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[MrGlasspoole]

Hi there from Germany

First let me introduce myself and what I'm looking for.
Through some audiophile stuff research i saw MC and that you can use LAV and madVR with it.
So i thought i give it a try.
The think is that i don't have a great experience when it comes to Media-Centers. I tested what
is out there but not MC. The last years from time to time i gave XBMC a chance and always
was frustrated after waisting days/weeks to find out that most of the functions i am looking
for are not viable.
The problem with most of the database/MC software is that you fiddle more around do get the
functions you want then you do enjoy movies or music.
So I came to the conclusion that i stay with Foobar, MPC+LAV+madVR, the windows explorer and
just drag & drop in there what i want to watch/listen.
Sure, putting allot of time into it would not be a problem if the result is what you want.
But if this and that cant be done its just time waisting.

I don't understand why 1000th of people find XBMC so great. I don't like all the fetching and
automatic stuff and in XBMC it's so hard tied to the core that it's hard to bypass and making
sure that your movie stuff (description, name, cover) stays like you want it and everything
is consistent.
I also don't like folder scanning and the need to give my folders and movies special names
that the MC fetches them or handles them right.
I never understand the video, music, picture folder thing cause allot of content does not fit
in one category.
So i want to name and put my files how/where i want and add them one by one (something MC does).
Thats what a database is for - you have fields where you can name everything like you want.

Almost all database softwares are tied to one special topic (games, music, movies...) and field names
are hard-coded in the GUI. Why not let the user change how it's displayed in the GUI?
Often there are not much custom fields or you can't add your own...

My dream is a database for everything. Something where i can add fields, put stuff in categories and tag them
and have a frondend/GUI for the big screen that you can control and navigate with a ir/rf remote.

The other thing that XBMC is missing is some kind of good parental control.
But let me explain. Lets say you have adult movies and actor images and lets say the actor did show up
in a child movie and an adult movie . Then you want in the actor description a nude image of that actor
if YOU browser the movies and a civilized picture for all other peoples.
You just need the option to create differed user groups/rights and to associate different pictures with an actor.
Then you only need a checkbox for every picture to select which user group can see it.

Now i think i need to defuse the "just" and "only" cause a don't want to make down (is that the right phrase in english?)
the developers/programmers work or want sound smart ass.
My world is CSS, HTML, SQL, JavaScript and in forums/CMS you can do stuff like that since years.
I know how to do all that in ExpressionEngine but have no clue when it comes do C# or software programming.
I can assign multiple images (screen capture, covers) or videos (trailers) to one entry cause i can create
as many DB fields as i want, can name them as i want, can give them names for the GUI and it doesn't matter
what the name of the file on the hard-drive is, cause there is a field that just points to that file.
For example: http://odenwaldsport.de/produkte/barbell-hooks-hantel-haken-om148
Nothing is hard coded. I can add another video or picture and how and where it is displayed is just a selectbox.
I made a field for everything (description, price...) and how they are displayed is changed in a minute in the backed.
If there would be a login on that side i just would make a selectbox (field) named group with all the groups next to each image.

Is what I'm looking for not possible or all my needs differ so great from others that it doesn't exist? - i don't know...

Ok, i think its enough complaining and i don't want to sound negative and maybe get on to many peoples bad side.

The reason for the topic: My personal "Help me setup MC"
is that maybe its ok to ask all my questions in one thread?
I don't like to open a new one for every question with superscriptions.
I like to have everything in one place to not lose sight...

The first Problem is TV Shows on DVD. Normally i have iso's but looks like particles work only
with video_ts folders. So i extracted a SpongeBob DVD and used "auto create particles" and
that gave me ifo file type entries (not vob?).
The problem is that they stutter or play to fast and are not jump-able (video seekbar).
Its not a JR problem cause i checked it in MPC and there it also doesn't work if i open the
vob files there. If i open the whole DVD (video_ts) folder and select the episode from
the DVD menu then everything is ok.
I remember i recognized that before on some DVDs and has to do how the authoring is done.
So what to do without using MakeMKV?

The next thing is that i don't get how the listing is managed under libraries.
I added a movie and have now a messed up tree like in the first attachment.
Attachment two is an example i did some years ago when i was using
eXtreme Movie Manager and is an idea of what i want.

Is there something for Actors info (sex, birthday, picture...)?
Actor by sex would be nice...
Sorry but i need to strike out on this again.
An extra library for actors would be good.
But not just for actors. Something for people (actors and music artists combined).
If you look at Helium Music Manager you can store allot of artist infos (HMM is great as music manager and looks clean and sharp).
The thing is there are celebrities out there who make music, play in movies and maybe you have also music videos from them.
Maybe you have pictures of some (playboy ) - just a link on the actors info side to the folder with the pictures?
The other thing is that some have aka names...

And there is another software that i used for some time for games that i want to refer to: SoftCAT from FNProgramvare.
Not longer under development cause the developer is sick.
But it has a nice clean GUI and is maybe good for ideas.

Ok, enough for now.
Please bear with me if there are spelling/orthographic mistakes or if something sounds harsh (it is not meant like that).
If there is something like that then its because I'm german and my english is that way.

EDIT
I played around a bit and I'm amazed.
You really can create your own fields, name them and show them in "List Style > Details"
Maybe for old-time JR users it is nothing special but let me tell you that it is not to be a given.
In some software you have some amount of custom fields and then there are just text fields.
So if i want to mark something "Indexed" for movies that are not allowed like Cannibal Holocaust
i had to always type "yes" in that field.
Now i just made a simple check box...
Also i made something that i wanted for a long time: ToDo
Sometimes you need ToDo something an a certain movie.
So a ToDo check box that i can list the movies where i need to check something
and a ToDo Notes (text field).
In XBMC i i never figured that out...

Now, how can i make a Icon on the left side that i can click and shows me all indexed
movies and one for ToDo?

[6233638]

That is a lot to get through.

1. Perhaps you want to configure your views first, but it is recommended to use Auto Import with Media Center rather than manually adding files - it has a lot of configuration options, and once set up, is very useful.

2. As long as you disable "use parent scheme rules for file display" a view can display files of any type.
I don't think it is possible to rename or remove the overall "Audio, Images, Video etc." headings.

3. I cannot help you with particles, I rip to invididual MKV files using MakeMKV.
 
4. It is not clear to me what you are trying to achieve in your library views.
It seems that you want to navigate in the tree more than the main view, but I don't know exactly what you are trying to display.

Media Center is very flexible in this area, especially when you start using the Expression Language
Here is a view which displays item by decade for example:


 
Configuration:

 
The "Decade" category uses the expression:
 

Code: (Decade) [Select]

FormatDate([Date,0],decade)
5. I don't think there is anything which automatically populates actor information, though you can create your own fields for it.

[MrGlasspoole]

Damn, it always happens
You write or edit and at the same time somebody answers.

Yes navigating in the tree is what i prefer (like in Helium or eXtreme Movie Manager) - see my fat edit.

Edit
Thanks, the decade think is a good starting point.
But:

Code: [Select]

Decades
--All Decade (2)
--1970's
--1980'sHow to get rid of "All Decade (2)" cause its the same like "Decades" and does not make sense.

[6233638]

FYI you can also create users which are restricted from viewing content that you have tagged a certain way.
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Users
The functionality is a bit limited just now, but works to prevent the kids viewing inappropriate content.
 
 
For your "ToDo" list you could either use a custom field, or tag them with the keyword "ToDo"
Then create a view which only displays items that contain the keyword "ToDo"
 
 
To display all your movies, I would make sure that they are tagged with the [Media Sub Type] of "Movie" (I think it should be automatic, but I have an auto-import rule which sets it for my movie directories) and then create a view which only displays files with that sub type.

[MrGlasspoole]

Again I edited when you gave an answerer.

OT: Are there many believers here? The first word in my last post does change automatically *lol

[6233638]

How to get rid of "All Decade (2)" cause its the same like "Decades" and does not make sense.

I'm not sure. There is an option to hide "All Items" in Theater View, but I haven't seen it for Standard View

[MrGlasspoole]

Ok, its not the same. It was looking like it is cause i saw the covers from
the two test movies. But the text under the covers is the decade if you
click "All Decades".

Edit
Ok, time for the complicated/hard stuff: People
Hard stuff first to see if MC is the solution.

People don't belong to just one thing like movies, music - they can do allot of stuff.
So there needs to be a root element "People":

Code: [Select]

People
--Alphabetical
----A
----B
--Director
--Producer
--Writer
--Musician
--Photographer
--Band
--Orchestra
--ArtistIn eXtreme Movie Manager you select a person and you get a list
of "movies in database" with small covers and a short description under all the other
persons infos. You can see if the person is the director, writer, actor or everything
of that movie. Sure you can click the movie and jump to it.
Some person info is: picture, name, birth name, sort name, birth date, death date,
birth place, bio, filmography...

Most stuff i would put in there by hand cause it will never change.
For my needs it would be enough to scrap filmography and death date from time to time.
I would prefer IMDB.
I saw an old thread with a IMDB discussion and that it costs money for commercial projects.
But eXtreme Movie Manager also scraps from there and is not open source or free?
I think it costs money if you use there data for example on another website where
the service cost money? What i have on my PC is not commercial and 1000th of people
visit there site to read. I mean on the traffic side it makes no difference if i open there site
in Firefox and download the content or scrap it in another way?

To make myself sound smart :
You don't need to add producer, director or actor for movie xyz to the person.
We just need this fields in the movies. There you add the person to the right field.

By the way: I cant find a field for what role the actor played in a movie? The search did show nothing...

And for ideas (if it doesn't exist in MC) do a "xbmc actor info" google image search.
But the theater view and how it looks is second to me.
First i need a good DB to organize my stuff.
And hurry up cause time is money and i have just 30 days to find out if i buy JRiver

P.S.
I had allot bad experience the last 17 years i use the web when it comes to support with free/open source stuff.
For something that can do what i want i would pay ~200 bucks or something.
People are funny. They pay $100-1000 ore more just to see the time on there wrist, for MP3Players, shoes...
Women spend $100 for a haircut *lol
But software needs to be free. Linux fanatics always bring up the point that Windows costs money...

[6233638]

Ok, time for the complicated/hard stuff: People
Hard stuff first to see if MC is the solution.

People don't belong to just one thing like movies, music - they can do allot of stuff.
So there needs to be a root element "People"

Go to Tools → Options → Library & Folders → Manage Library Fields…
 
Add a new field (I called it _People so that it would show at the top of the list, and be unlikely to conflict with anything else) and set it to use calculated data.

In the calculated data field, you can use this expression to combine as many fields as you want to include.
Unfortunately, ListCombine() can only merge two lists at a time, which makes things complicated.
I've split this expression onto multiple lines in an attempt to make it more comprehensible, which means that you must use the expression editor window to enter it.

Code: (_People) [Select]

ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
ListCombine(
[Actors],
[Director], ;, ; , 0),
[Producer], ;, ; , 0),
[Screenwriter], ;, ; , 0),
[Musician], ;, ; , 0),
[Photographer], ;, ; , 0),
[Band], ;, ; , 0),
[Orchestra], ;, ; , 0),
[Artist], ;, ; , 0)&datatype=[list]
Each item you add (or remove) requires:

Code: [Select]

ListCombine(

<existing expression>

[FIELD], ;, ; , 0),


Now you can create a new library view, setting the top view as

_People with grouping enabled and set to 1 for an alphabetical list.
The second level would be _People without the grouping option, so that it actually lists their names.


I don't think Media Center pulls most of the other information you are looking for. (actor bios, roles in a movie etc)
To be honest, I don't think most people care that much about it - they would just visit IMDB. You can add a link to IMDB in the tab bar that will search for the currently selected item.
 
 
 
[/list] ← Ignore this, the forum software gets confused and adds it.

[MrGlasspoole]

Ok, on the left side (where the action window is) i have now
People
--A
--B
--and so on

Now in the middle i had on top again a alphabetical list on top
and below a list with the names.
I made a right click on the alphabetical list on top and "remove this category".
But this also removes the second level _People entry in customize view?
So how to i make it to just view the names in the middle and just A-Z
on the left side without a tree listing all the names if a click a a letter.
Disabling "support tree browsing" disables also showing A-Z.

I think a picture shows it best (attachment).
Getting rid of the red stuff and blue is where i like to have some columns with other info.
But until now i did not find where i can add artist infos like in Helium Music Manager or
eXtreme Movie Manager.