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Author Topic: Series and movies on more than one DVD  (Read 4628 times)

aclind66

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Series and movies on more than one DVD
« on: February 03, 2012, 04:07:21 pm »

Hi guys. I need your help regarding movies which are on more than one DVD. I use Media Center 17 and I prefer to see all my movies when I open "Video". I only have action movies and I cannot see any reason why I should split it up in "year", "Thriller" eg. For series and movies on more than one dvd I would like to do the following: I only want to have one cover for each movie and if you click on a cover which consist of more than one DVD, you will see a list of all the DVD`s the movie consist of. I know this is possible in other Media Center programs but is it also possible in Media Center 17? I have not been able to find anything about this on the internet.
I know you can merge the movie together with MKVmerge GUI, but I do not like this solution. I would appreciate if someone could help me, eg with some kind of tutorial or a link.

Cheers Allan
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2012, 05:11:39 pm »

You could setup those DVDs as "Shows" and assign an episode number to each Movie on the DVD. Then you get the cover for the DVD and whn you click on it (open it) you get all the other Covers/movies.

I do this for Box Sets - such as A&E Adventure Collection (below), Benny Hill, Band of Brothers, etc.



Then when you open the "Show/Series" you see the contents.  You can name "Shows" anything you want ....  Does this help you?

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aclind66

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2012, 08:12:10 am »

Hi CountryBumkin.
Thank you very much for your ansver. It is something like this I am looking for. I just do not know how to set it up. Could you help me with a little more info who to do this. Thank in advance.

Allan
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MrHaugen

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2012, 09:28:55 am »

This is a kind of Box set feature that some have been requesting before. I would love to be able to group up my movies that is part of a series, into one item. And the ability to drill down to a second menu to view the info for this movies. It is not possible to do in a perfect way today, but there are approaches that work. Sort of.

I would start of by giving the movies the same series name. You can use TV Shows, Album or create your own string field library field. Then you'd have to customize a theater view view. And set the items to show like this: Name, Album. If you're using album with a common title for the media files that is.
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2012, 10:15:07 am »

Here's my current set up for Movie Box-Sets. I'm sure there are other ways too. NOTE: I switched from using "Shows" as stated above back to using "Movies" as the media sub type (now that I found a few new tricks)

First setup the file properties in Standard View > Video >Files view. Make the files/movies a media sub type "Movies". Give each movie a Series name and an episode number for each (for sorting).
So if you wanted the Bruce Willis Die Hard collection to show under one movie cover, the Series name would be "Die Hard", then each movie would have an episode number: "Die Hard" = episode 1, "Die Harder" = episode 2, etc. Make the Season = 0 (so you can distinguish these "series" from other movies you don't want to show).

This is the Theater View when you click on "Movies"


Then the "Movie Box Set" (call it whatever you want) looks like this:


If this is what you want - read on ....
Set up you files liek I described above (here's a sample screen shot):



Behind the scenes: Go to Tools>Options>Theater View:
Add an new Library Item under "Movies Tab". it will be called "New Library Item" (rename it as you desire). I called it "Movie Box Sets".


Go to Edit box and add "Series" (this is so it will only display Series of your choice (and the media sub type is "Movies" so this won't mic in you TV Shows):
Then go to "Set Rules for File Display" button. Add the modifiers shown below:
 

Last step (if you want) is to tweak the "Info box" shown when you select a movie. this is found under "tools>options>theater View>Customize Info Panel. You can add movie date, Mpaa rating, etc. I like to add "Watched" to the indo panel.

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glynor

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2012, 02:12:29 pm »

I know you can merge the movie together with MKVmerge GUI, but I do not like this solution.

I actually went through and did this with all of my old movies that were split (for storage on optical discs) a few months ago and I'm really glad I did.

It solves other problems too... Like playing the files seamlessly from Theater View (now that you can't as easily "Play All" in a Movie-only view in Theater View).

Might be worth reconsidering this, rather than going through all sorts of Library reconfiguration to accommodate these files.  Simply remuxing the files using MKVmerge is pretty quick, and the process didn't take that long on my end.  Of course, I had less than 30-40 affected movies or so to deal with, and I ended up just deleting about half of those and re-ripping them with better settings anyway.

If you have hundreds to deal with, the pain could be pretty bad.
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AVTechMan

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2012, 09:35:02 pm »

CB, you the man! :)

Something like this is exactly what I am looking for (at least until a better solution is found via the MC developers) to deal with my movie boxsets. Method may not be perfect but it will work nicely for the time being.

I'm using my laptop to do all the experimenting and MC configuration to get it how I want. Once done then I will backup the library and import it on my main HTPC and the one in the bedroom. Will save me lots of time in having to reconfigure each machine, with the exception of the i5 since its the only machine with the GTS 450 and will configure it for ROHQ.
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ldoodle

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2012, 09:32:00 am »

Simply remuxing the files using MKVmerge

How does this handle the menu structure though (Scene Selection, Special Features, Audio Options etc). I rip discs 'as is' so merging them I would have only one of the discs menu's, which would then only know about that discs scenes?
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2012, 05:04:14 pm »

When I use MKVMerge I am just taking two movies (like Gone with the Wind or Around the World in 80 Days (part 1 and part 2 which are on separate disks)) and combining them so the movie plays entirely without having to change disks/files. You append disk 2 to the end of disk 1. I don't keep the menus or extras so I don't know if/how you would keep these. i don't see how you could since you changed the disk menu structure.
Perhaps Gylnor has a different method/idea.
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preproman

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #9 on: February 29, 2012, 06:01:35 pm »

Here's my current set up for Movie Box-Sets. I'm sure there are other ways too. NOTE: I switched from using "Shows" as stated above back to using "Movies" as the media sub type (now that I found a few new tricks)

@CountryBumkin,

Thanks Man..

This works great.  This makes it all worth it.  I have a few questions.

I have 2 MC video stations that's only for video and 2 music stations that's for music only and 1 unRAID server where all the data (files) are kept.

1.  When I add the episode #, Season 0, and Series name to each file, it says saving tag changes.
If it saves the tag changes should'nt  I be able to go to my other video station and the files already have the previously saved tags?  It seems to do this for my music stations.  Now I have to tag each one (same file) all over again.

2.  In theater view is there a way to display tags such as TrueHD, DTS-MA, DTS-HD, Dolby 5.1 / 7.1 in the descrition for each movie / TV Show somewhere?  
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preproman

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2012, 02:15:50 am »

@CountryBumkin,

Thanks Man..

This works great.  This makes it all worth it.  I have a few questions.

I have 2 MC video stations that's only for video and 2 music stations that's for music only and 1 unRAID server where all the data (files) are kept.

1.  When I add the episode #, Season 0, and Series name to each file, it says saving tag changes.
If it saves the tag changes should'nt  I be able to go to my other video station and the files already have the previously saved tags?  It seems to do this for my music stations.  Now I have to tag each one (same file) all over again.

2.  In theater view is there a way to display tags such as TrueHD, DTS-MA, DTS-HD, Dolby 5.1 / 7.1 in the descrition for each movie / TV Show somewhere? 
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MrHaugen

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2012, 02:25:30 am »

1. You should use a library server imo. Splitting up the library like you do is not a great and reliable way of handling the same media on different machines. IF the xml files for the video is updated on the unRAID, it should be updated on the other clients after a short time. You might need to enable some library fields as "write to tag when possible".

2. No, not in a nice way. You can add fields like resolution. You can probably find some info on the sound as well, but there's no nice way of showing the properties you like in the way you like. I've never noticed something like this at least.
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CountryBumkin

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Re: Series and movies on more than one DVD
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2012, 05:02:24 am »

As MrHaugen said, setup a Server-Client system so you only have one database to maintain. You can determine what each client machine is allowed to display/access from the server (only music. only movies, all, etc.). Of course you need to have the Server running whenver you want to use one of the clients. I leave mine on 24/7.
You can still make changes/updates on the Client machines which will udate the Server if you check the box "auto sync with server" and use "authentication".
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