I want a "My TV" section (with a separate database)

rock,
i've requested this several times but it has not received a warm response. here's my work-around...

i use the activewindow calls to directly send the window to the specified video section (defined in xboxmediacenter.xml )

i use the buttonscroller so the code is using that but you can use the regular buttons... you'll get the idea.


inside xboxmediacenter.xml :

Quote: <video>
<bookmark>
<name>movies</name>
<path>f:/movies</path>
</bookmark>
<bookmark>
<name>tv shows</name>
<path>smb://office/tv</path>
</bookmark>
</video>



<homebuttons>
<button>
<description>movies</description>
<label>movies</label>
<execute>xbmc.activatewindow(25)</execute>
<icon>104</icon>
</button>
<button>
<description>tv shows</description>
<label>tv shows</label>
<execute>xbmc.activatewindow(6,tv shows)</execute>
<icon>119</icon>
</button>
</homebuttons>

hopefully sometime soon we would be able to create our own screens using whatever method we want, until then we are stuck create half-baked work-arounds

thanks for replying.  i'll have to learn about activewindow calls and the buttonscroller to know how to implement them.  i'm pretty new to xbmc.  does this allow two totally seperate views that aren't tied to each other?  also, can i have multiple shares with the same bookmark name?  (ex. my movies span across my d:,e:,f:,g:, and h: drives)

i tried making a submenu like someone suggested, but the problem there is that it works off of the myvideos db and when i get the submenu view setup like i want, my vidoes defaults to the same view (which is no good for browsing my movies) unless i change it again.  not to mention the fact that my tv shows are ripped in dvd format so my filing system looks like c:\seinfeld\s01e01 - pilot\video_ts\video_ts.ifo.  this means that in file view i can get a listing of the series names and then click on one to see the list of epsiodes, but i can't just click on an episode to play it i still have to click on the video_ts folder to open it, then navigate to the video_ts.ifo file and click it to start the show.  this is anything but user friendly.

i am surprised that xbmc doesn't have more flexibility.  i would think that the database would be able to handle pretty much anything.  i have worked with meedio quite a bit and you can do anything with it's db.  it will give any views you want with whatever file structure that you have.  all you have to do is supply a tag mask.  also, you can add completely new categories to as well.  

also, i'm surprised that anyone would say that a seperate tv section is not needed until there are some ties to pvr.  why?  what does a pvr have to do with it?  i don't use a pvr at all.  all my tv episodes have been ripped from dvds.

edit: just to make it clear, i am new to xbmc and there may very well be ways to do this. i'm just truying to figure it out.

i agree with seven5. there needs to be a tv episode section. specifically, i think it needs it's own database. those of us who rip their dvd's into the standard dvd format (ifo's and vob's) find the traditional file view quite un-user-friendly since we need to click all the way down to video_ts.ifo file. switching to title view is preferred, but once you mix movies with tv episodes it loses it's effectiveness. i have around 160 movies along with about 200 tv episodes on my server. i would have to scroll through all those episodes just to find a movie. consider that all the episodes from one series (say seinfeld) will have the same icon, and it's easy to see where the whole list of videos becomes quite a mess.

imho movies are handles perfectly in title view. xbmc needs an additional area for tv shows that can be viewed something like this:

click on tv episodes button to go to a view that shows easch series (seinfeld, cheers, south park, etc.) along with an icon/pic for each. click on a series and see a list of episodes for that series. here, users should be able to highlight an episode and hit info to view the episode summary (tv.com could provide the data) or select the episode to begin playing it.

i don't think it even has to be a seperate button on the home page. i think it would be fine if you went into my videos and then had a button for tv episodes. so long as they are handled seperately and could have independent views.

just my $0.02

it could be a completely different way to go about it. rather than say seeing the simpsons episodes you have you could browse by simpsons episodes that exist. get sysnopsis and extra info on that episode. play the episode if you have it or tell emule/bit torrent on your pc you want that episode. depending on how interactive it is you could even see the progress of that downloading episode.

it could be a cool one stop shop to watch your favorite shows and easily fill in the missing parts.

(rockdawg @ aug. 08 2005,00:45 Wrote:click on tv episodes button to go to a view that shows easch series (seinfeld, cheers, south park, etc.) along with an icon/pic for each. click on a series and see a list of episodes for that series. here, users should be able to highlight an episode and hit info to view the episode summary (tv.com could provide the data) or select the episode to begin playing it.

i agree this would be ideal, but of course after clicking what series the season list should appear, since like the simpsons consist of 17 season x 24 eps it would make a long list...


although this would be a great feature it seems far fetched. i dont think enough people watch tv eps on xbmc for it to be such a huge feature. and it would take a lot of work i would assume... maybe a better solution would be a option for the my video part of xboxmediacenter.xml so you could set how xbmc should treat each share, like a movie share or a tv share. then it would grab information from tv.com instead of imdb....


just a thought...

imo a my tv section would be a great addition to xbmc. jslawler is currently working on a tv guide for xbmc which is coming along quite nicely (there is a thread about it elsewhere). in the future i could see a suitable home for his work in a my tv section. i think the key to doing something this big would be in realizing that it won't come over night and it will take time to develop something like this.

i think a good starting point would be creating the windows for the section and getting the basic file system elements working disregarding anything fancy at first. so you would essentially have a my tv button on the home screen and the ability to freely roam local and remote shared directories.

once that is in place someone could experiment with different methods of media management and implement the "scan" feature to create a database of your tv media and supply a few different views. those of you who were around when all the changes were going on with different views in videos and music will remember this took time and it went through a few different phases before we ended up with our current views (which are perfect imo!

realizing that it doesn't stop there, i think it was spiff who was writing code to get info from tvtome, now tv.com, i could see this kind of feature being added at this point. not sure how exactly this would work and distinguish one season and episode from the other. we might need to establish a file naming convention to make it work properly, but there's a lot of other work to be done first.

i could see the tv guide being developed by jslawler finding a happy home in a my tv section after everything else was done. the reason i say this is if there was enough interest in getting live tv in xbmc to the masses, there could potentially be interfaces with other projects like mediaportal (extremely friendly to beginners all the way through advanced users) and mythtv. there are already a few python scripts out there that establish this kind of connectivity, but i think it is time for live tv to make it's way to the masses through being a default feature!

the above features will be a lot of work, and this would be a rather huge project, but when you put everything into context and look at everything xbmc can do now that it couldn't do 6 months ago, this project would need developer interest more than anything else and it could be a reality.

i have spoken to jslawler about possibly developing a my tv section and he has expressed interest in it. :kickass: please realize this will be a huge project and it will take more than one developer to make it a reality. also, i wouldn't expect the official team to make something like this a priority as there is still more work to be done in other existing parts of xbmc. this means this would be a great place for anyone with the skills to start coding for xbmc, especially if you really want to show off what you can do in hopes of being asked to be an official developer! if you have the skills and want to start working on making this a reality, please get in contact with me, you can email me at "los93sol@aol.com" or just send me a pm.

regards,
los93sol

(los93sol @ aug. 20 2005,21:48 Wrote:not sure how exactly this would work and distinguish one season and episode from the other. we might need to establish a file naming convention to make it work properly, but there's a lot of other work to be done first.

i think there is a simple solution to this. epguides.com uses standard season end episode numbers, not like tv.com which names episode one of season 2 as 25 (if there was 24 eps in season 1). then you could just filter out everything but the numbers from the filename, so that s02e01 becomes 0201 and then remove the first digit if it is a 0. then you have 201 which is what epguide uses and they link each episode to the correct tv.com ep info page so it can easly be retreaved.

i would love to help anyway possible but my programming skills are limited (only read java :/)...

Quote:i agree this would be ideal, but of course after clicking what series the season list should appear, since like the simpsons consist of 17 season x 24 eps it would make a long list...

then you could have it so that when you clicked on a show it takes you to a list of the seasons, then click on that to see the episodes for that season. actually, either method should be available to the user.

Quote:i dont think enough people watch tv eps on xbmc for it to be such a huge feature.

i disagree. they are putting almost every remotely known tv show on dvd. they are doing this because their tv dvd's are huge sellers.

i actually use xbmc 99% of the time to watch tv shows, i've watched maybe 3 movies on it ever. in fact one of the deciding factors in even getting an xbox and later having it modded was knowing i could then view all my simpsons/family guy/xfiles/etc.. episodes in another room.

yeah i mainly use xbmc for tv series as well, i just didnt think that it was bigger than the movie users....