[GJones]

I've looked around and found nothing. Please tell me if I missed the obvious reference somewhere...

I have a number of movies with special features. As I always use MKV files, the special features are separate files (not ISO, not VIDEO_TS structure). I am trying to determine the best way to store the special features. I'd love to be able to store them in a way similar to trailers. But at times there are more than one special feature file. TV Shows work this out rather well with season 0.

So here are my ideas with positive and negative aspects:

• Use video stacking - This is the easiest as I could just put them in the same folder. Unfortunately all of the useful information about the end time of the movie would be rendered useless and there would be no navigation from one file to the next.
  
• Use sets - I make a set for each movie with a hand-crafted NFO for each special feature. This will inflate the returns from a number of functions though and could be a maintenance nightmare.
  
• Use TV Shows - I could make a TV show structure for each movie with special features. I would then hand-craft an NFO for each special feature and link the TV Show to the movie. I don't see where this helps me at all, really and it would screw up my TV Show Listings.
  
• Just use Video Files - The staus quo. I have a special features folder with a folder for each movie beneath it. It's not intuitive and you never know what if there's a special feature for a movie based on information from the movie itself, you have to go to videos and check it for yourself.
  

So this leads me to the last option - build. I am a developer but have done no development in XBMC. I am wondering if it would be possible to build an addon that would allow you to right click on a movie and see all the special features for it.

I'm not asking about modding a skin (I use several) to add a special features button. I'm asking if it is possible to add items to the context menus for movies that are maintained strictly in an addon. If so, I will likely start coding.

Any helpful nudge in the right direction would be appreciated. Any comments telling me it's a pointless endeavor would probably be accepted but not as appreciated.

[wannabegt4]

Just use sets. Ember Media Manager can do this for you very easily.

[GJones]

I'd rather not have them than have to use sets, honestly. I'm familiar with EMM but I'd still end up doing a lot of manual work to portray them as a separate movie when they are not.

[Magic815]

Sorry for bumping an old-ish thread, but this is EXACTLY what I'm trying to figure out how to do.

Do you guys think this would be something we should post in the "Feature Request" section? Or is something like this already being developed?

I'm a huge movie buff, who enjoys watching the special features on my movies. I would love a way to get these special features "linked" to the movie page similar to how trailers work now.

This is the one feature that is holding me back on making the jump to XBMC.

[jmarshall]

@GJones - I missed this thread earlier. Basically, this could perhaps be done in a script, and it could probably be done purely using skinning as well.

I think it would better be done via general support for this in the core by extending the trailers feature to allow multiple videos. The trailer button could then be renamed "Extras" and it'd pop up a dialog with trailer,special feature 1, etc.

It would require a little bit of work. One way that wouldn't be too bad would be to replace the storing of a single URL in the trailer variable (m_strTrailer I think it is in CVideoInfoTag) with a list of URLs encoded in a string. That would mean you don't have to actually do much in terms of altering the database. eg you could store them using a stack:// URL perhaps, or some other similar system. It'd be better to store an XML structure of this however - that way you could tag each special feature with what it was (i.e. give it a title).

Cheers,
Jonathan

[agent154]

I would really like such a feature too. Haven't seen anything obvious that does it, unless I'm blind and just missed it.

The way I envision this working best (albeit it may require re-working the backend too much) is that when you select a movie that has any "extras" attached - be it a trailer or any special features, opens up a second menu list with the main movie being at the top listed as "Movie" or something like that, and then the named special features underneath it.

[thrak76]

Check out this thread

So far, this works really well, if a bit convoluted because of the use of tvshows for movies.

jmarshall's idea of extending the trailer button into a dialog would be cool too!