[calibos]

Don't get me wrong. Library mode is fantastic and most of my gripes with Library mode are limitations of the hardware or external databases. I just don't find myself using it that much. I am hopefull though that the work Spiff has put in will really come to fruition for me in the linux port. Even if its not spiff himself that does the porting or further development. He's the giant that maybe other people will be standing on the shoulders of.

[kzr1y2]

I only switch to File View to scan the files into the Library. I have observed that the other household members who use XBMC find the library easier to work with.

Greatly appreciate all of the effort put into this project!

KZ

[profhalo]

The Library is an amazing concept and under the right circumstances works wonderful. The problems I run into though are my collection size being WAYYY to big as many people have mentioned. I love using the info display in Library but some episodes and movies were wrong and I had to manually lookup a few hundred files myself. A good 20% of my tv/movie collection wont be found which would be ok if I could add info to and edit info in the database myself. Bottom line, I love the Library but I probably wont use it till I can get it working with most of my collection.

[RockDawg]

but some episodes and movies were wrong and I had to manually lookup a few hundred files myself.

Easy way around that is to create a .nfo file with the IMDB URL for the given movie. Not sure that it works for episodes yet though. Link: http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.ph..._nfo_Files

...which would be ok if I could add info to and edit info in the database myself.

You can directly edit the db. Link: http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.ph...base-files

[Rand Al Thor]

A lot of people are claiming to have issues with large collections and library. In my personal experience it handles my 2 TB+ of mixed media wonderfully. On the RARE occasions that it can not find info it is not difficult to add a .nfo for movies or to add content for a show to thetvdb.com Also, as was mentioned earlier, the library seems to be much easier for many people to navigate. Just my experience, cheers.

[tvdb-scott]

It's not about the file size of the items in your library. It's about the number of records in the library. SQL Lite does a horrible job with extremely large tables, especially with less than perfect queries. Spiff did a good job, but would be the first to admit that database design and query writing isn't his specialty.

I had another thread related to a better library design (seen here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=28482). I'll give a very simple breakdown of ideal behavior for the library:

Library sections should be able to be added/removed without changing the underlying code in XBMC. Each library section should be able to have any number of customizable fields, with a unique id being the only requirement. Plugins, scrapers, etc should be able to pull/push information into/out of each library section. Finally, the user interface should be able to link into each library section without modifying the underlying code.

This would enable plugins/scripts to create (or use existing) library sections for their own use. AMT-importer could have its own table that it would pull info into, while AMT-plugin would display that info so it matches the current skin. This would also allow multiple scripts/scrapers/plugins to work on the same data. So your main movie data could come from IMDB but posters/covers would come from impawards.com. TV data could come from TheTVDB.com while the TV schedule could come from TV Guide. Adding a section like music videos would be as simple as running the music video setup script, which would create the library section and (optionally) add the music video plugin to your video sources. This plugin would be called with XBMC.CallPlugin("musicvideo", "musicvideos"), where the first parameter is the plugin name and the 2nd is the library section. That would also enable multiple versions of the movie library (for each user, based on ratings), and things of that nature.

Obviously it would take a lot of work, but I really believe XBMC would benefit from something like this. It would open things up quite a bit for developers to be able to store dynamic information which other developers could then make use of.

[billyad2000]

The library features are what makes XBMC stand out from a lot of other media centres. It was on seeing it in action at a friends that persuaded me to get it.

I only use it for my video collection, but as a rule only general infos, I have about 1200 movies and as has been mentioned it can be very slow when performing some functions.

[punking]

I've used the library function for quite a while now and for music and movies it's nifty. But I do have a problem with the TV part, in fact I've stopped using it. It works well if the TV show is one that is mainstream and American because TVDB is quickly updated on those but anything out of the ordinary is a pain. You either have to create an entry on TVDB and if it's a one off documentary then that's not really possible. If your better half wants to watch something then she doesn't want to start trying to enter stuff into a website before it appears in the library.

Yes, you can edit the xml but that's fiddly and not user friendly. In my view for the library to function well there needs to be an easy way to enter a show into it. Either within XBMC or at the very least with an easy to ready editor for a PC that can transfer to XBMC. The link with the website is too tight. (For example at time of typing this TVDB is down so any new shows can be entered into the library).

Before everybody attacks me. I do like TVDB and its wealth of information and I think the XBMC development team do an amazing job I just find the way the library works (or doesn't) irritates me.

Sorry this was long and thanks for listening.