Indexing and flagging offline removable DVD Video discs in the library database?

bump...

I too would like an easy way to scan my offline dvd's into the xbmc library. Option to filter on online (nas, hdd) and offline (dvd, cd) would be nice.
Movies displayed in XBMC could have an "Offline" overlay over the icon when "show offline movies" are shown.

Extra fields to the database:
Offline bool (true for offline movies and false for online)
Location string (optional - a string stating a location
MediaNumber string (optional - a string stating the media number feks if you archive your dvd's like DVD0101 etc)

When pressing play on an offline movie the info in Location and MediaNumber is used to show a message asking the user to insert the DVD and when done so start playing it.

I have a license for DVD Profiler but lost my database long ago and didn't care to rebuild it. I might buy a barcode scanner for the purpose if import from DVD Profiler was ever done easily...

It's either this or rip all the 400 dvd's to my NAS (yikes!)

I know spiff left, but maybe some other dev would take on this task

My setup is similar to this. I have a couple hundred movies ripped, and a couple hundred still on DVD only. I've numbered the ones on DVD, and I use a somewhat messy hack to create dummy files for them.

Basically I have a spreadsheet with a list of all my DVDs and the corresponding number, and I run a script to create a jpeg for each one with white text on a black background that says "Insert Disc XXX". Then I use another script which calls mencoder to create a 10 second avi from the jpeg. So all of my movies reside in the same directory, and if it's ripped it just plays, and if it's a DVD it plays the avi which prompts me for which disc to insert.

I can post my code if anyone is interested.

I think UltraBrutal has the best take on this FR, as from a dev point of view it would need to be broken up into front-end and back-end changes to be made. It seems like the backend changes could be done with relatively minor dev time required, and I think they would allow an existing database to be used without issue or updated. Also, if we simply have these optional fields, it would allow changing the "type" of a record to be done easily. That way if you either rip something you have on DVD, you could keep all of the existing stuff for that item, you would just need tell XBMC its "online".

For the front end I think there would only need to be a few main changes, and those only to the database viewing stuff.
1-We would need to add options somewhere for viewing with and without offline media.
--I think that since the current view types are basically structured around various queries against the dbase, this would be pretty easy.
2-there would need to be a dual-state new button added to the "view item" window
--This would simply be a toggle that would say "make offline" / "make online" as appropriate.
3-The above-mentioned button would call a dialog box depending on which state was currently in effect.
--"Make Online" would need a "Browse To Media" filepath entry button, and OK and Cancel buttons. When you enter a path and hit "OK", the path is checked to see if its accessible (just like the Sources GUI does when entering new Sources pathes), and if it exists, that path + the Bool "offline" elements are written to the item in the database. Again as per the Sources editor, if the path isn't currently accessible, you should be warned but should still be given the option to proceed or cancel.
--"Make Offline" would need some simple text field entry controls, used to fill the optional tags for Offline items, plus again OK and Cancel buttons. When you hit OK, no processing would need to be done on the text inputm it and the appropriate Bool flag would simply be written to the item in the database.

For switching back and forth, if the extra Offline txt fiels or the Online file path !='', these elements should be retained and auto-filled into the dialog boxes.

just realized, the other thing that would need to be added: some way to parse records from the DVD-ROM. I guess this would neccessitate a context menu item?

No need to switch back and forth IMO. It's not as if it'd be a frequent operation.

IMO all that would need doing is storing the path as an offline path (using a special dvd url)

eg something like


That way it's "easy" to filter out the offline ones (though I don't see the point) and "easy" to format up an "insert disk" dialog.

Anyone wanting to do a patch might want to start as follows:

1. Allow (and detect) scanning of dvd based files, and configure the path in the database suitably (possibly prompting user for dvd name)

2. Handle the OnClick() system to prompt user for disk, then translate database into real path.

3. Handle any "special case" settings, such as disallowing queuing and so on.

Cheers,
Jonathan

what I have done (since I have quite a few DVD's offline) is that I made a simple movie saying "please insert disc" an put that into a folder, that way i could import it into the library, then I made custom thumbs for the folder with a small DVD overlay.

blittan pretty huge work there would be better spent implementing the overlays in XBMC to be viewed from flags.
a folder could contain a file which indicated that it was offline or you could have an xml file with all offline movies

ultrabrutal Wrote:blittan pretty huge work there would be better spent implementing the overlays in XBMC to be viewed from flags.
a folder could contain a file which indicated that it was offline or you could have an xml file with all offline movies

Hi All,

I'm a long time forum watcher and avid XBMC user......

I too have a large amount of ISO's which I keep offline. I create a blank text file and rename it to .iso so I can keep it in the library. Could the detection be based on a file with a size of 0 bytes meaning it is offline? anything with a file size greater than zero means it is online.

I agree with Smeagol, Detecting 0 bytes files to be considered offline is a good idea. I use the empty files for my offline movies and tv shows, that way the library is always complete.

And and icon overlay like the watched status might be a nice way to show that this file is offline.

I'm not a developer, but could this be done in the database? like the watched flag, when you scan the db and detect empty files the flag offline is set?

no need for any db involvement here - as you say assume 0 bytes = offline. there. you got your info saved.

that being said, why dont you just buy another hdd, they are dead cheap these days......