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Indexing and flagging offline removable DVD Video discs in the library database?
#16
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.
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#17
blittan pretty huge work there Wink 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
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#18
ultrabrutal Wrote:blittan pretty huge work there Wink 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.
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#19
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?
Hardware: Revo 3610 + SSD - Harmony 700 Remote
Software: XBMCBuntu Gotham - Sickbeard - SabNZBd+

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#20
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......
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#21
spiff Wrote:that being said, why dont you just buy another hdd, they are dead cheap these days......

lol yeah I know, but throw this back at me for being cheap Tongue
Hardware: Revo 3610 + SSD - Harmony 700 Remote
Software: XBMCBuntu Gotham - Sickbeard - SabNZBd+

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#22
spiff Wrote:that being said, why dont you just buy another hdd, they are dead cheap these days......
For me it's more of a time thing rather than disk space. I have a lot of movies which I dont watch very often, but would still like to keep them in the library just in case. If I do decide I want to watch one of those movies I just replace the dummy iso with the real one keeping the same name. Its all the same to XBMC, dont even need to rescan the library.
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#23
Here's a scenario for why XBMC displaying offline DVDs would be handy... I either don't have the HDD space or the personal time to rip my entire DVD collection to the hard drive; however, I would like my family and house guests to be able to search through my *entire* media collection (online and offline) to find something that interests them -- and XBMC's library is a whole lot nicer than having to stroll around to the various DVD storage cabinets spread around the house.

Some short-term workarounds...
  • Rather than using an empty file as the placeholder for the offline DVD disc, I can use some short, small homemade video clips instructing the viewer that the selected media is a DVD not stored online... and could go so far as to have several different clips for each DVD storage location in the house. ("The DVD disc you have selected to play is stored in the main Living Room entertainment center.") Extra credit for also noting DVDs that have been loaned-out.
  • Find a relatively simple/automated way to overlay some graphic (disc, house) onto media thumbnails associated with offline content, providing a visual cue that a given title is offline.

(Need to look into the PC-based XBMC library managers to see if they already have these features. Such PC-based applications could have much more flexibility in creating the dummy video files, based on specific status text associated with each DVD. e.g. "stored at yada", "loaned to Mom & Dad", "loaned to Steve K. three years ago and the rat bastard is yet to return")
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#24
plooger Wrote:Here's a scenario for why XBMC displaying offline DVDs would be handy... I either don't have the HDD space or the personal time to rip my entire DVD collection to the hard drive; however, I would like my family and house guests to be able to search through my *entire* media collection (online and offline) to find something that interests them -- and XBMC's library is a whole lot nicer than having to stroll around to the various DVD storage cabinets spread around the house.

Some short-term workarounds...
  • Rather than using an empty file as the placeholder for the offline DVD disc, I can use some short, small homemade video clips instructing the viewer that the selected media is a DVD not stored online... and could go so far as to have several different clips for each DVD storage location in the house. ("The DVD disc you have selected to play is stored in the main Living Room entertainment center.") Extra credit for also noting DVDs that have been loaned-out.
  • Find a relatively simple/automated way to overlay some graphic (disc, house) onto media thumbnails associated with offline content, providing a visual cue that a given title is offline.

(Need to look into the PC-based XBMC library managers to see if they already have these features. Such PC-based applications could have much more flexibility in creating the dummy video files, based on specific status text associated with each DVD. e.g. "stored at yada", "loaned to Mom & Dad", "loaned to Steve K. three years ago and the rat bastard is yet to return")

See my post above, I have some scripts that do essentially what you're describing.
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#25
I just use Windows Movie Maker. Just add a title screen with some text (i.e. Please Insert Dics XX), save as wmv and off you go.
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#26
Putting aside, for the moment, how to integrate "Offline content" browsing in XBMC... what are the various methods in use or available for cataloging (documenting) one's DVD collection?

I've seen comments on...
Any others out there, or feedback on the above?
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#27
If you're using a Mac I find that Delicious Library is pretty slick in that it allows you to scan in your DVD's using an iSight camera.
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#28
There are so many suggested approaches to how this can be solved, so I figured I'd might as well toss another idea in here and see what comes of it Big Grin

If xbmc could display offline content in a darker gray font it would easily be identified as such. This concept could be used in Video library mode to indicate a movie stored on DVD or even a computer which is currently turned off.

I currently store all my media on a loud, power-hungry file server and don't have a particular problem keeping it all online. However, due to the power requirements and the price of electricity in California, my monthly utility bill is quite high and I need to rethink how I store it all. My current server draws about 400 watts which is excessive with the advent of silent "green" hard drives that draw something like 10 watts while in use.

So I was considering buying multiple external hard drives with a built-in RJ45 (network) plug and only turn on the drives I need.

Say I have 4 external hard drives with IPs

192.168.10.31
192.168.10.32
192.168.10.33
192.168.10.34

A background process could ping the 4 IPs, and when in library mode the color of the title of a movie (white vs gray) would easily identify which movies were on servers that were reachable. A toggle could also allow for an easy way to switch between Online / Offline / All media, similar to the current Watched / Unwatched / All selection.

If this was possible I would probably store my media in the following way:

server 1: television seasons we have watched
server 2: current television shows
server 3: movies we have watched
server 4: movies we have not watched

I could then get away with only keeping one of the 4 servers online at any given time and do my share to stop global warming Cool
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#29
aaronb Wrote: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.

Hello,

I'm would like to test your script. In fact I have 1200 DVD, offline collection. Each DVD has a number (they are stored in a DJ Case). When I select a movie with XBMC, I would like to show a test like 'please insert disc number xxxxx.

Thank you for your help.

Regards.
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#30
Been doing some reading/experimenting with how to manage my Offline video collection (both DVD and, yes VHS tapes); Like some of you, I have taken a excel spreadsheet of my offline inventory and created dummy files, but with a slight variation to what has been mentioned so far - I use a filename structure of:
"Movie Title"."Media_Type"."Index".mpg

For example: "Mr and Mrs Smith.DVD.201.mpg"

I store all these dummy files in a folder called "Offline". I then added the Source folder and scanned for movie information...accuracy was fairly decent and it did not seem to be bothered with the additional information.

The next step for me, is to investigate modifying the GUIInfoManager.cpp to add two new InfoLabels ('Media' and 'Index'), which will have their values set by substringing the Filename stored in the database; then I would use these new 'labels' to modify the skin so that when I search through my library I can see exactly what type of media it is and where to find it (possibly replace the 'rating' information, which I personally do not find useful).

Just a thought.....
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Indexing and flagging offline removable DVD Video discs in the library database?1