Configuring Media Library

Hi,

I’m a fresh WD TV live SMP user and I have attached an external WD USB HDD to it. This HDD is formatted in ext3 and has several folders inside that I use for back-up purposes too. What I need to know is if it’s possible to configure the Media Library feature so that it scans only the folders I want and nothing more. Thank you

I wasn’t aware that EXT3 was a supported file system, but that’s neither here nor there to your question:  No, you cannot configure specific folders on USB devices.   That’s only possible via Network Shares.

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Thank you, that is a pity.

P.S.: the WD TV (1 gen.) could read EXT3 formatted HDD back in 2009 if I remember it right and so does the WD TV Live SMP (just tested today)

Just a thought:  Have your tried making directories you don’t want scanned hidden (names begin with dot)?  I have no idea if this would have any effect, but it might be work a quick try.

Certainly streaming from a server offers much more flexibility and security than using a local drive.  E.g., I want to use Media Library but don’t want the SMP (or any similar device) writing onto my precious video drives.  Clever use of symlinks and Samba settings makes this work great.  The only downside is that you generally need a wired connection to stream blu-ray res files.

While the SMPs work fine with ext3, I seem to recall that they do not work with ext4, which is too bad since ext4 is a superior filesystem for large video files.  I use external ext4-formatted drives on our server for the video files.

ncarver,

I know this post is a few months old but it is right inline with my question…How did you configure the WDTVLS and your NAS so that you could of course add/delete, etc. as admin from your PC but make sure the WDTV did not write over your files?

I know the WDTV has a basic login menu…right now it is just logging in as “anonymous”.

Is the right approach the same as a PC user?  So I would setup a user on my NAS called “WDTV” and only grant it read rights to the folders.  Then…and here is where I don’t want to mess up what is now working.  For some reason it took a while for the WDTV to “find” and work with my network shares.  But anyway, if I setup my users do I go into the WDTV and just “reset/clear the share login info” or whatever that menu item is.  And then try to login and use the new user login info? 

I am currently using windows file sharing.  I have asked elsewhere if Linux would make more sense.

Having fun with the unit. It does a lot more than I expected.

Thanks,

BJBBJB

Yeah, I’d aso like to know about your use of symlinks and Samba settings cause some day I might start using the media library eventually.

BJBBJB wrote:

ncarver,

I know this post is a few months old but it is right inline with my question…How did you configure the WDTVLS and your NAS so that you could of course add/delete, etc. as admin from your PC but make sure the WDTV did not write over your files?

 

Just noticed this request, so here is what I have set up…

I was unwilling to let our SMPs write to the drives containing the video files, as I didn’t want to ever have to deal with corruption of one or more 3 TB drives. So for quite a while I simply browsed the (SMB) share folders.  However, once we got to having multiple drives, each with Movies and TV subdirectories, I started searching for some way to merge them.  While web searching this I came across suggestion to use symbolic links, and I realized that that would also allow setting up a separate writable share, so I could finally use the Media Library.

So here is the setup (on a Linux server running Samba for sharing):

– Each external drive containing the video files gets mounted like /Video1, with subdirectories Movies, TV, etc.

– The /Video_n_ directories are each shared out so that I can browse them as shares (if desired), but they are readonly

– I created a new directory, /Video, on the internal drive of the Linux server, and made subdirectories Movies, TV, etc.

– Symlinks are created in /Video/Movies to each video file in /Video1/Movies, /Video2/Movies, etc.

– Symlinks are created in /Video/TV to each video file in /Video1/TV, etc., and so forth.

– /Video/Movies is shared out as Movies, /Video/TV as TV, and these shares are writable

– Media Library is enabled, the writable Movies and TV shares are added to it

– The SMPs are used to get content, writing all metadata (e.g., .xml files) in the /Video directory only

The key to making this work is that Samba can be setup to serve the target file of a symlink rather than the symlink.  This requires the following lines be in the smb.conf file (given my setup):

  unix extensions = no    [global section]

  follow symlinks = yes   [share section]

  wide links = yes             [share section]

Works just as I wanted:  (1) can use ML without danger of video drives being touched, and (2) Movies and TV from multiple video drives end up merged into single shares.

Obviously creating all the symlinks by hand would be annoying with more than a few files, so I wrote a simple shell script that adds any missing symlinks; I just run this script anytime I add video files to the video drives, so trivial to keep up to date.  Oh, yes, one complication was subdirectories under TV.  They have to be recreated in the merged share (can’t be symlinks).  Not a big problem when using a script.

With 6 TB of video files, /Video requires < 1 GB for all the metadata and backdrops, etc.

Reproducing this sort of setup on an NAS will require that you be able to create symlinks from one NAS directory to another, and that you be able to set the appropriate Samba options (which will probably require editing a config file).  I frankly don’t know how easy it is to do such things on a typical NAS.

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