Setup Poster Wall From Scratch

Discussion in 'HDD Media player(RTD 1619DR)' started by Jordan Walker, Dec 6, 2022.

  1. Jordan Walker

    Jordan Walker Member

    I am really hoping someone can point me in the right direction regarding having my movie and tv show collection properly, and efficiently organized/cached. I just purchased a UHD3000. I will be using 2 internal 8TB hard drives for my storage. Before I set it up and add my sources, I want to make sure all of my settings and methods are correct before scanning/adding to the library for the first time. I have seen a few different methods and am not sure which one will provide the best results at this point, not to mention the player is changing with firmware updates.

    I already have all of my movies and TV shows properly named and neatly organized in folders on the hard drives. I have downloaded and saved all posters, clearlogos, and fanart that I prefer to use, some titles have very low res art on TMDB and also I have a few titles I like to use custom posters for. Basically I want the Zidoo to scrape and match all information online, but then I want it to use all of my preferred posters and fan art. However, I also want to make sure it is properly cacheing the necessary images so that A) it does not need to go online every single time to obtain any of the images or artwork, and most importantly B) I want to make sure everything is cached/saved properly so that the artwork loads as fast as possible and I can minimize any lag whatsoever. I know this has to do with exporting NFO’s and setting custom folders on the storage drive but I don’t know if the artwork should all be accessed from the internal hard drives where the movies are, the custom home theater folder on the storage drive, or if I need to modify the NFO files to tell it where to find these, etc.

    I realize this is asking a lot and I’m happy to provide any screenshots or settings that are needed, but I would just like to make sure my library looks how I want it and runs as fast as possible without using the internet to source images I have already downloaded. Obviously when I add new titles, I want it to source everything online first but I will not be changing or deleting anything from my library going forward so once it’s set, it should always remain the exact same. Thank you!
     
  2. Six66Mike

    Six66Mike Member

    Someone with decent NFO experience will be able to help, as that's probably the best option.

    I would suggest checking out Jellyfin for Zidoo over HT4 but that's my preference. The scanning accuracy is off the charts but I don't use NFO's so not sure how either app handles them.
     
  3. Jordan Walker

    Jordan Walker Member

    Thank you for the tip. I’ve heard of Jellyfin but never looked into it, I will do that now.

    For what it’s worth, I actually have no trouble with the scanning and matching in terms of HT finding the correct titles and getting all of the text information correct. At this point I just want to make sure HT is correctly pointing to all of the my images/art and accessing them in a way that it doesn’t have to search too hard (or pull from online) and can load everything very quickly. I don’t know if it should be pulling from the hard drives where the movie files are, or if I should have ALL of my images loaded into the .Home Theater folder.

    I know that NFO files play a big part, I’m still just a little confused on which settings would be best for my library and my needs.
     
  4. khollister

    khollister Member

    As a Z9X newbie, here's my experience so far:
    1. Before I connected any sources or scanned anything the first time, I used tinyMediaManager to create Kodi NFO files for all of my movies as well as selected desired poster and background (fan art) images. I chose to have a folder for each movie (with folder name of Movie Name year) with the similarly named MKV media file inside as well as the NFO and artwork files.
    2. Set the Zidoo scan options so the NFO is Priority (default is use after scrape fails)
    3. Everything came across correctly with the occasional title's poster art going back to whatever the default is in TMDB. I have been correcting those manually in Poster Wall on the Z9X
    4. I have had very poor results with collections (movie sets in tMM) and NFO files created by tMM. I have a post here asking how this is supposed to work but no one has responded. I have been largely doing collections manually in Poster Wall.
    I suspect most folks do not try to use pre-generated NFO & art data so it is difficult finding discussions about this here or at AVS.

    BTW, I left the location settings at the defaults and presumably have the posters being pulled from the NAS. Once the posters are cached, I don't notice any particular speed issues with moving around Poster Wall, so I haven't really pursued any other options. I am on a world GigE LAN though.
     
  5. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    Pretty simple and it sounds like you've done most of the work already.

    Assuming naming is good and folder structure all set out neatly, all you really need to do is make sure the posters, fanart and clearlogos are named as in the attached PDF and put them in the individual movie folders and set "Use Local Images" first in Preferences.

    Once you've scanned, scroll through the posterwall page by page to cache all the images then loading will be pretty much instantaneous.

    Just be aware that if you leave automatic scanning on and add a new movie without first putting the poster/fanart/clearlogo in the folder, it will scan for images online. This is what I do, then check if I'm happy, change it if I'm not, and then export the artwork (being sure to untick "overwrite"). You have to add clearlogos manually though, although I've never felt the need to bother.

    It all becomes second nature very quickly.
     

    Attached Files:

    ckenisell and Six66Mike like this.
  6. khollister

    khollister Member

    @Markswift2003 - thx for that, clarifies the collection poster naming at least. However, can you clarify how to get Poster Wall to recognize the collection (aka Movie Set) NFO info created by tMM?
     
  7. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    No idea whether TMM supports it (I'd expect so), but HT4 looks for, and honours, the <set>..</set> entry in NFOs.

    For example:

    <set>
    <uniqueid type="tmdb" default="true">151</uniqueid>
    <name>Star Trek: The Original Series Collection</name>
    <overview>Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection contains the first six Original Series films starring the U.S.S. Enterprise's cast and crew from the 1960s TV series of the same name.</overview>
    </set>
     
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  8. khollister

    khollister Member

    It appears that the <uniqueid> tag is missing in the movie NFO's created by tMM. The rest of the <set> content is there, so that likely explains why it's not working. tMM creates a separate collection NFO file and the <uniqueid> content is in there (which HT is clearly not looking at). I need to revisit the Movie Set options in tMM to see if this can be fixed. The artwork for the collection is also in the wrong place as far as HT is concerned - tMM puts it in a dedicated collection folder along side the collection NFO.

    Thx - now I know what is wrong, I can see if it is fixable in tMM!
     
  9. khollister

    khollister Member

    OK - so I played with the tMM movie set options and it appears it is not currently possible in tMM to create collection (aka Movie Sets) NFO data compatible with HT. So you either have to manually edit the individual movie NFO files and rename the collection poster art or just create/fix the collections in HT via the Zidoo.
     
  10. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    HT doesn't need the uniqueid or the overview tag - just the name will do.

    This is a collection I created manually:

    <set>
    <name>Unbreakable Collection</name>
    </set>


    And that works fine...
     
  11. khollister

    khollister Member

    Well that's interesting - more experimentation is required then. The other question is what to do with collection names with a colon (Star Trek: The Original Series Collection) and the poster filename?
     
  12. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    If either HT generates the collection name it will replace the colon with unicode F03A (can't type it here because it's not in the forum font set) so it just shows like this:



    upload_2022-12-7_13-33-41.png

    If you're naming a movie with an illegal character, eg Mission: Impossible then either just remove the character (Mission Impossible) or use a dash (Mission- Impossible). Leaving it out seems the best way.
     
  13. khollister

    khollister Member

    Aha - broke the code on what has been going wrong! I mistakenly thought that when the scanning preferences displayed " NFO. Priority>" that I had set the NFO to be preferred over scraping - WRONG! I had to actually press OK and then select the correct option to prefer the NFO. Now everything is behaving as expected.

    The StarTrek: The Original Series collection worked fine using the NFO files created by tMM and I just went in and changed the poster for the collection to the "movie set-poster.jpg" file tMM created and all is good - no need to sweat the colon in the filename.

    We are off to the races now. Probably also explains why changes to the genres I made in the NFO weren't being picked up either.

    What a dumbass (me)! o_O
     
  14. khollister

    khollister Member

    Hold on - I wasn't an idiot after all. The problem appears to be that HT is not re-reading the local NFO files when I update the source. Several attempts to create collections or change genres after the movie is already added to HT fail because it appears the NFO files are not re-read. While this has worked once or twice, it now seems broken. If I unmatch titles and update the source, they remain unmatched. If I rematch using TMDB, they reappear in HT but it does pick up the correct poster art because I have "use local art" checked in HT preferences.

    Without being able to force reprising of the NFO, there is no way to edit genres or use collections created externally through the NFO files. I have no idea why it has worked once or twice earlier.

    UPDATE: Well I just discovered I can edit genres using the rather funky web interface at least
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2022
  15. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    Yeah - unfortunately the only way to do that is to go to sources, select Cleanup (or Remove) and rescan.

    Cleanup removes the entries for that source from the database and Remove will remove the source too so it will need adding back again.

    Not ideal.
     
  16. khollister

    khollister Member

    Not ideal, indeed, but at least I think I now understand what is going on and can come up with strategies to deal with this. I thought I was going nuts.

    Back to ripping movies :)
     
  17. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    Yep - it can all get a bit funky, but once you get to know how it works, it does so extremely well.

    There should also be an update to the web interface soon, so hopefully that will become less traumatic to use!!
     
  18. Jordan Walker

    Jordan Walker Member

    Thank you, this is very helpful and I think my movies are all set. Although I’m still unsure if I have my folder structure, file names, and art correctly organized for TV Shows.

    It still seems to be wanting to download the poster and fanart for my shows as that is now the only thing showing up in the HomeTheater folder. I have and would prefer to use my own posters and fanart but it is putting different artwork into the HomeTheater folder and doesn’t seem to be using local files for those. Can someone please provide the basic folder and artwork naming structure for TV Shows so that it correctly reads and uses local files?
     
  19. Jordan Walker

    Jordan Walker Member

    You mention scrolling through the poster wall after everything is matched so everything gets cached to help with loading. Do you know where these images get cached for that? Also, do I have to do this every time I start up the player and open poster wall or does the loading and caching only need to be done once?
     
  20. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    The naming structure for local TV art is like this:

    upload_2022-12-8_10-21-22.png

    However, although fanart gets imported correctly, posters do not at the moment (not something I've noticed before as I don't use TV series)
     

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