Pre My Vids 3.2

[wtg]

Reven,

Let me first say, I love My Videos. I love the tie in to the IMDB and other databases, as well as being able to put pins on videos. I do have one request though that I think others may appreciate as well.

I've love to have the ability to create "virtual directories", so to speak. I started out with movies archived in C:\VIDEOS\MOVIES. It was getting too full so I moved it to D:\VIDEOS\MOVIES, which I filled up, so now I record new movies to C: again. I would love for all the movies under C: and D: to show up as one virtual directory, sorted together, but as it is now I have to have "Movie Archive 1" and "Movie Archive 2", and to see my full list of movies I have to switch between the two.

How about if more than one entry in the virtual root has the same name you simply include all the items in them collectively under one listing?

Thanks,
Tim

[reven]

add one of the folders to the list, create a .link file in that folder with the second folders path in it. a .link file is a plain text file just with a .link extension, so
"movies.link" which is in D:\videos\movies\movies.link
and inside the movies.link file, there should be a line
C:\videos\movies\

you can have multiple folders in one .link file (the name of the .link doesnt matter, eg a.link, b.link etc).
eg of multiple paths in .link file
C:\videos\movies\
E:\videos\movies\
f:\videos\movies\

[markm]

just wondering if anyone has run into any bugs ?

I've run into the issue others have seen with older versions where it consumes 100% CPU until it runs out of memory.

I simply replaced the .dll's from your beta zip on a working install, and it stopped working. I've tried various skins, and other changes to no avail.

I understand your not wanting to add counts, or hide folders. Given that, how can I solve the problem of MyVideos "renaming" my shows?

Given the virtual root named "TV", with 2 shows named "South Park - Death" and "South Park - Pink Eye", if I do a TVtome Information lookup on them, they will both appear in the virtual root with just thier episode name.

Before a lookup:


After a lookup:


This isn't so bad when it's all the same show (which is why I've been using subdirectories), but if they're all mixed shows, it's hard to tell what episodes belong to what show.

An option to display either the filename (sans extension/path) OR the database name would solve this.

I still think I'm overlooking a method of arranging or naming things so this works out.

[reven]

its not designed to have multiple shows in one directory, thats just a bad file structure, ie your fault

the reason for not showing the show name is that they can be very long eg for
"Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - The Green, Green, Glow of Home"
thats to long to be displayed.

[markm]

So if it's not designed to have multiple shows in one directory, how was it designed to work? I guess that's been my question over the last few posts.

I know it's not working the way I'm using it, so HOW am I supposed to lay it out.

How do you lay out a directory/name structure for tv shows?

[reven]

the way i designed it to work is like
virtual root:
- TV Shows
- Films
- Music Videos
- Recordings
- DVDs

and then for TV Shows:
- Enterprise
- Sliders
- Smallville
- Seinfeld
- Coupling

and then say for Enterprise-
- Season 1
- Season 2
- Season 3
- Season 4

and in Season 1
- Enterprise - 1x01 - Pilot (1).avi
- Enterprise - 1x02 - Pilot (2).avi

etc.

for most tv shows i only have one season thou, so they just in the base directory (i usually get them on dvd so i delete them from the computer ). also it helps if you use the exact name for each episode form tv tome (makes them easier to lookup).

[markm]

So pretty much how I do it, I just don't have the Seasons layer.

So you'd still have the same initial problem I have, in that if you delete the episodes after you've watched them, you've got a number of show directories, with no idea if there's anything to watch in them.

Now, I guess where this would be a non-issue, is if you're not actually recording the shows yourself. I have gbpvr setup to autorecord a number of shows, so I don't know what I have until I go to watch them. That's when I end up popping into each directory, only to find nothing's been recorded, and then have to move on to the next, etc.

Hence my original request, (I'll change it a bit here..) for some sort of indicator that a directory has shows in it

I suppose another workaround I can put in place is to run a periodic task from the scheduler to scan my tv show root and nuke any empty directories.

On a related note though, I still think it would be a nice idea to be able to flag a virtual root as "tv" vs "dvd/movie", so lookups are a little more reliable.

I tossed your 2 Enterprise filenames in my TV/Star Trek Enterprise root as a test (thinking maybe the episode number would help), and if I hit "Enter" for details, it looks up using best guess and finds details on the movie, not the tv episode. Maybe just make it so if the virtual root has TV in it, best guess tries tv-tome first? Please

[reven]

So you'd still have the same initial problem I have, in that if you delete the episodes after you've watched them, you've got a number of show directories, with no idea if there's anything to watch in them.

just delete the folder.

im never ever going to show if a folder is empty or only show folders that arent empty.
and im never going to flag a virtual root as tv or movie (its to much work, for a feature that wouldnt be worth it).

Best Effort = Amazon Poster + IMDB info (its just what i originally called it, it would require far to much work, and probably be impossible to try and see if its a episode and lookup on tv tome, just use the episode browse feature, most shows are only on once a week, its not that much work).

[reven]

im sorry i cant test for that, and i havent changed anything that i can think of which would be causing the problem, so no, i cant fix it.

[reven]

for those experiencing problems when loading gbpvr with this version, try increasing the start/end offsets for the paused videos range (i decreased them to 0 mins and couldnt load gbpvr).

ill see if i can fix this later and release another version.