I am new to the Z9X Pro. I came from the Zappiti so the following was not an issue... How can I create a Category for my personal videos and also posters for each? Can this be done in the Z9X or do I need a 3rd party app to accomplish this? I am using a Synology 923+ NAS. Thanks in advance...
I figured out how to create a new category and I have placed all of my personal videos in that category. The next question is Posters for each video... ?
Im also interested in if I have the poster.jpg and fanart.jpg file for every custom videos...how can I add them in Home Theater? How can I modify the the descrpiction and title?
First see if HT will try to match them to some existing movie If it does let it be and then go into the web interface to edit the details and save. Place the desired poster art and fan art etc in a known location and then in HT select change image select the + sign and then you can navigate to the file you want. Note: at present you can’t do this in the web interface which is a bore and someone should fix it. It will then be a process of refinement.
Probably the most elegant way is to create simple NFO files (Kodi format) for each video and, as you've done, poster and fanart files. Naming convention is simple: fileName.mkv (or whatever format you use) fileName.nfo fileName.poster.jpg fileName.fanart.jpg And then scan with NFO and local art priority set in HT4 preferences.
I'm about to go down this path too. @Markswift2003, do you have any suggestions to learn how to create these NFO files? I've been looking at these links: https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Creating https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Parsing https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Combination https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files/Templates And possibly using an NFO generator/editor such as Media Companion Although, I am really concerned about the learning curve here.
I just created a collection for "Alfred Hitchcock Collection" As you cannot sort on Director. I created a dummy mkv file use notepad and called it "Alfred Hitchcock Collection" then I created my own art ware as jpg files and placed them in the folder and loaded into Zidoo. HT found an item close enough. So edited the description and title. I then selected my five Hitchcock movies and added them to the collection, The first item is the dummy mkv with a description of the 5 movies I selected.
Honestly, dead easy - It's only a text file with .nfo extension instead of .txt You don't have to do anything complicated - see the attached example and just open in a text editor and fill in the blanks, rename to the same as the movie file name and add art as detailed above. You can add further fields if you want - <Director>..</Director> <actor>..</Actor> etc
Thanks for this Mark. I really like the example. Couple of follow up questions : 1. Do you have an example file for TV shows with episodes and an example for Collections as well? Can collections even use nfo files? 2. Can the nfo files have clearlogo, fan art and poster art tags?
I don't use TV shows sorry, but HT will scrape those by itself and then you can export NFOs from HT. The point of manually creating one is for personal content - home videos and the like - where there is no way to scrape online. You can specify paths to fanart, posters and clearlogos in the NFO but HT doesn't need that - you put them in the folder. See attached PDF. You can specify collections by using the <set>..</set> tags. eg: <set> <name>YOUR COLLECTION NAME</name> </set>
Thanks again Mark. I definitely want to do this for Home Videos, so I need to learn the nfo format for TV shows as I'd like to have episodes. I'll definitely download the NFO file(s) for a show I already have and use that as a template. We do a lot of trips to Disney World and go on a lot of cruises. So, I'd like to create a "TV show" for each vacation type, with "Season" for each vacation. I break them down by day, so each day would be a different "Episode". So, for example: Series/TV Show = My Family Vacations to Walt Disney World Season 1 = September 2013 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Season 2 = Summer 2015 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Series/TV Show = My Family Cruises Season 1 = Disney Cruise Line 2016 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Season 2 = Disney Cruise Line 2018 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Season 3 = Royal Caribbean Cruise Line 2020 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Season 4 = Norwegian Cruise Line 2023 Vacation Episode 1 = Sunday Episode 2 = Monday Episode 3 = Tuesday Episode 4 = Wednesday etc. Each with their own name, description, poster, fanart, metadata, etc. I'd also like to add my own seasons to currently existing TV shows (So I can add Special Features ripped from the Blu-rays.) These special features aren't supported on The Movie Database or The TV Database. So, I need to create my own.
No, it will download for the entire library. From what I understand, all you need to do is add the following tags: <showtitle> <season> <episode> and the overall tag is <episodedetails> instead of <movie> (I've learned something now ) See attached.
OK, Sorry to be a PITA with all of my follow-up questions. If I use the Zidoo Preferences > Library GUI to generate the nfo file, I have no idea where the resulting nfo file will be generated. Also, if I do this, will Home Theatre 4.0 be dependent upon the resulting NFO file or continue to pull the metadata as it has up until the point that I create the NFO file? I'm glad you learned something new. Creating this new TV series using NFO is going to be a laborious task.
If you export NFOs and art (HT4 Settings/Library/Export) it will save NFOs and art in the movie or season folder depending whether it's a movie or TV series. Not sure what you mean by the second question, but if you then have to rescan HT for whatever reason, you can choose to use the NFO and or local artwork by setting NFO priority in HT4 Settings/Preference/NFO parse default option and local art priority in HT4 Settings/Preferences/Use local images first. When you initially export NFOs/art, it just exports the files - it doesn't change the database in any way. You're kind of saving them for use later..
Yeah, you answered my questions appropriately. Thanks. I really don't want to download and store an nfo file and all the art in every single folder for every single video file I have. I think I will copy a TV series to an external USB drive, shut down my NAS so it doesn't scrape that library and connect the USB drive directly to the Zidoo. Then, just export the NFO data to the external drive for that one TV series. Once I am done with that, I will reconnect the NAS so I have my entire library again.
