Moving Pictures Importer going silent on retrieving MediaInfo... (1 Viewer)

[Bernard]

I'm a first time user of Moving Pictures plugin. At first I thought it was broken, but then after a lot of trial and error, realised it is just not showing progress while busy at "Step 2" of the import process.

I opened the Config window of the plugin, and then started adding my Network Shares with the "Manually Enter Media Source" option. As expected the progress at the bottom popped up and showed "scanning for media.." (not sure of the correct wording). Then after it did that the progress disappeared an nothing happend. (Or so I thought).

After removing all entries and adding only one share with about 61 movies, I noticed it took about 2 minutes before the Importer list started populating and searching online for movie information.

Between my MP client and my file server, I have a slow 54kbps Wifi. I get about 2.6Mb/s when I copy files over it. So I can understand that I'm experiencing a longer delay that any other person with a faster wifi or wired connection.

I also noticed that when I disable the "Automatically scan MediaInfo" option it was a bit quicker to show the list of files, and start retrieving info online.

The purpose of this post is just to request that you add a progress bar that indicates that it is busy just to indicate that it is not dead. I have about 2 shares with another 160 and 200 movies, but because it takes so long, the process seems dead. The only way for me to get a hint that it is working, is to look at the CPU usage in Process Explorer (always +-5% while scanning).

Since using "TV-Series" plugin for a while now, I am quite fond of the extensive progress it shows with it's importing process!

 

[fforde]

You're right the feedback at that step is not so hot. It's even worse in the GUI when you force a rescan, the progress spinner doesn't pop up right away giving the impression that nothing happened. I will look at making this stuff more clear. And thanks for the input.

 

[Bernard]

Thanks for the response fforde!

I must say because I knew about the silent part, I added my other 2 shares one by one and waited for each to complete completely before adding the next one. In the end I managed to get everything on it. So my advice for any newcomers would be: Add one share and wait until it is imported before adding the next.

Also because I'm myself involved in Software Development, I know the "back-office" is always the last part to get attention. So it normally gets neglected!

But boy I hope TV-Series and Moving Pictures become part of the main MediaPortal install, just because I almost gave up on the "usefullness" of media portal because the way it "just listed" videos in a very big list.

Job Well done!