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Jon
Starting Member
USA
8 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Jan 2005 : 14:15:31
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I posted this in another forum, but thought that it was so useful, that everyone who can use it should know about it.
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!! Plus this linking is not tied to any specific program, so its possible to get it to work with other programs too.
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.
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jamestan
Junior Member
137 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jul 2005 : 00:15:16
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Awesome ideas !!!
I used to use this approach too when I was using Zoom Player to make my DivX Jukebox. :) And it works seemlessly. Thanks for formalizing the approach.
The reason why I am not using this approach anymore is, it is too involved to maintain the .lnk themselves (manually). For every movie file, I used to create 3 files out of it, one for myself, one for guest and one for the rating. All stored in the three different folders. Too much works ! :( There should be a better way ... |
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HOWTO: Automatically Track Media File Location