Hello,

I'm evaluating software to catalogue my dvd collection and don't mind paying for something that meets my needs. So far this is the best I've seen except for one thing.

What I want to do is take an XML export and then process that to create VLC playlists with links to the various episodes of TV series stored on my media server. To do this I need to be able to store the track IDs for the video and audio tracks of each episode and maybe one for the 'play all' at the disc level. For example:

dvd://file_path_on_server@1

To play the episode on the disc with video track 1. The problem is I don't think I can store anywhere that this episode has these track numbers on disc.

Is there anywhere in the profile that this info could be stored? If not is there any support for custom fields? Or any other idea of better ways to do this? I could write something from scratch in Python etc. but it's boring work that seems to be 99% done by your software.

Otherwise I'll have to keep this info somewhere else and merge it with the exported data, which will be a bit of a chore and hard to keep in step.

Thanks,

Martin

Quoting msmith:

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Is there anywhere in the profile that this info could be stored? If not is there any support for custom fields? Or any other idea of better ways to do this? I could write something from scratch in Python etc. but it's boring work that seems to be 99% done by your software.

One of the more advanced users of LoadDVD has told me about his efforts which are similar to your needs, I think. What he does, is use the discs to trigger play events, and he uses the LoadDVD scheme for saving and referring to filepaths (which can point to playlists) in the "Notes" field. Furthermore, he stores the chapter and track information in the "Location "field of each disc. LoadDVD and LoadDVD Pro pass all of this information to your own script when the user clicks on a disc icon, so you can do anything you want. I'll ask him if he would mind if I reveal his ID to you.

What LoadDVD Pro has that might also interest you, is a built-in PlayList Manager and embedded player, using VMP. But you can build VLC playlists and cause vlc to be invoked if you want. The Playlits Manager has some menus that will automatically build a playlist for you from a set of files or folders. You can make m3u, wpl or html style playlists.

So, in summary, most people use the following fields to store custom media information: Location, Slot, and Notes mostly, which are Personal Information fields, and you could even use Disc Description Side A and Description Side B if necessary, but you might have to lock them to keep them from being updated during a profile refresh.

You're welcome. Thinking about it more ...

Here is the way LoadDVD expects a filepath to be coded:

<a disc=nn href="filepath">Disc Title</a>

LoadDVD searches for these entries in the Notes field. For example, if Disc 1 iicon s clicked, then it will search for <a disc=1 href="filepath" ....    and depending on what is in the Location field, either play the file directly, or pass all the paramters to your script. The parameters passed include everything that is in the Location and Slot fields, as well as several other Profiler fields.

Your script could possibly invoke VLC player with the correct filepath on the Linux side. You will also get the data as part of an XML export, so you can make whatever playlists you like by scanning for the LoadDVD filepaths. I remember seeing some other progams that do this, or used to - I think it was MyMovies for MCE, but I'm not totally sure about that.

Quoting Addicted2DVD:

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I personally would have no use for such a feature. I don't even use the XML output any more personally. So I don't know if this will work for you. But is the notes field in the XML? If so would listing them in the notes field work?

Agree with pete, this is not useful at all and outside the scope of the program. It is not at this time designed to be a Media Player, it is designed simply to manage a collection. Users have developed a variety of plug-insfor media player but they are not sanctioned or approved by Profiler, no plug-ins are

Quoting Winston Smith:

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Quoting Addicted2DVD:

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I personally would have no use for such a feature. I don't even use the XML output any more personally. So I don't know if this will work for you. But is the notes field in the XML? If so would listing them in the notes field work?

Agree with pete, this is not useful at all and outside the scope of the program. It is not at this time designed to be a Media Player, it is designed simply to manage a collection. Users have developed a variety of plug-insfor media player but they are not sanctioned or approved by Profiler, no plug-ins are

Hmmm. I don't see how storing metadata about DVD episodes is outside the scope of a DVD cataloguer? 

I didn't ask for it to be a player. I already have 2 MythTV frontend machines for watching media on and a big file server where it's all stored. It's not that complicated a setup really. It works great except if I want to watch a particular episode of say SG1 I have to either go through 10 seasons of DVDs or search online to find which one it's on, which is a waste of time.

I need a central repository for a few pieces of DVD episode information that can be exported to my media servers to make my collection more accessible to me.

This software still looks like it's 99% of the way there to what I need and I think I can probably cobble together the rest with some XML transforms. If so then I'll probably buy it as it will save me lots of time messing with python and entering data by hand.

Martin

Thank mb. I was hoping you would share your scheme for saving the chapter and track info also, and maybe your scripts? Don't want to put you on the spot, but you do have a rather clever process cooked up.

But since msmith doesn't need to acually play from DVD Profiler, maybe a simpler scheme could be something like:

Method 1: Use discs for each major episode, putting the file access and track info into Location and Slot

Method 2: Use the Notes field to store an organized list in URL, XML or Playlist format.

Method 3: Do a search for "EPG" or "Episode Guide" on this site. The author of this tool has a similar data scheme for storing episodes in the Notes field. Maybe that is closer to your needs.

Regardless of the method, a simple XML scan (see Mithi's Tools) can pull the data and reformat - of course if you put the playlist directly in notes, no further formatting would be needed.

Quoting Mithi:

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Quoting msmith:

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Ok I checked and the notes, locations and slots fields seem to be at the disc rather than episode level?

To be exact, they are on profile level.

Well this may be a first ...    Mithi, I respectfully disagree. Location and Slot are in fact a property of the "disc" in the database - you see that even in your XML example. The number of discs in a profile, of course varies, including the "fake" ones you add yourself.

@msmith: Slot is also at the disc level. Notes, however, are at the Profile level. You cannot have separate "notes" per disc unless you use one of the tricks Mithi mentioned.

Quoting Mithi:

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Quoting mediadogg:

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Well this may be a first ...    Mithi, I respectfully disagree. Location and Slot are in fact a property of the "disc" in the database

sounded much more coherent in my head 
I thought to have understood that msmith meant "disc-level-profile" not "disc-information inside a profile, regardless which level". The same term for different things is always confusing.

cya, Mithi

That's OK man. You are still TOPS in my book. One of the best!!!!