Movie Database workflow - suggestions for improval.

[Cojo]

Originally Posted by mzemina

Since you have 450 movies. How did you keep track of them before? Did you use some sort of catalog application or use a spreadsheet or database program or did you just manually write them down on index cards - or typed into a book?

Please note that I am not trying to be stupid or funny or mean, I just want to know how you have tracked them in the past?

I store all my movies on harddrives. One seperate folder for each movie. The folder is named the title of the movie. I want to be able to sort after name, category or if i have seen them or not. Thats why i want to use the db.
But scaning 450 movies is a real pain in the ass if i have to babysit the whole scan.

I like the sugestion from Cinetix.
In erlier versions it was quite fast to scan the movies when MP did't downloaded the actors info. What I want is info about the movie and what actors that stars in it. I don't need the pictures of all the actors and a list of all the movies they have been in.

And why does MP rescan all the movies when i press tha scan button? Why not make it just scan the movies thats not in the db and then add a new button named rescan if you sometime want's to rescan all the movies?

[Cinetix]

Originally Posted by Cojo

And why does MP rescan all the movies when i press tha scan button? Why not make it just scan the movies thats not in the db and then add a new button named rescan if you sometime want's to rescan all the movies?

The �rescan� is probably to keep the information updated but I would prefer manual rescan.

Is it possible to make a plug-in that scans what you ask for? Like: C:\Movies\<moviename>.<extension>
Then you could customize it: C:\Movies\<moviename>\*.<extension>
And then an option: “Movies are in folders� Checked or unchecked.
Then the stack problem will be resolved.
And another option: “Preferably use cover art in folders�.

[DrNick]

I agree! MP should only connect to imddb/ofdb on request. At the moment MP connects on every ditail view

I also prefer to define local coverart. At the moment i don't know which picture is taken to display. Folder.jpg seams not to work for my movies. if i name the coverart to the name of the movie filename also nothing happens. But i saw coverart with movie filename in the thumbs folder...

why can't i use the link to a file instead of on http adress? I don't like tracking by foreign sites in the web when i'am using mp oder browsing the database in the setup tool....

[moullas]

i think the most elegant solution would be to go without the DB...

Instead, find a way to store the movie info in an .xml file, let's say with the same name as the movie name, but with a different extention.

Then, all info for a movie are stored with it in the same folder. Another folder could be done to store all the actors, and just do a cross reference from the movie info to lookup the actors details.

This would bring
1) portability to the movies, since even if burned on cd and taken on another pc, the movie info would be available instantly
2) Fix for the "i have 3 pc's and want a central DB"
3) Fix for the "i've reinstalled MP or upgraded and need to update 450$@#$@#$@#$ movies"... AGAIN!
4) Allow for 3rd party application development to create individual movie updates (like the Album Cover Art Downloader for movie covers, but for movie info)

I have some programming bg to know that this is not that difficult to implement, however, i can't help with the C# code that is running now..

Hope this gets to see the light of the day!!!! (or at least enter the long term to-do list

See ya

[HappyTalk]

After a hard days SQLing I managed to completely move all the info from the 6 main tables as used for movie info by MythTV into the many tables of the MediaPortal database + Generated a script to rename the thumbnails and it all works PEFECTLY!

However I now have a database with 6,000 video entries (lots of music videos + divx movies, DVD's etc) and to load it up it takes over 1 minute. Once loaded in actual useage it works fine, but if you wish to select say a different genre again it takes another minute to reload. If you press IMDB on an entry to view the IMDB info, when you exit it drops back to the genre list, NOT where you were before so again it's another minute to re-view the list. This obviously makes it unuseable.

Having used SQLite with that SQLite Database Browser.exe program extensively in my mythtv migration, it seems very very fast in operation (inserts, joins, exports, searches etc) even with 6k records, so I can only assume that the database code is incredibly inefficient? I also notice there are no indexes used in the database. I'm going to try and add some indexes to see if it improves things, if not I plan to go in and check the code, (I planned to do lots of things but haven't managed yet).

[HappyTalk]

YIPPEE - I added the indexes and NOW the database works at lightening speeds!!! I'll collate my actions into a new post within the next few hours after more testing, on how to fix the database (and no coding required!!!) - I'll then see if it can similarly fix the music database.

[Lyxalig]

GREAT! 8)

[HappyTalk]

Hmmm looking into the database schema for the movie database some things don't make sense.

Why does the movie database have an idpath field, given that the file(s) location must be keyed off the files table that already has an idpath field.

Given that movieinfo is unique for each movie, why is that table not just merged with the movie table.

The movie table contains the discid used to prompt which dvd to insert BUT what if a movie is spread over 2 different disks, surely this field needs to be in the files table? (same problem issue for idpath)

It all looks over complex to me and certainly makes manual editing nigh on impossible. Personally I would have one main movie table with the movie/movieinfo fields merged. I would keep the files table containing full paths to the files with the discid field from the 'movie' table and the 'cdlabel' field from the 'path' table and drop the path table. The other tables all seem ok.

I originally moved all my movie info over from mythtv, so ensured it was all correct. Having subsequently imported new ones and edited a few others using the tool in MP configuration I realise it is now ending up a mess.

As I ONLY use the video DB for an offline DVD based movie library, I have created a simple SQL script to tidy things up and ensure database integrity so there is only one path entry per DVD that matches the movie.discid and each file contains the full path offset eg:
path.strPath='M:'
files.strFilename="\Simpsons\Simpsons.1x01.Pilot.a vi'

If you wanna do similar BACKUP YOUR DATABASE FIRST!!!, then run this SQL query from a file. Change from M: to YOUR DVD drive letter in last statement + ensure that you have properly set the discid's in the movie table like DVD#001,DVD#002 etc...

UPDATE files
SET strFilename = (SELECT SUBSTR(path.strPath,3,999) from path where files.idPath = path.idPath) || files.strFilename;

UPDATE movie SET idPath = SUBSTR(discid,5,3);

UPDATE files SET idPath = (SELECT movie.idPath FROM movie WHERE files.idMovie = movie.idMovie);

UPDATE path SET strPath = 'M:', cdlabel = 'nolabel' || idPath;

Remember this is intended only for a DVD based library.

[keith2045]

Originally Posted by elliottmc

It really is a pain to have to rebuild the database on all three machines periodically. Is it possible to have the databases stored in a file/folder where the shares are stored, so that they are automatically loaded.

Couldnt you just copy the database from 1 machine to the next?

[Netzdiver]

this tread is a littlebit out of time, but i´m also serching for a possibility to share the Database in the Movie / Mp3 / MP-TVSeries???

Somone finde a way to make it possible???

THX
Netzdiver