Can't get MP2 to display my movies/TV series (1 Viewer)

[Neoculture]

I have been a relatively happy user of MP1 for quite a while. My setup is a dedicated HTPC connected to my TV, a TV capture device (HDHomeRun) on the network, and a number of NAS holding my movies, TV series and audio files. And it all works fine... except it's starting to show some problems (TV-Series won't allow me to change view from "not viewed" to "all", MP1 doesn't restart automatically any more after Windows reboot, etc). It's all relativey minor stuff, but it's starting to annoy me enough that I am looking at wiping my HTPC and starting from a fresh Windows install.

Which got me thinking - why not give MP2 a try before I start the MP1 wipe/re-install process? So I dug out an unused laptop (It's my travel laptop... not much travelling in the last 2 years) and installed MP2 as client/server on it. TV worked like a charm once I set up the HDHomeRun software, so I proceeded to add one each of my Movie, Audio and Photo NAS drives to check how things work.

First of all, can I say that the Wiki does not make it clear the difference between Client, Server and NAS sources, and sometimes seems to require you to pick an option that is either not on the screenshot or is there twice as sub-options under two separate options. But I muddled through (I hope) and was rewarded (?) by percentage tickers in the Media Source Status screen. Eventually, all the tickers passed 99% and I was left with this:

Now what? The main menu does not show anything about movies or TV series - but there is a Local Media option which gives me this:

Not intuitive, but OK... except whenever I click on the Movie folder, I get.. nothing. MP2 shows the "please wait" swirly and never returns. Maybe I am doing something wrong (very likely), but I cannot find anywhere in the wiki that tells you how to go about playing videos or audio files.

Another thing that potentially will put the kibosh on my move to MP2 is the fact that each "volume" is listed separately. Will this continue as I add more Movie volumes? Since I have (for example) several NAS boxes holding movies, I would prefer ALL the movies to appear as a single unified "movie" volume, not split out over the individual NAS - which is something the MP1 MovingPicture plugin does already. Again, perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree but (again) I cannot find anything in the wiki to tell me one way or the other.

sooo... what am I doing wrong, and how do I go about rectifying it?

 

[ge2301]

Hi,

As you said, you seem at the wrong tree for many of the things you did Your screenshots look of course ugly and non-intuitive, but I guess it's easy to change that

1. Why are you using the skin from the screenshots? It's more a default skin as fallback. After installation "Nereus" should be selected. Alternatively also BlueVision with several themes (Win10, Titanium) or WMC can be selected, but the default skin offers only very basic functionality for low performance PC's e.g.
2. The local media navigation is something like a "folder navigation". you need to switch to library view (which is also default after installation, so you changed it). From your screenshot it should be "To server view", though Im sure it is "library view", maybe it appears in the other skins

Note: Most problems happen, because the files are not tagged or named correctly. My recommendation is to tag all files with tMM or MediaBuddy and import with only "local data", the match ratio is 100% for sure then. Otherwise the movies must be named with the imdb title and the year must be behind to allow 100% detection "{title} (year)". It's described in wiki.

Try 1 and 2 first and probably it already works then and also looks like in the release screenshots. I hope you also installed the 2.4 release and no earlier versions.

 

[ge2301]

@Neoculture could you solve your issues?

 

[Neoculture]

@Neoculture could you solve your issues?

Sorry for the late reply

Nope, but I haven't given up... just moved it asside for the moment. I like MP1 but suppor for it is flagging, MP2 is a contender but compared to the flexibility of MP1 (especially in terms of video file naming) it seems to be much more rigid (I may have read the documentation wrong). I don't feel like renaming 24TB of files because my naming convention doesn't fit the software's requirements.

Having said that, Flex at al don't do it for me either. Something's going to have to give and I'll have to make a compromise at some point. It'll just be which HTPC software gives me more of what I need with the minimum of changes required.

Dammit, I REALLY like MP1.

 

[ge2301]

MP2 is a contender but compared to the flexibility of MP1 (especially in terms of video file naming) it seems to be much more rigid (I may have read the documentation wrong)

I think you were on the fully wrong path according to your screenshots above. It's a backback skin, that is not intended for every day usage and missing many features.
File naming for media in MP2 is nothing special "Videoname (Year)", because many videos having several releases by year. If other software detects it w/o year it's not just a blind guess, but not a reliable software.

I don't feel like renaming 24TB of files because my naming convention doesn't fit the software's requirements.

That's not needed. Just install tMM and within minutes a nfo file with all infos is created within each movie/series folder. Then deactivate any online sources within MP2 and import. The import is quite fast then and everything is recognized without issues.

 

[Neoculture]

I think you were on the fully wrong path according to your screenshots above. It's a backback skin, that is not intended for every day usage and missing many features.
File naming for media in MP2 is nothing special "Videoname (Year)", because many videos having several releases by year. If other software detects it w/o year it's not just a blind guess, but not a reliable software.


That's not needed. Just install tMM and within minutes a nfo file with all infos is created within each movie/series folder. Then deactivate any online sources within MP2 and import. The import is quite fast then and everything is recognized without issues.

<ears perk up> tMM? I was looking for something to create .nfo files for all my movies/tv series... what's tMM? "Tiny Media Manager"? I tried looking for a link to it on the forum but no luck so far.

<edit> Never mind, found it at tinyMediaManager (I hope it;s the right one).

 

[ge2301]

<ears perk up> tMM? I was looking for something to create .nfo files for all my movies/tv series... what's tMM? "Tiny Media Manager"? I tried looking for a link to it on the forum but no luck so far.

<edit> Never mind, found it at tinyMediaManager (I hope it;s the right one).

Yes, thats the right one. It created nfo files and, if wished, also renames all files to a standard.
Within MP2 you need as mentioned just to deactivate online sources, so the available nfo files are taken into account. I also manage the fanart etc. with tMM.

PS: Install version 3! Version 4 is not free.

 

[Neoculture]

Yes, thats the right one. It created nfo files and, if wished, also renames all files to a standard.
Within MP2 you need as mentioned just to deactivate online sources, so the available nfo files are taken into account. I also manage the fanart etc. with tMM.

PS: Install version 3! Version 4 is not free.

Thanks. I'll play with it during the weekend.

 

[Timhoh1234]

Dammit, I REALLY like MP1.

Then you didn’t use Nereus Skin in MP2.
tMM does a great job in combination with MP2 it’s the best, if you ask me.