Some basic questions (1 Viewer)

[Boiler]

okay, because i had some troubles with the plugin before, i'd like to ask a few questions before i start changing things (and possibly ruining it again )

i did a complete uninstall and then reinstall. the plugin now works again. here are the questions

a) Movie Importer: What exactly is the function of the 'removable' thingy? is it safer to mark that option when your files are on a NAS (always connected, except for power outage)? Will it prevent that movies are being imported twice?

b) Multiple files per movie: How does this work? for instance, I have a 2 dvd (.iso) movie. i let them import as a group. i thought, well, if i wanna play that movie, i can choose to play the first or the second dvd, but there is no such option. so what is the idea behind this, what is it supposed to do? or does it only work with avi files? what am i missing?

c) Movie importer: is there a way i can let the movie importer use the international titels of the movies? (see below for why i ask this)

d) is it safe to edit the default fields in the Movie Manager? I did have a lot of problems when i edited the 'title' and 'sort by' fields before so i rather not wanna mess things up again

and last but not least a (selfish) suggestion: how about adding a automatic backup function? something like 'use last working configuration'

thanks for helping out!

 

[marvenius]

a) Movie Importer: What exactly is the function of the 'removable' thingy? is it safer to mark that option when your files are on a NAS (always connected, except for power outage)? Will it prevent that movies are being imported twice?

When you do not select the "removable thingy" Moving Pictures will automatically remove movies that it cannot find. If you are sure its on a NAS and always accessible by MovPic you do not have to set the removable option. If it is however a external HDD that you sometimes have and sometimes do not have plugged in, it's advisable to define it as removable .

b) Multiple files per movie: How does this work? for instance, I have a 2 dvd (.iso) movie. i let them import as a group. i thought, well, if i wanna play that movie, i can choose to play the first or the second dvd, but there is no such option. so what is the idea behind this, what is it supposed to do? or does it only work with avi files? what am i missing?

If and when a movie is split up in multiple files (part 1, 2,...n) you can select all the different parts and have them play sequentially. You do not group those files to start playing from the middle of the movie. If the movie (DVD) is split up in 2 parts, I think my remark about playing the movie from halfway is to the point.

c) Movie importer: is there a way i can let the movie importer use the international titels of the movies? (see below for why i ask this)

?? Can you elaborate on this one? I don't really know what it is that you mean.

d) is it safe to edit the default fields in the Movie Manager? I did have a lot of problems when i edited the 'title' and 'sort by' fields before so i rather not wanna mess things up again

It should be save, but like you said, you had problems. The plugin is still in it's early stage and I know that armandp, fforde and all the other dev's are working hard to make it stable and release the much wanted features. The plugin is at 0.5.5c so hang in there.

and last but not least a (selfish) suggestion: how about adding a automatic backup function? something like 'use last working configuration'

thanks for helping out!

Well, see my answer for your d) question. Once the plugin is even more stable (I haven't had much problems with it), I doubt that you will need such a feature There will be a lesser need for automatic backup. Now, I am relatively new at MediaPortal, so there may already be some sort off a plugin that can do this for you.

 

[Boiler]

thanks for your answers marvenius

If and when a movie is split up in multiple files (part 1, 2,...n) you can select all the different parts and have them play sequentially. You do not group those files to start playing from the middle of the movie. If the movie (DVD) is split up in 2 parts, I think my remark about playing the movie from halfway is to the point.

okay, so the different parts get played automatically? for instance, the lord of the rings movies come on 2 dvd's. what you say is that those 2 dvd's get played automatically, but i can't choose to start watching beginning with dvd2?

?? Can you elaborate on this one? I don't really know what it is that you mean.

well, for instance the movie 'for a few dollars more'. the importer shows me the original italian name, but i want the english (international) title to show. right now, i have to manually edit the name and since i had trouble doing this, i was wondering if the importer can't use the international title from the start

 

[marvenius]

thanks for your answers marvenius
okay, so the different parts get played automatically? for instance, the lord of the rings movies come on 2 dvd's. what you say is that those 2 dvd's get played automatically, but i can't choose to start watching beginning with dvd2?

The LOTR comes (at least in my DVD box ) 1 film per 2 DVD's. If you want to start somewhere in the middle, you could set a bookmark there. This feature is more meant to stich several "part" files as 1 movie. So you wouldn't have to load each separate part to watch

well, for instance the movie 'for a few dollars more'. the importer shows me the original italian name, but i want the english (international) title to show. right now, i have to manually edit the name and since i had trouble doing this, i was wondering if the importer can't use the international title from the start

I think that's a matter of taste. Some movies I do and some I don't. From some movies I don't even know if I know the international title. When in doubt I look them up on IMDB and enter the IMDB ID in the search box. From my point of view I would prefer the original title. But, that's just my point of view.
Since there is no feature for selecting original/international title, you could opt it in the thread about feature requests

 

[Boiler]

thanks again marvenius!
i also came to the conclusion the the multi part thingy is for avi movies which come in 2 or more files. in that case, the feature is very handy. it would be nice, however, if one could choose which part to play and if this would also apply to dvd images. for instance, i have the extended lotr editions which come on 2 dvd's per movie. sometimes, i just want to watch the charge of the rohirrim on the pelennor fields, so i just jump to second dvd..

as for the other thing, i wll make a note in the feature request thread

 

[fforde]

As far as multi-disk DVDs (like movies with bonus disks with special features) where the second disk is not neccisarily part 2 of the movie, we have an issue in the tracker scheduled for this. In the short term for DVD Image type media we will probably add a popup menu that prompts which disk to insert. In the long term will will probably come up with a nice GUI solution.

The short term solution is probably two versions away. We will be releasing the next enhancement release kind of soon with new data providers, beter art work support, and a few other enhancements. After that we plan on doing a release to work exclusively on stability and bug fixes. No new enhancements. Then we will be doing another enhancement release in which the DVD bonus disk support is scheduled.

As far as defaulting to a specific internationalized title, this is something we might add in the future, but I think it will be a little bit further off. The problem comes from having multiple data sources, all providing internationalized title information in different ways. i think we could come up with a solution, but this enhancement will probably have to wait a bit. Never-the-less, I created an issue for the suggestion so it is not forgotten.

You mentioned you had stability issues when modifying fields on the Movie Manager screen. i have heard reports of problems here from another user, but was not able to reproduce the problem. Did you just experience general instability or can you consistently reproduce that causes your database to get messed up?

 

[Boiler]

As far as multi-disk DVDs (like movies with bonus disks with special features) where the second disk is not neccisarily part 2 of the movie, we have an issue in the tracker scheduled for this. In the short term for DVD Image type media we will probably add a popup menu that prompts which disk to insert. In the long term will will probably come up with a nice GUI solution.

that would be great! if you hit play button, you get asked which image should be loaded. that would solve the bonus dvd too, wouldn't it?

hit play -> and then choose

LOTR - ROTK DVD1
LOTR - ROTK DVD2

or

Bridge to the River Kwai DVD1
Bridge to the River Kwai DVD2 (Bonus)

note: i'm only talking about dvd images (iso, img) not the acual optical disks

You mentioned you had stability issues when modifying fields on the Movie Manager screen. i have heard reports of problems here from another user, but was not able to reproduce the problem. Did you just experience general instability or can you consistently reproduce that causes your database to get messed up?

well, i'm a little hesitant to try out things, since last time, the plugin became completly useless and i had to to reinstall everything from scratch (including recreating the database which takes a lot of time. however, since you guys are putting such a huge effort into this, the least i can do is screw up my database a few times if this helps to make the whole thing more stable

 

[fforde]

Well if you backup your database first and things break you should be able to just drop the backup in your database folder to restore things. Don't feel obligated though, if you are hesitant then don't worry about it. It's just a pretty nasty bug that has been pretty elusive so far.

 

[Boiler]

that's what i did at first. but after i did this a few times, it no longer worked. i couldn't start the plugin configuration at all. no worries though. i will play around and report back as detailled as possible

 

[Boiler]

okay, it happened again. plugin and database have crashed and are useless

first, i reassigned some files to different movies (e.g. Island was idenitifed to be a movie form 2007, when it was supposed to be the one from 2005).

so far, everything worked fine, except for one time, the movielist and watched folder was empty. restarted the MediaPortal configuration and everything was there again. then i did the following:

i changed the 'title' and 'sort by' fields from 'Deux frères' to '2 Brothers'

i changed the 'title' and 'sort by' fields from 'Wo ju cang long' to 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'

Closed the configuration, restarted the configuration, tried to access the plugin tab, and this is what i've got:

"An error occured while loading the plugin MediaPortal.Plugins.MovingPictures.MovingPicturesGUI.
It's incompatible with the current MediaPortal version and won't be loaded"

i deleted the database and restored the backup (before i did the renaming of the 2 movies) and everything works again.