Need hep importing movies (1 Viewer)

[ngergely]

So, I've been beating my head against the computer for the last day, trying to figure out how to get MediaPortal to import my movies.

I currently have all of my movies stored on a network share, each one is in a separate sub-folder. Each sub-folder has the same name as the movie and movie file. Each movie is stored in m4v format, all of which are rips of DVD's or Blu-rays.
In each sub-folder, I also have 4 other files.
1. a trailer with a file name of moviename-trailer.mp4 (moviename is the name of the actual movie)
2. a coverart image with a file name of moviename-poster.jpg
3. a fanart image with a file name of moviename-fanart.jpg
4. an nfo file with a file name of moviename.nfo

I've tried to import them directly into the library by adding the network share directory to the "Video Folders" list. I then use the video database update scan, while identifying the network share folder as folder to scan into the database. I've done this scan with both the "use internal nfo scraper only" checked and unchecked. Either way, i don't get a very user friendly option from the mediaportal interface. In Mediaportal itself, I go into the videos section, with the view set to coverflow, I see a bunch of folders that contain my movies. Again, this isn't horribly useful.

The reason my videos are setup the way that they are, is because I am in the process of switching from XBMC to MediaPortal. In XBMC, including all of those files, drastically reduced the time it took to scan all of my movies into the library.

I've tried using MyFilms, and everything seemed to scan in correctly, but I can't seem to figure out how to access the movies that I just scanned into my library.

At this point, I'm just looking for some help on how to scan a movie library into mediaportal, so that it can be displayed in a way that I can easily browse my videos, without feeling like I'm navigating through windows explorer.

Can anyone please point me in the direction of a simple step-by-step guide to import movies into mediaportal.

Thank you, whoever helps.

Oh, I'm using mediaportal version 1.5.

 

[Deda]

For MyVideos I can point you here and here

For MyFilms here

For MovingPictures here

It's not so easy to explain step by step, that's why wiki exists (but looks like nobody read it or know that they exists )

Also MyFilms have it's own forum here
and
MovingPictures here
also
for some specific questions for MyVideos you can write or read so many things here

It's not cold welcome , just it is not so easy to explain in few words what you need and we lost countless hours to create that wiki and somehow it's sad that nobody finds it when start to use MP , but anyway, if you stuck somewhere you can ask freely on specific forum and for sure somebody will help you.

 

[ngergely]

sounds good. I was looking at the wiki's some, but was still having some trouble. I'll try to look at those a little more and ask specific questions on each of the forums.

Thanks.

Out of curiosity, would you have a recommendation for the easiest of the videos options to start with?

 

[kiwijunglist]

I would say Moving Pictures is by far the easiest of the three and I guess it would also be the most popular. My Films is the most powerful and has the most features. Moving pictures probably has the least active development of late. All 3 of them have a few unique features, I use Moving Pictures because it is the only one that has remote control filtering (which is good for very large collections). Moving pictures doesn't support local trailer files (it plays trailers on youtube), so you will have to set it to exclude -trailer video files. It can be setup to scan the moviename.nfo to idenitfy the movie when you add your collection.[DOUBLEPOST=1382130865][/DOUBLEPOST]

In Mediaportal itself, I go into the videos section, with the view set to coverflow, I see a bunch of folders that contain my movies. Again, this isn't horribly useful.

You are probably in 'shares' view rather than 'database' view. Shares view is like windows file explorer. Database view only shows scanned movies.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/14_Using_MediaPortal/01_Basics/Views

 

[ngergely]

You are probably in 'shares' view rather than 'database' view. Shares view is like windows file explorer. Database view only shows scanned movies.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/14_Using_MediaPortal/01_Basics/Views

This solved one of my biggest problems.

Thanks

 

[ngergely]

Ok, so I've got most if it working. The one question I've got is does anyone know if there is a way to organize movies into groups? I'd like to have groups of movies show up together (e.g. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, & The Dark Knight Rises).

I don't really care what plugin it takes.

Thanks

 

[kiwijunglist]

Both My Films and Moving Pictures (with IMDB+ Add-on) support this.

 

[Deda]

Or if you're playing with MyVideos you can use this

 

[kiwijunglist]

"user groups" is a confusing name for user created groups of movies. "Manual Grouping" or "movie grouping" or "user categories" or something else would be a better name.

 

[Neild7744]

If you want to keep your local trailers you could just do a search in your movie folder for 'trailers', copy them into its own new folder and run the trailers plugin. Simple skin mod and you can play local trailers for your collection. I currently use media center master to find all my movie data, structure my movie database, download trailers...etc. it works well.