| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| joche |
Posted - 08 Jun 2004 : 22:31:35
My mailny goal with using the XMM is to find my movies fast.
I have a huge rAID system where all my movies are stored (yes, I encode all bought DVD's aswell).
The problem is when I using the filesystem to move a film from one location to another, then the database ofcourse doesn't link to the right files. My suggestions to improved file awareness is one or many of these features:
a) Make it possible to manage movie files from within XMM (enhanced features could be:
a1) Rename files after movie title (take care if CD1/CD2 is in the filename). This must also handle subs.
b) Add a feature like "Locate missing film files" where the system will scan the provided path for non existing file files.
c) Make it easier to repoint the film card to a correct path.
In addition to the features above it would be nice if I can choose "Parent Folder" as film name in addition to "File name" during mass import.
A comment on these suggestions would be nice.
Thanks in advance!
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| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Jon |
Posted - 18 Jan 2005 : 14:02:24
Here's how to manage your media files so that you can use EMM to catalog them, but you can still move them around on your hard drive.
Requirements: Windows XP/2000
File System: NTFS
You need to make sure that the Distributed Link Tracking Client Service is running.
Info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_ngyp.asp
*** NOTE This doesn't work with removable media ***
If you have all that down. Then you can use EMM to keep information on shortcuts to the media files. Windows will automatically keep track of where the actual file is, and you won't need to worry if you move the file to some other folder or drive, rename it, etc. EMM won't care, because all it knows about is the shortcut.
Try this out.
Use one of your existing movie entries in your database.
1) Find the associated movie file (mpg, avi, etc) in windows explorer.
2) Create a shortcut to your movie file by right clicking on it, and choosing "create shortcut".
3) You will have a shortcut "Shortcut to <filename>".
4) Rename this shortcut, and delete the "shortcut to " portion.
5) Now you have 2 files with the same name, one being the shortcut
6) Go back to EMM, and edit your movie's entry. On the files tab, click the browse button next to the file we just added the shortcut to. If you browse for it you will see <filename> and <filename>.lnk
7) Choose the .lnk file in EMM and save your record.
Now EMM only knows about the shortcut, not the actual file.
To play the file you need to alter the players setup to add the following player:
Name: Windows Default Player
EXE: \windows\system32\cmd.exe
Apex: "
Aguments: /c start
order: 0 (before file name)
Set as default if you want (I would).
Now, you should be able to play your movie.
So what you say? Well...
Now, move the orginal file (not the shortcut) to some other drive & folder.
Try to play the movie from EMM.
The neat thing about this, is that you can organize the shortcuts whatever way you want without worrying about file sizes, you can create multiple links to the same file. Best of all, this is all part of the XP shell, so if you have XP (or win2k i think) you have this ability today!!
Think about it. Just dump all your media files into 1 big directory, and create complex orginazational structures using shortcuts without worrying about the shortcuts becoming unlinked.
It would be nice if EMM would handle the shortcuts internally, so we don't have to associate with the *.lnk file. That way we could silently add the shortcut in for existing entries when we moved the source file.
I hope this helps someone.
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| joche |
Posted - 06 Jan 2005 : 21:27:18
I'm back again.
It's fun to see how your program has evolved during this period!
Did you ever managed to implement my suggestions above, or are they to hard to get in? |
| Alessio Viti |
Posted - 10 Jun 2004 : 22:15:24
Hi Joche,
I have add just now the feature "Locate missing film files" where the system will scan the provided path for non existing file files.
It's under the Plug-ins/Utility, in the new release 2.6 B9.
As always, please report bugs !
Alessio |
| joche |
Posted - 09 Jun 2004 : 00:42:49
Thanks for your answers.
One feature that should be fairly easy to implement and that would decrease the urge for the other requests would be a "move film to other location" simply using the OS file.move() function but keeping track of where the files ended up.
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Also a function "Move to designated folder" which basically moves the file(s) to (for example) a tree structure like:
Genre\FullMovieName\file(s).avi
This must ofcourse honor non-movie files like .nfo and .sub
Shouldn't be too hard to implement and would ease up things MUCH for me. |
| Alessio Viti |
Posted - 09 Jun 2004 : 00:16:44
Hi,
Thank you for the cool suggestions!
I have add it to my work list, some of it (the b) should be easy to implement. 
Thanks again,
Alessio |
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