Question about "Media Library"

Right now I have a single external hard drive attached to my media player. However, I plan on getting a 4TB My Cloud or building a 2-bay NAS since I have more media than the external hard drive can hold.

The My Cloud is the cheapest and easiest option, however 4TB probably isn’t enough either. I thought about attaching the external hard drive to the My Cloud, but was told that this drive will act as a second drive. I haven’t used the Media Library function on the TV Live yet; I’ve tried it, but haven’t had much luck with it in the past (might be an issue with Windows Shares and how they sometimes don’t work). How does it work exactly? If I have folders across two drives, will it display everything on the same screen? For example, if drive A has folders called “Music”, “Kids Shows”, and “Cartoons”, and drive B had “TV Shows”, “Movies”, and “Music Videos”, I assume they will all show up together on one screen even though they are on different drives? I basically want it to work the same way it does when I have a drive attached right to the player and select Local Storage.

eday_2010 wrote:

 If I have folders across two drives, will it display everything on the same screen? For example, if drive A has folders called “Music”, “Kids Shows”, and “Cartoons”, and drive B had “TV Shows”, “Movies”, and “Music Videos”, I assume they will all show up together on one screen even though they are on different drives? I basically want it to work the same way it does when I have a drive attached right to the player and select Local Storage.

If you’re using the Media Library function, then it all depends on how you set your WDTV’s display filter.

If you set it to “Folders” then the top level view will be each Share Name.  If you navigate into the share, you’ll see the folders in that share.

If you set it to just about any other filter, everything will be aggregated together (and you won’t see folders.)   So if you have 1000 movies, and you filter by movies, you’ll see 1000 movies and no folders.

If you have 1000 TV episods from 30 different TV series, and you set your filter to TV Shows, you’ll first see the Series Name, then when you navigate into a series, you’ll see all the Seasons (as long as you have one or more episode of a given season), and then all the episodes of that season.

If you set the filter to “All,” you’ll see every single video all lumped together.

etc.

If you’re NOT using the Media Library function, then you can only browse one share at a time.  You’d need to change your content source every time you wanted to change shares.

So with a drive attached to the My Cloud, will both drives show up together as a Share Name, or are they each their own Share Name?

Seeing all movies together isn’t an issue. It’s an issue with TV Shows as I will have a folder for each series(let’s say I have 50 different series), and in each folder are all the shows for that series, named from 101 - Show Title (season 1 episode 1) to whatever the last show is. The folders contain the Series name, but the episodes do not. So I am not sure how the filter will deal with that. I might experiment with it tonight on the drive connected directly to the player.

Each attached disk will be its own share name.

The filters deal with it via attached metadata.   (You can do it yourself using a myriad of third party tools, or let the WDTV do it itself [If you have a Live SMP or Live Hub.])

Yuck. Looks like I will need a NAS with RAID 0, though I will randomly check my tv show files to see what metadata they have, if any, and see how it works.

There certainly are approaches for having a share that spans multiple drives.  Some  NAS’s will support this, such as those that list JBOD capability.  Other people have done it with their NAS’s like I did on my Linux server: use symbolic links.   I have a Movies share and a TV share, each of which contains files from three (so far) 3TB drives.

That is beyond my knowledge. I have never built, had, or dealt with a NAS. I’ll need to do some research.

I’ve used a feature in the SMP that allows you to add shared folders as part of the Library.  You can specify different shares on different devices and have them all show up when viewing the Media Library.

On the SMP:

Settings / System / Media Library / Media Library Mananger for Network Share / Add network share to media library

Browse to the share you want to include.  Set your SMP display to Media Library and filter to All.

I’m using this to access my 3Tb MyCloud over the network.  I have one share pointing to the videos and another pointing to the MP3 files.  I’m almost out of space, so I’ll be getting another 3 or 4 Tb MyCloud, and will add another pointer to it’s shared video files.

The only downside to doing it this way is the time to load the cover art from the MyCloud over the SMP WiFi.  A bit slow.

Rider wrote:

I’ve used a feature in the SMP that allows you to add shared folders as part of the Library.  You can specify different shares on different devices and have them all show up when viewing the Media Library.

 

Yes, but the separate shares on different drives show up as separate entries if you have Folders filtering selected.  What I was talking about was how one can end up with a single share (single folder for Media Library) that spans multiple drives.

TonyPh12345 already layed out how other Media Library filtering options will consolidate titles from multiple shares/drives.  I was simply not happy fussing with the filtering and wanted more control over how titles were related and presented, so I wanted to use only Folders filtering and have single shares span multiple drives.

ncarver wrote:

Yes, but the separate shares on different drives show up as separate entries if you have Folders filtering selected.  What I was talking about was how one can end up with a single share (single folder for Media Library) that spans multiple drives.

I think I understand your question, but if not, then here is a long rambling answer that may be of no help at all. :confounded:

First off, it seems to me that you may not need to use the media library to get the effect you want. Are you sure you want or need it? I personally do not use it and find that I am able to view my files in the manor I think you are asking to see them. The Media Library has some great features, and does some things I do not like or need. I guess it’s all personal preference.

File Naming:

This was not part of your question, but I felt worth mentioning. You have your TV series in folders, but without the name of the show for each individual episode, just the main folder. Just for good housekeeping I would add the name of the show. For example instead of "205 Sad Sack.S02.E05.mkv”, it would be “Arrested Development.S02.E05.Sad Sack.mkv”. This would be simple and quick using “Bulk Rename Utility” which is free, very powerful with lots of options. An entire directory of TV series could be done in seconds. If you intend to use the media library this would be pretty critical. I would do it no matter what just to keep things nice and tidy.

Drive Spanning or Merging:

You want to present multiple drives as a singular drive. You can do this via software or hardware. You could  merge drives with software. I use Drivebender to make multiple drives act as a single drive. Other folks I know  like DrivePool. DB works well for me. I can keep adding space as needed by adding drives, and you can also use these to have duplicate copies in case of a failure. Alternately, you can use hardware RAID as you mention above. Any way you do it, the key (at least for me) is to have the individual folders shared on the file server or NAS, which then presents them to the SMP all at once when you choose that server as your content source

It may not be exactly the solution that you are looking for, but the SMP is not going merge or span drives for you. You will have to use another program or piece of hardware. 

So… When you have the drives and data on another computer (a file server for the purpose of this conversation), and you choose that machine as your content source, you will see all the shares on that file server. Using your example above, you would share each of the individual folders; “Music”, “Kids Shows”, “Cartoons”, “TV Shows”, “Movies”, and “Music Videos”. You will then be presented each of these folders at the same time on the screen in folder view. Again, this is without using the Media Library

Example:

For example, my file server has three shares, “Movies” and “TV Series” that SMP uses, and one called “Data” that contains other stuff I want to get to from other computers. That server is my default content source, and the SMP will show me those three folders (shares). When I choose video from the main menu, I see the three folders automatically since it is the last content source I used. It will always default to that unless I change the content source which I dont have much reason to do. Within those are the actual videos. MY SMP does not know that the each of those directories actually spans 4 drives on the file server.

Sorry if that was long or doesn’t make as much sense as it does in my head: :smiley:

Remember that I do not use the media library. I want to go into the Movie folder to look for movies, and the TV folder to look for a specific TV series.

So, here are the views I see when looking for videos. I am using the Simplicity theme, and I have subfolders or Genres for movie underneath both of the main “Movies” and “TV Series” folders. Yes this is very basic and I am sure you understand this part, but it displays what the SMP shows me. It is blissfully unaware that the folders (shares) span multiple drives using DriveBender.

 

Your GUI will obvioulsy look different than mine, depending on which theme if any you use, what data you have scraped and what view you prefer. If I run low on space on the drives housing my TV Series, I will just add another drive to that pool. You would do that via whatever hardware or software solution you choose. The main point is that if you put the media in shares on a file server or a NAS, you will get the view of each of your folders from the main interface without having to switch your content sources all the time.

Hope this was helpful in some way.

-P

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The thing is I was looking at getting a 4TB My Cloud, but 4tb isn’t enough to hold all the stuff I want it to serve. Adding an external drive to it is an option, but that drive shows up as a seperate drive letter. Is there something like Drivebender that I could install on the My Cloud to have both HDDs appear as one to the media player?

I am still using the default theme that came with the WD TV Live. I will look for new ones because your picture has intrigued me greatly!

Im unclear how the MyCloud drive appears on your SMP. Also do mean attaching and external drive to your SMP,or to your My Cloud?

-P

Attaching to the My Cloud. I don’t have a My Cloud yet, but if I could get it and the external HDD attached to it appear as one drive, i would be happy. I’ll have to see if there is a drivebender type program for the My Cloud.

There would not be, DB and programs like it run on computers and take over the file system management so they can build pools of drives.

You need a NAS (or computer)  that allows you to add drives, and then share out individual folders and not the entire drive. That would give you the views that you want.  I have not used the My Cloud so perhaps someone else here can answer the question. Can you put some of you media on the 4 TB My Cloud in folder and then share those individually, like “Music”, “Kids Shows”, and “Cartoons”, and then on the USB drive do the same with “TV Shows”, “Movies”, and “Music Videos”. If the My Cloud acts as a single NAS with the two drives, you would be default get those folders on your main screen when you chose it as your content source.

A;ternately you could step up to the My Cloud EX4 which would allow you four drives. If you believe you wil need additional storage (and you always will), you should choose a solution which will allow you to add space as needed. I chose a PC with an external drive bay, while other may choose a NAS with empty drive bays they can add to. The ability to add drives is always helpful.

Seems to me that you can probably do this with your current plan. Just share the individual folders and not the entire drives. That way when you choose the Video option from your main home screen, you will see your video folders and not your drive letters, the way you see it in the pictures from my previous post.

-P

If I go with a NAS then I won’t have any of these issues since I can run RAID 0. A NAS is also a lot more expensive. I’ll probably go that route when I do bitecthe bullet. I was just hoping the My Cloud could have been an easy solution.

A NAS is a great solution, but you may also want to look into just re-purposing an old PC as a file server, or buying a used one. It does not take that much processing power to be an FS. I bought a used PC for $175, and then started adding external USB drives (ones that I already had attached to my WD Live). Eventually I added an external drive bay.  It’s an easy way to build as you go along and add drives when they are either on sale or you need one. A cheap PC is an easy way to start, and there is essentialy no limit to the drives you can add, between the internal bays, external USB drives, or ESATA drive bays. I chose that over a NAS as it was a less expensive start up cost and I already had a lot of external drives.

The other upside is that you can use that machine for other things like running a media server (DLNA), running PlayOn or Plex to stream web videos to you SMP etc. Gives you a lot of flexibility. Depending on your skills, you can run it on Windows (need a liscense) or use Linux, or set up FreeNas.

Lots of options

-P

A NAS is definitively the way to go.  I built my NAS using an old motherboard an a case that can house 10 internal HDs.  I also installed a program called NASlite M2 that I got from Server Elements.  I have not regretted that and I love it…