.nfo files?
#1
Im kind of confused as to what the .nfo file is for... from what I have gathered on here... I think it makes the scraping for library information faster. Is this correct? If so... how do i make .nfo's for my movie library? could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial?

thank you.
Reply
#2
step*ur*game*up Wrote:Im kind of confused as to what the .nfo file is for... from what I have gathered on here... I think it makes the scraping for library information faster. Is this correct? If so... how do i make .nfo's for my movie library? could someone point me in the direction of a tutorial?

thank you.

The use of nfos is generally for advanced users and is not needed by most people. In a nutshell nfo files are a way to do one of the following:

1. Export your video library to a (mostly) version neutral format that can be re-imported into XBMC. This is useful for example if you are upgrading from an older version of XBMC that has an incompatible database schema (has happened form time to time although it is not common). This also might come in handy when you are doing a clean rebuild of the OS or whatever and want to start with a fresh install of XBMC vs restoring from a backup.

2. Share the video library built by one installation of XBMC with other installations. The "master" installation would be used to regularly export and refresh the nfo files allowing the other installations to directly import them without having to perform remote scrapes for metadata. This is not needed so much anymore now that XBMC supports a central database, and there are other ways of doing this that frankly work better for most people.

3. The most common use is to allow you to use an external program to actually manage your metadata and let xbmc use the resulting nfo files instead of doing remote scrapping. This requires 3rd party software to actually create the nfos.

4. You have a rare item of media that has no metadata available for it from any of the supported metadata sources. In this case the only good way to get it into the library is to create an nfo for it manually.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Imp...rt_Library

My advice would be that if you want to use XBMC's built in library features don't worry about nfos except as a form of backup and maybe for number 4 above. The only reason to use them otherwise is if you want to use 3rd party software to manage your libraries.
Reply
#3
Thank you... so far I have been updating my library by simply puting .jpg folders labeled folder.jpg and fanart.jpg. I think I read that this speeds up the scraping process and will help it you have to re-do ur library on xbmc... this seems to be working for me. I was just wondering if I was missing out on something by not having the .nfo files. Ur explanation helped me a lot.

Thank you again.
Reply
#4
They can also be used to tell the scraper exactly what your movie is.
If you put in the imdb url for your movie, the scraper can not get the info for the wrong movie.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
.nfo files?0