HOW-TO get my Home videos, documentaries etc into the XBMC video library
#1
A common complaint, especially amongst those that have migrated from other applications is the relative inflexibility of the XBMC Video library.
While it does some things brilliantly, such as presenting your movie or TV show collection, it lacks somewhat when it comes to user generated content or off-beat fetishes (home made soap operas anyone?).
This is not going to be addressed in the near-term (see Jonathan's plans for a library rewrite), so until then the following, relatively easy procedure can be used as a workaround.

For the purposes of this example I will use Home videos, but the basic premise holds for any type of content you want to add to your video library and not mix with the existing movie, TV show and music video content.

What we are going to do is to create a second user profile to store library data for the type of content you wish to separate from your movie, TV show etc content and switch between it and the master profile (containing all your 'regular' media) transparently.

1.) Note that this tutorial assumes that you are using the default Confluence skin, I would suggest that you switch to it before going any further.
Also make sure that the location of your home videos is available as a source before you begin (called 'home videos' below).

2.) Go to Settings, press right to have a sub-menu blade pop up -there select Profiles and proceed to create a new profile (via add profile.. let's call it Home). Let us go with the defaults, inheriting Media Sources from the default profile and separate media info. Just press OK when prompted to Browse for folder.

3.) To switch between profiles we will create a custom keymap, the letter b on the keyboard doesn't seem to be used much.
Create a text file called keyboard.xml, containing the following:

Code:
<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <b>LoadProfile(Home)</b>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

This simple keymap change, tells XBMC to use the b key to switch profiles. Put this file in the keymaps subfolder of userdata

Similarily create another text file called keyboard.xml, containing the following:

Code:
<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
      <b>LoadProfile(master user)</b>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>

Put this file in the keymaps subfolder of the profile folder (userdata\profiles\Home\keymaps).
If you use other control methods to operate XBMC such as a remote, this procedure can later be adapted to that. But that's beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Alernatively you can add buttons to the Home menu to switch between the profiles, a good tutorial can be found here.

Now we should have two profiles you can switch between at will using the b key.

4.) Now on to populate the video library of the Home profile with all your home videos.
Let's say you have n video files from two different vacations (2008 and 2009) and you want to create a category for each in the movie library node of the new Home profile.
The video files are stored in a folder called 'home videos' with subfolders called v2008 and v2009, the filename of the first file from 2008 is v2008-001.avi, second v2008-002.avi etc.

You create an nfo file for the first 2008 vacation file (again this is just a simple text file). Call it v2008-001.nfo (it's imperative that the nfo filename matches the video filename).

Code:
<movie>
  <title>Arriving at the destination</title>
  <set>Vacation 2008</set>
  <year>2008</year>
  <tagline>2008-01-07</tagline>
  <plot>Arriving on location, only to find that there is no one to pick us up.</plot>
</movie>

This data can be extended to include anything supported by XBMC.

Now repeat this for all the video files in your collection, making sure to include the correct data (year etc) in the appropriate nfo files.

5.) Proceed to set contents on the 'home videos' folder as you would do with any other folder. Choose Movies and any old scraper (just the one you use normally).
Check 'Run automatic scan', 'Scan recursively' and select OK, XBMC should read all the nfo files and populate the library with your media.

After a while when you feel comfortable with the profiles and have the one button switch working to your liking, you can disable the login screen in Settings- Profiles.
Then the only way to switch will be via the one button action (until you re-enable the login screen).
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#2
One presumes that the profiles (and keymapping) trick is being used so that your home movies are not distributed among the actual cinema-released movies. Nice trick.

How do you get to the profile though - do you alter the keymap for the master profile as well?

Regarding 3: It should instead be named keyboard.xml and put in the profiles/Home/keymaps folder. If this doesn't work we need to fix it Smile

Cheers,
Jonathan
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#3
jmarshall Wrote:One presumes that the profiles (and keymapping) trick is being used so that your home movies are not distributed among the actual cinema-released movies.
That's the idea, yes.
jmarshall Wrote:How do you get to the profile though - do you alter the keymap for the master profile as well?
Step 3 above is actually twofold, to switch back and forth.
jmarshall Wrote:Regarding 3: It should instead be named keyboard.xml and put in the profiles/Home/keymaps folder. If this doesn't work we need to fix it Smile
Be my guest Wink
http://www.xbmc.org/trac/ticket/7723
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#4
This sounds great! Really needed a special library for all my children series and movies! I am going to try it out! Thanks!
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#5
How I do it is to label my home videos with their own genre. Another thing you can do is to not input them in the library and switch library mode off, then navigate to their source folder.
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#6
Without library there is no point to the tutorial, is there? (I hope most people can figure out to put home videos in a separate folder.)
This is guide is intended for the anal of us, who want everything structured and shiny!

With a genre, they are mixed with movies in titles.... and I would just HATE that Wink
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#7
sho Wrote:Without library there is no point to the tutorial, is there? (I hope most people can figure out to put home videos in a separate folder.)
This is guide is intended for the anal of us, who want everything structured and shiny!

With a genre, they are mixed with movies in titles.... and I would just HATE that Wink

would it be a easy 'hack' to opt a single genre out of the normal Movies list ? like the files i'd want in a 'home misc videos' list.. i'd also hate to see those mixed with Movies in "titles view".

For example i have alot of standup and documentaries i'd like to browse in a seperate list (just like Movies are now). If I could have a "if $genre != mymiscvideos" then display all the Movies with genre other than mymusicvideos.. and then have another where I do "if $genre == mymiscvideos" to display the others.. would that be possible ? If yes.. how ? :$
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#8
going a bit further with my questions..

does the current "Movies" link on Home screen have any SQL somewhere which I can change ? does it do for example "select * from ..." when grabbing Movies from the lib? If yes that should make it doable to add a "where genre not 'standup'" ?
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#9
I wonders why there isn't a 'filename' scraper that can be selected to generate titles and info based on filename and/or path.
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#10
Wimpy, neither are possible as far as I know, but in theory at least you should be able to have a skin element load a profile (and have that profile start up at a certain location, say videos - movies - title)

The secondary profile could store standup as movies and documentaries as TV shows (or vice versa).

TeknoJnky Wrote:I wonders why there isn't a 'filename' scraper that can be selected to generate titles and info based on filename and/or path.

Someone made one, not sure how it works
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=45215

This also springs to mind
YANG
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#11
I think I'm getting what you're saying, but if you have a screenshot, it might help to crystallize it in my mind...

Wink

Any chance you can post up a few screenies of "here's what it looks like when you have two or three custom sections loaded up"?

(Thanks, in advance!)
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#12
There really is nothing to see.. you will not see anything new onscreen.
Basically you are just switching to another instance of XBMC, but it is done transparently (if you disable the login screen).
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#13
Ah. I re-read the above posts, and think I have it now... By creating the custom key (currently not a used key - as that would be 'bad') you can switch back and forth between your "Movies" and your "Home Movies". (And since nobody else has said it, allow me to be the first to say "Home movies, wink wink!")

Now, I haven't looked it up, but I'm assuming you can create more than two User Profiles, so is it safe to assume that if you have multiple (more than two) profiles, you can duplicate this so that you could have multiple Film Types? (i.e. "Home Movies", "Kids' Movies" and "Movies")

I think - correct me if I'm wrong, that you would need to create ANOTHER custom key to jump TO the new selection (if you're already using "B" for "Home Movies") - is that right?

I didn't read it - but I'm assuming the "b" and "slash b" in the code in step three isn't "Bold", it's the key combo, correct?

Aye, I think I'm confusing myself now. Thanks in advance!
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#14
Hey I do make Home Made Soap Operas (it even has a spiff sock muppet villain).

Yes, you can make n profiles.

<b> is the key, yes.
Yes, if you want it could become a nxn matrix of keys to switch back and forth, making things pretty complicated pretty soon.

But ideally this would be done via remote, where you have effectively unlimited possibilities (on a "real" one with a programmable display)
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#15
-------------- 1)

not sure what I want needs another profile.. I'm just not too familiar with the current db setup etc.

With 350+ full lenght standup shows I'm sure you can understand why I wouldn't want to mix them with "normal movies"..

I just "need" another "set content"-category called Standup (with the same scrapers as Movies), which i can open using a link on Home menu called "Standup".

Am I way off here or is this possible somehow ?

-------------- 2)

What would be amazing is a DB setup where after opening "Standup" from Home menu it would list Standup Comedians as a list:

Bill Maher
Billy Connolly
Eddie Izzard
Ross Noble
++

After entering for example Eddie Izzard it will list all standup shows in DB that's linked to Eddie Izzard..

I guess it's just too much to ask devs to add this if it's not possible with the current database setup, but I'm sure more people would like this in a future update Smile

EDIT: I know I can just use the Video Sources atm to access these files but the reason for the question(s) above is that I'd like to be able to add cover, year, comment etc on them and put them into the without mixing them with the "normal movies" DB. (Just to clarify)
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HOW-TO get my Home videos, documentaries etc into the XBMC video library2