Preparing all my 'media' for Aeon?

I can't wait for Aeon "Stark" to be released, and after the arrival of my second 1TB hard drive I have been reorganizing my media. I have a lot of HD content (movies and TV Shows), but some is still SD. I have all of my TV shows organized in folders by name and with each season in its own folder so that TheTVdb scraper can pick it all up. My movies, however, are in another folder, and each movie has its own folder labeled with its name and an additional resolution if the movie is high definition (ex Casino Royale (1080p).)I noticed in the screenshots that Aeon seems to be able to understand HD vs SD content:



I can't actually tell with this picture if this is Library mode or not since it actually displays the file size, but with the poster are to the right it looks like it is. If this is Library mode do I need to change anything with my folder structure and naming conventions? I like how it says [HD] next to the high definition movies, but I would actually like it to be more specific. If it had nothing next to standard definition movies but added a [720] and [1080] where appropriate that would be great. The movie dates and file sizes are nice as well. I don't know how much of this is already integrated, but some clarification would be great. I don't know if Aeon will do this automatically or if each movie will need to be customized, but if Aeon has or will have this functionality then I'd like to start organizing my media library accordingly in preparation.

That is file mode not library mode so his files are named like that.

though there is a script that does a similar thing but it edits your tbn files.

TOG

You're probably better off looking at general XBMC tips as Aeon only extends the functionality that's already there. So provided your movies are titled so they can be scraped properly you should be fine. You could do much worse than use XBMC Media Companion, for nfos if not for thumbnails.

Here's a tip, though. If you want to be best prepared, make sure all your movies and shows have thumbnails 1080px in the vertical and are absolutely pristine quality. And give all your movies fanart, of course.

Thanks for the information guys. djh, when you mention the thumbnails, where should they be (and what should they be titled) for XBMC (and your skin) to utilize them automatically when scanning for media?

When I scrape with imdb for my movies it pulls pretty high resolution images for most of my backdrops. Do you recommend those, or should I find better ones such as the ones in your backdrop packs?

TheTVdb also pull some high resolution fan art, so the same question applies for these types of media as well.

If I do have some custom hi-resolution fan art for my TV Shows and Movies, can XBMC be set to pull those local copies first and then bump back to the images from each respective scraper if a local image does not exist?

After putting some more thought into it I realized how much better the solution you two were providing me was. My questions above still apply, but I have a few more about nfo and tbn files. I have just been using the scraper to pull all of the information from my movies by the folder name (I like preserving the original file name so I know who the ripper was) so whenever I rescan my library I must manually edit the few that it gets incorrectly from the imdb scrapper. If I use XBMC Media Companion I can pull all of the same information from IMDB, but just once, and a local copy will be saved. Then any manual changes I make will be kept forever. How do I get XBMC to import the nfo and tbn information for my movies?

Rocky5 Wrote:That is file mode not library mode so his files are named like that.TOG

you still can rename titles in library mode..

R111 Wrote:you still can rename titles in library mode..

Grr, I was hoping for an automated approach. No matter, I like the local NFO approach, so I'm working on cleaning up my library a bit more before scraping with XBMC Media Companion. Still looking for an answer about how to import my files with the NFO data rather than via a scraper.

I make sure all of my movies have a .tbn and a -fanart.jpg. The xbmc scrapers are great because they can get the stuff but I am never happy with the posters they have. I like my posters to have no writing or at least nothing more than the movie title on there.

This:


VS this:


Aeon is clean I hate to muck it up with a bunch of text you can't even read. I also add the Full 1080p logo to all my movies I ripped in hd. I just stuck it down in the corner. Hopefully the curve of stark does not cut it off.

That's exactly what I would like to do. I just need to know what I need to name those files so that XBMC will automatically import all of that data.

Feel free to email me those pictures you attached at rickatnight11@gmail.com and I'll throw 'em up on my server so you can link them no problem.

here is an example (this is all in the xbmc manual and the aeon readme):

ironman1080p.mkv movie name
ironman1080p-fanart.jpg backdrop
ironman1080p.tbn poster

if xbmc has already picked a poster you will need to hit i(info) and at the bottom of that window there is a thumbnail tab and a fanart tab. you will need to scroll down, if you named them right you will have an option for a local thumb. if you have all your movies set with the tbn and -fanart when you do a fresh install xbmc will use the tbn and -fanart by default.