Anyone know how to merge files?

Hi,

I stream to my Live player using my two bay NAS. One drive is full of movies so I have had to add another drive.

On the first drive I have a shared folder called video' and within that I have one called movies’, and another for music dvd’s and so on. What I need to do is start another `movies’ folder on the new drive but I want it to merge with the one on the first drive so that when I select the movies folder it displays all movies across both drives.

I just can’t seem to figure a way to get this to work and I know you can just change the filter for the media library to all but thats exactly what it does is display all'. I certainly dont want this as I have over 450 movies and to make life easier I have sub folders in the movie folder, for example a Bond’ folder for all the James Bond movies and a `Potter’ folder for the Harry Potters and so on

I thought possibly by having the folder labelled and spelt identical, `movies’ that the player might see the files as one but it has not worked 

Has anybody managed to do this?

BTW I am keeping the two drives as individuals and not making into a big one cause if one fails they both fail

Many thanks

Mark

The only way to do that is via filtering.  Use the Red button and pick what you want.

there’s a couple of ways to do this

  1. Media Library will aggregate all content included in the Media Library

— for network shares, this means you must add the share specifically to the Media Library

— it also means, likely needing to clear and completely let the WD rebuild your Media Library

  1. you can put a symlink on one drive pointing the other drive - but probably not what you really want

  2. use a unification filesystem on your NAS like unionfs or aufs, but your NAS may not support this

  3. use the XML files to create custom Genre’s, then use media library to filter by Genre

personally, I use aufs on ubuntu home server, then export the merged aufs directory using nfs

TonyPh12345 wrote:

The only way to do that is via filtering.  Use the Red button and pick what you want.

 

Red button?  I think you meant the Green button…didn’t you? :wink:

And you don’t have to use the “Genre” filter, you can also use “All”.  That will show everything in you Media Library though.

HI,

Thanks everyone for your input but I’d like to point out what I originally said,

 I know you can just change the filter for the media library to all but thats exactly what it does is display all'. I certainly dont want this as I have over 450 movies and to make life easier I have sub folders in the movie folder, for example a Bond’ folder for all the James Bond movies and a `Potter’ folder for the Harry Potters and so on

So filtering to ALL is not an option, although maybe using genre would work, I don’t plan on sitting there for weeks changing every XML file for over 450 movies.

Thanks KAD79 for suggesting a symbolic link or aufs, but I’m afraid that is way over my head.

I will try though clearing the WD and letting it rebuild the media library with both Movie files spelt identically so maybe it will see them as one, fingers crossed but doubtfull

Any other ideas?

Cheers

Tinwarble wrote:Red button?  I think you meant the Green button…didn’t you? :wink:

Uhm, err…  yeah.  Exactly.  That’s the one.  :)

KAD79 wrote:

there’s a couple of ways to do this

 

  1. Media Library will aggregate all content included in the Media Library

— for network shares, this means you must add the share specifically to the Media Library

— it also means, likely needing to clear and completely let the WD rebuild your Media Library

  1. you can put a symlink on one drive pointing the other drive - but probably not what you really want
  1. use a unification filesystem on your NAS like unionfs or aufs, but your NAS may not support this
  1. use the XML files to create custom Genre’s, then use media library to filter by Genre

 

 

personally, I use aufs on ubuntu home server, then export the merged aufs directory using nfs

This is an excellent and as far as I know, complete, summary of the options for “merging drives” for the SMP.

Personally, I use a share with symlinks to actual files on other drives, and Samba options to follow symlinks, on a Mageia Linux server.

Doing this on an NAS based on Linux and Samba should be possible, if you can get a shell and if you can set Samba options manually.  Certainly would require some skills that typical Windows users would not have though.

“I will try though clearing the WD and letting it rebuild the media library with both Movie files spelt identically so maybe it will see them as one, fingers crossed but doubtfull”

I’m sort of in the same position, having a folder called movie on drive1 and also on drive2.

I didn’t think WDLive would accept two folders with the same name into media library.  I haven’t done anything about that yet, but I was planning to rename them movie and movie2, and then add them.

Let us know what happens.

I don’t use the media library

but in theory, there should be no problem with having two drive’s or folders with the same name

because they are in different locations, it should be able to add both

fred9999 wrote:

I’m sort of in the same position, having a folder called movie on drive1 and also on drive2.

 

I didn’t think WDLive would accept two folders with the same name into media library.  I haven’t done anything about that yet, but I was planning to rename them movie and movie2, and then add them.

 

Let us know what happens.

You cannot have two shares with the same name, but you can have two shares like Drive1 and Drive2, each of which has a Movies directory/folder in it.  This works fine with or without Media Library.  The question being asked, though, was how to get all the movies in both of the Movies directories to be listed together.

I just cleared the WD and let it rebuild the database. Unfortunately both Movie files are showing up as individual files. I thought if they were spelt same then maybe it would see it as one but no two Movie files.

So that hasn’t worked and choosing filters definatley ain’t an option, it’s either get technical by adding things like symbolic links which could take me ages to figure out only to find it didn’t work or make the two drive on the NAS into one. 

The more I think about it, having one large drive is probably the answer because for example, in the Die Hard folder there are six films which is on the full drive. If unfortunately Wilis decides to do another and I’m sad enough to get it then I will either have to have it seperate on the new drive which shows independantly on the SMP or I would have to remove something from the first drive to make room to put it into the Die Hard folder :cry:

just to clarify, above you say “files”

files are not merged together

the contents of folders and displayed together

so you have movies folder containing Batman

and you have a second drive with a folder movies2 containg the darknight

the above discussion is about displaying both files individually in the same place without having to separately navigate to each drive

also per ncarver above, media library will not accept 2 folders with the same name, which I think is a rather silly limitation, but be that as it may, you might want to name your folders Movies and the other Movies2

Hi,

Yeah sorry i aint great at conveying what i mean at times.
Inded you can’t merge files as such, what i mean is my nas has two drives, with a folder labelled movies on each. The smp doesnt see it as two drives, just one source with two movie files. What i want is to open one movie folder and see all the movies contained within both files.

Btw the media library will accept 2 folders with same name. I just tried it like i said, i have two folders labelled Movies and added both to media library and both are displayed individually

sounds like all that’s left is to change your filtering options to All

or whatever applicable filter is needed