Help for McBluna’s Home Theater DB Tool

If you do not use TMDB, then you get no cast pictures. HT4 seems only download them from TMDB.

 

Hi

I'm not happy with HT40 on my Z9X and thinking to use (and even pay for!) TMM + DB Tool instead. But I'm very confused about how to use the DB Tool as there are no obvious instructions. It would be great if there were some instructions or a simple guide, but I didnt find any so I'll just ask some basic questions and I hope somebody can help. (I've got a strong technical background so I dont need a click-by-click guide but just the fundamental principles and steps.)

My scenario is (I think) pretty basic and standard: running Win11, using shares on my Windows PC for hosting my movie and TV series files (+ NFO files) and running TMM + HT DB Tool. I simply want to replace all HT4.0 native info with results of TMM NFO files + posters, etc.

I understood that after downloading the DB Tool ZIP file I just extract it into a directory and start it from there by launching hometheater-gui.cmd. And when I start it I should have the Zidoo turned on, and have opened the browser interface and input the password already so that it finds my Zidoo.

After that I am lost at what to do next.

I need to have connected my Zidoo to my PC by USB, installed Android SDK and rooted the Zidoo to run DB Tool, correct? (as per instructions in https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/guides/guide-how-to-use-android-debug-bridge/)

And then to setup the Zidoo Samba server and share it's drives as network drives on my PC as per https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/mcblunas-home-theater-db-tool/setup-sources/, correct?

Do I need to then follow https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/guides/guide-how-to-backup-your-home-theater-data/?

If yes, for the first step of setting the poster image save directory, what should I use? The image shows only using custom folder "Storage://". Should I use a Windows share? (I have no locally attached storage on my Zidoo, is that OK?)

Do I really need to follow the further instructions of making a backup via the GUI and a poster backup using the CLI if I dont care about losing all my existing library/posters anyway?

I'm also confused about the instructions in https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/mcblunas-home-theater-db-tool/how-to-start/ :

1. The discussion on the test environment: I thought that this is a way for me to practice/test using the DB Tool but I could not find any place to download the test files. Did I misunderstand, is this just a discussion rather than a practical exercise? The test environment uses all CLI commands, is there any reason to use the CLI rather than the GUI? (Is there anything the GUI cannot do?)

2. this page also shows exporting data to excel using "hometheater.cmd excel -workbookUri D:\BACKUP-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxx.xlsx -backupUri Z:\BACKUP-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxx.ztb" and then building a command line like "hometheater.cmd nfo -imageUri "smb://zidoo-z9s/mmcblk0p2/media/0/.HomeTheater" -backupUri "Z:\BACKUP-xxxxxxxx-xxxxxx.ztb" -nasUri "smb://192.168.xxx.xxx/K/Test?user=McBluna&password=TestTest" -deviceId 1 -sourceId 1 -tmdbApiKey ******************************** -tmdbLanguage en-EN".... is building such a command line necessary if I'm just using the DB Tool GUI ? Wouldnt it somehow do this itself?​

I really want to use TMM + DB Tool but I really hope I can do everything via the GUI, I'm too old to be learning and debugging CLI new commands!

Thank you for your help!
Ron

 

I'd prefer if we could discuss about my tool on my forum.

 

sure. for any others who want to comment, here is a link to the same post on the McBluna forum https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/topic/how-to-get-started-with-ht-db-tool/