Listing series which have been copied onto a dvd (1 Viewer)

[Inker]

With purchased DVD's I wouldn't even know how to detect what episodes it contains. I guess one could get the series info from the volume name, but how would the plugin know what vob file is what episode? And what its 2 vobs, or three. What if they are not one/vob per ep but on vob contains several episodes, or half of one and so on?

If you just want to catalogue what you have, without it being able to start the episodes directly, than you can just simple put a bunch of fake, 0byte avi files into a "these are on dvd" folder. Just create a new text file and name it soemthing like: Series 1x01.avi.

 

[potfish]

I agree there's no obvious way for the plugin to scan a DVD to see what's on it, which is why being able to edit the database directly would be superb. I'm using the My Films plugin using data from an ANT catalogue and that works great - links to the file if it's on the hard drive or prompts me with a disc number if not. In the meantime I'll try your suggestion.

Cheers
Martin

 

[Dadeo]

Well, no, no progress, sorry.

Why don't you guys just add your dvd drive to the watched folders and untick the option to clear references when file is not found? I haven't tested this, but it should work.

I know its not perfect (has to be the same driver letter everytime) and you don't get a nice "please insert DVD" popup, but its better than nothing.

Bobb25, would your really insert all those 230 dvds one by one just to have them catalogued? What if you can't get it to recognize a filename on the dvd?

Just to give you some feedback, I tried your idea to add the DVD drive to the watched folders and utick the clear references.

It does work, but I have to put the DVD in the drive first, then I have to force a local scan for it to pick it up. Otherwise the Series does not appear on the menu.

Not exactly elegant, but it does play the episode file and you do get all the great info and interface!

 

[Bobb25]

Well, no, no progress, sorry.

Why don't you guys just add your dvd drive to the watched folders and untick the option to clear references when file is not found? I haven't tested this, but it should work.

I know its not perfect (has to be the same driver letter everytime) and you don't get a nice "please insert DVD" popup, but its better than nothing.

Bobb25, would your really insert all those 230 dvds one by one just to have them catalogued? What if you can't get it to recognize a filename on the dvd?

Eish, hell no What i would like, is a flag or something (like a little DVD Icon or something) that you can manually add to an episode (tick box or something) in the My TVseries setup screen. If it allowed you to create phantom eps and then allow you to mark backed up eps, that would rock. IE: you can get It to download the show and season information you want, then you manually go into the series data in the setup and tick the backed up to DVD box and even though there is no actual file on the hdd linked, it will still show in My TVSeries, but with that little DVD icon next to it, and when you click on it, it just pops up an info screen saying: 'Insert DVD dumbass..." or something like that! Then you are responsible for making sure you know which dvd has what eps... rather than putting the info in for every backed up dvd... which in my case includes some HIDEOUS file naming! lol

Sounds like a lot work when i sound it out At present, whenever i back something up, i have a placebo avi that i put in the folder to replace it, then i rename the avi so MY Tvseries thinks its an actual episoded... the avi just plays "Insert relevant TV DVD" when you click it.

Messy and time consuming... but it works.

 

[Ryoga79]

<quote>IE: you can get It to download the show and season information you want, then you manually go into the series data in the setup and tick the backed up to DVD box and even though there is no actual file on the hdd linked, it will still show in My TVSeries, but with that little DVD icon next to it, and when you click on it, it just pops up an info screen saying: 'Insert DVD dumbass..." or something like that!</quote>

I agree with this idea. i don't necessarily need to have the ability to actually "scan" each disc, as long as there's some way i can download an entire series/season and then just mark them manually as "offline". Once they're marked, the plugin can just automatically know to look in my DVD drive for the episodes.

My only problem with doing the "scan the disc and unchecking the 'remove automatically' box is that when i actually remove files from my server and back them up to dvd, knowing me i'll probably forget to remove those "online" episodes from the database, and i'll end up with lots of "phantom episodes"....

 

[runarius]

How about adding a little checkbox in the 'import paths' view. If the path is ticked, then all episodes that is in this folder will not be removed. Then the user could just add his dvd-rom to the path and tick the box, and voila, it should work perfectly, I believe.

 

[Ryoga79]

I think this may, from a coding perspective, be the easiest way to implement this solution. Just make it so that "E:\" for example, is "immune" to auto-deletion. Sounds like a good way to do things to me.

 

[runarius]

yes, I believe it would solve the problem for all users.

 

[Bobb25]

I think this may, from a coding perspective, be the easiest way to implement this solution. Just make it so that "E:\" for example, is "immune" to auto-deletion. Sounds like a good way to do things to me.

except, alot of people have series that are backed up with terrible naming conventions... and pushing 200+ dvds through the parsing will take waaay too much time. Surely just manually adding a series + season + episode and ticking the episodes as backed up would be easier?

IE: a button to add series which u click on, then a pop up for the name of the series, matches to online data and pulls the seasons down for that series and adds to database.... then you manually go in and set all the ones u have backed up by ticking a "Backed up to DVD" tick box or something? Then even though it doesnt have an actually file linked... it stills shows in mediaportal since that box is checked and when you click it it has a popup in mediaportal that Says "Insert DVD"

 

[Inker]

Frankly, I fail to see the point, but if its in such high demand than itll stay on the todo list. Furthermore, its nice that it'll pop-up insert dvd, but then what? show a list of all files on the dvd and start it that way?

Such a feature won't be in the next version though. I'm already running way late with with the other stuff, mostly views are kinda giving me a headache especially with the setting up option. I thought it was ready but it just doesn't quite work yet. So I first want to get that sorted and release a new build before moving on.