ability to create personalized collections

1. I've dvds with several looney tunes cartoons on them. individually they were episodes, but the discs themselves are really not recognized as a movie or a tv show. they are part of a cartoon season collection. there really isn't a great way to group these or recognize them easily. I've had to make them each a movie and then individually create nfos for each. Then make them a set. I've love an easier way to create collections that don't really translate to either a movie or a tv show.

2. I also run a dir listing to a file each night to get an documented list of my movies and tv shows. with the table view I can see that all the info is organized is a great way that would be cool to be able to export to a csv, xml, or something that I can use as my movie list. Even better would be this feature being run by cmd line.

3. I'd like much fuller features of switching for the cmd line functionality. I try to script almost everything so it can be run automatically each night to keep everything up to date.

On your first point you could do what I do. For anything that I have that doesn't have a tv show designation or shows that are so obscure no one has put them on tvdb I just create my own.

For example I needed to create a show for all my christmas specials, because I really didn't want a hundred seperate shows for each one.

So first I created an nfo file like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<tvshow>
  <title>Christmas Specials</title>
  <year>
  </year>
  <rating>
  </rating>
  <plot>
  </plot>
  <runtime>30</runtime>
  <mpaa>
  </mpaa>
  <genre>Animation / Children</genre>
  <premiered>
  </premiered>
  <studio>
  </studio>
  <id>
  </id>
  <tvdbid>
  </tvdbid>
  <sortorder>default</sortorder>
  <language>en</language>
  <episodeactorsource>tvdb</episodeactorsource>
  <tvshowactorsource>tvdb</tvshowactorsource>
  <locked>1</locked>
</tvshow>

Then I named each file following this format: Christmas Specials - 01x01 - NAME OF SHOW

Then I create a nfo for each show named for example like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<episodedetails>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <video>
        <width>640</width>
        <height>480</height>
        <aspect>1.333</aspect>
        <codec>DX50</codec>
        <format>DX50</format>
        <duration>1h 39mn</duration>
        <bitrate>1 134 Kbps</bitrate>
        <bitratemode>
        </bitratemode>
        <bitratemax>
        </bitratemax>
        <container>.avi</container>
        <codecid>DX50</codecid>
        <codecidinfo>
        </codecidinfo>
        <scantype>Progressive</scantype>
      </video>
      <audio>
        <language>
        </language>
        <codec>MP3</codec>
        <channels>2</channels>
        <bitrate>128 Kbps</bitrate>
      </audio>
      <subtitle />
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
  <title>Yogi's First Christmas</title>
  <season>0</season>
  <episode>1</episode>
  <aired>1980-11-22</aired>
  <plot>
  </plot>
  <playcount>0</playcount>
  <director>
  </director>
  <credits>
  </credits>
  <rating>0</rating>
  <runtime>99 min</runtime>
  <actor>
    <name>
    </name>
    <role>
    </role>
  </actor>
</episodedetails>

Then open Media Companion and rebuild your tv shows. Media Companion will now pick up each show and I can add details and screenshots. XBMC picks up the shows no problem and my kids are happy each christmas (in this example.)

A side note, if you use TV Logos (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=71954) you are going to have to create a logo for the show or the script that auto downloads them will fail on the unknown show.

For DVDs for shows that exist I just add them as specials. There are ways to set up links to each show on the disc but since I'm lazy I just add them to the show.

I rip the DVDs to iso format place them in a DVD folder in the TV Show folder. Then I give them the name format, in this example Red Dwarf, Red Dwarf - 90x01 - Red Dwarf I Disc 1

Sometimes Media Companion will pick them up in a scan, if not I just create a nfo file for each one and then do a rebuild and Media Companion sees them.

Any questions just ask me.

I'm so like your style.I agree to your opinion.Hoping
more your better article!Pearl Bracelet