I should be able to migrate the install correct? I would install xbmc on the new windows install, then copy over what folders from the old install?
2 - Certain hard drives are full and scrapped correctly. Is it safe to remove them from the files list to scan? I want to make refreshing content go faster and was wondering if by removing drives that are already fully scraped from the files menu will still keep what was scrapped?
Thanks all!!!
Posts: 132
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
3
Sounds good! Thanks a bunch PKscout!!!
Posts: 487
Joined: Jun 2013
Reputation:
21
In my view it is better to scrap your media info and then export your library metadata (nfo& jpegs) as separate files. In that way you end up with 'movie' directories containing for example film1.mkv, film1.nfo, film1-fanart.jpg, film1-fanart.jpg, film2.kmv, film2-fanart.jpg, etc and an .actors directory containing actor1.jpg, actor2.jpg, etc (for all actors within the films on a specific movie directory).
You do get a bunch of what some people consider extra and unessesary files but by using such a method, it makes it rather quick to wipe a system of all xbmc bits and bots and then reinstall a fresh xbmc. Simply add your movie directories with the scraping now pulling in your local files which happens very very fast in comparison to pulling in files from some remote possibly loaded web server... And as storage is relatively cheap, i am not concerned about the extra or unessesary files that concern some. It would be nice if such metadata could be inserted into the mkv file itself and xbmc could first look inside the container during scraping... after all it's a container file format so why not use the container?
Anyway, as a result of such local files, recovering from crashes, upgrade issues, etc is rather simple... If you want to keep your watched status, then this can be resolved by periodically re exporting the library metadata and replacing files that exist. When importing the metadata, a simple advancedsettings.xml file can specify importwatchedstate=true which pulls in such info into the database when scraping. Alternatively there are addons that can help to preserve watchedstatus which may be simpler to use but i haven't looked into them as yet.
So, simply export your library, rebuild your new htpc, install your advancedsettings.xml file and then add your movie directories within xbmc which scrapes your local files...
QED, and you don't need to care about the drive letter the OS assigns matching the sql database or about xbmc sql database version issues or upgrade issues in general...
Posts: 132
Joined: Mar 2012
Reputation:
3
Wait so is that a suggestion or is that something that can be done right now? Cause that seems WAY better