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[tcman41]

I am now trying to use j.river to catagorize and play my 80 hd movies. so far i have been able to use media companion to scrape the movie posters and ifo files for the movies, it inserts the actual files into the individual movie folders and then i import the movies into j.river.

After importing i now have a poster thumbnail being displayed for each movie and if i click on it the movie plays, great so far. the questions are is there any way to link the movie .ifo file to the j.river database or into its tag fields so i then may display it with the thumbnail if i wish. if not then do i have to manually type in genre, cast members, duration, etc for each movie thumbnail?

One additional question, my movies are on the upstairs computer and i wish to share them to the downstairs computer which is connected to my big screen hd tv. I am not trying to stream the movies i just want to be able to access them on the upstairs hard drive on the downstairs computer and have the database info the same on each machine, is this possiable?

Thanx
TC

[glynor]

After importing i now have a poster thumbnail being displayed for each movie and if i click on it the movie plays, great so far. the questions are is there any way to link the movie .ifo file to the j.river database or into its tag fields so i then may display it with the thumbnail if i wish. if not then do i have to manually type in genre, cast members, duration, etc for each movie thumbnail?

Unfortunately you have to Tag the files manually.  A bunch of us have been agitating for some kind of automated way to pull details from IMDB and/or TV.com for quite some time.  A few other HTPC front-ends have these capabilities and it is sorely missed in my MC.

One additional question, my movies are on the upstairs computer and i wish to share them to the downstairs computer which is connected to my big screen hd tv. I am not trying to stream the movies i just want to be able to access them on the upstairs hard drive on the downstairs computer and have the database info the same on each machine, is this possiable?

Yep.  This is easy!  Simply install MC on the downstairs PC.  Then on the upstairs PC, put your "library" in a shared network folder.  The "library" is MC's term for the database (by default it is in your Documents and Settings folder, but you can create as many as you want or move move them wherever you want under File --> Library --> Library Manager).  Anyhow, put that on a network share and then point the downstairs PC's copy of MC to load that library.

Obviously the files in the database all need to "live" in the same place for all machines that use the library.  So if the computer upstairs has all the files imported in C:\media\ then it won't work.  If they're on a network drive (M:) or imported with UNC names (\\upstairs\media\) then you'll be fine.

To prevent conflicts, the way it works is that the first copy of MC to open a particular library "locks" it.  All subsequent copies of MC running elsewhere on the network can open the library, but only in Read Only mode.  This keeps multiple copies of MC running on the network from trying to update the library at the same moment and causing corruption.  Unfortunately, there isn't yet a way for the "Read Only" mode computer to "request" full access from the computer that has the library locked.  You have to actually close MC on the Read Only machine, walk (or VNC) upstairs and close the "Full Access" machine's copy of MC, and then walk back downstairs and re-open the downstairs copy of MC.

This is only a minor issue for me as I typically only use MC on one machine at a time.  If I do use it on more than one, I'm typically only "tagging" files on one machine (while my wife watches something out on the HTPC).

[tcman41]

thanks glynor:

I imagined enough that tagging videos would have to be done manually but wasnt sure, thanx.

I do in fact have the same version of the software on both computers and in the past have shared music, i was just concerned that sharing huge hd movies would present huge lag times. I am still digesting your 2nd answer and will give it look see later.

Thanks

TC 

[Temeryx]

Hey tcman41, I think in your first post you meant .nfo files not .ifo files.  I only bring it up because I think using the .nfo files from a program like Media Companion would be a great way for Media Center get data for movies and tv shows without having to scrape data from IMDB or TV.com.  The .nfo files are just xml files, so I think it would be fairly easy to get the data.

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but your post made me think that might be a great way for JRiver to easily allow us to get extra data about our movies and TV shows.

   

[tcman41]

Hey tcman41, I think in your first post you meant .nfo files not .ifo files.  I only bring it up because I think using the .nfo files from a program like Media Companion would be a great way for Media Center get data for movies and tv shows without having to scrape data from IMDB or TV.com.  The .nfo files are just xml files, so I think it would be fairly easy to get the data.

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but your post made me think that might be a great way for JRiver to easily allow us to get extra data about our movies and TV shows.

   

agreed, media companion movie data retrieval is brilliant, must be some way to port it into j.river....

[glynor]

I do in fact have the same version of the software on both computers and in the past have shared music, i was just concerned that sharing huge hd movies would present huge lag times. I am still digesting your 2nd answer and will give it look see later.

With a Gigabit network with a fast drive in the file server, you'll be fine.  I even load my library regularly on my laptop via an 802.11g Wireless network.  That does tend to lag just when you first click "play" on a big video file, but only for 3-10 seconds and then it seems to work okay.  The wired gigabit network is completely fine.

Now, my file server media volume is a RAID-5 volume.  I used to use it with a single disk though and it still worked okay.

[tcman41]

Cool, my computers are on a wired gigabyte lan and the media is on a new 1 terabyte 7200rpm hard drive.

TC 

[flac.rules]

Unfortunately you have to Tag the files manually.  A bunch of us have been agitating for some kind of automated way to pull details from IMDB and/or TV.com for quite some time.  A few other HTPC front-ends have these capabilities and it is sorely missed in my MC.

I agree, I also want som more features in the way of getting info from imdb or similar. As it is now I would use MC in addition to meedi. It still misses a few features to be a fully flegded media center on its own.