Initial Thoughts/Concerns on new Hub (Plex/Boxee User)

(running latest firmware as of 2-16-11)

OKay so set it up to sync usb drive (roughly 700gb) - then disconnected for backup.

Then set it up to see my Network shares (3 tb) and made sure read/write was set thanks to this forum :slight_smile:

Background info on my network shares: ALL MOVIES ARE IN THEIR OWN FOLDERS

for expample:

-Network Drive

—Divx Movies

------10,000 BC

---------10,00BCXVIDRIPBLA-BLA-BLA.AVI

**Unless I’m missing something, this media hub doesnt have the option to look at FOLDER NAMES - which i have maintaned over the last few years and never had any issues on XBMC/PLEX/BOXEE.  With that being said, NONE of my movies are recognized and i have to edit manually (Over 1000 movies)  Also, I thought that COMPILING LIBRARY was fetching the Metadata, but it seems it doesnt, and I have hit GET INFO in each individual folder for it to come up
seriously!?? AND
when you browse your movies
you dont even see the COVERART/SYNOPSIS, until you go into that folder!!? 

I’m new to the device but there seems to be so many setbacks.  Its worth keeping for the Apps, MediaServer, and 1 tb HD however.

Can someone let me know if I’m correct in my assumptions or if I’m doing something wrong.

$50 to whoever can get a Boxee app running on here :slight_smile:

1.) There have been applications created for your PC, so that you do not have to indivudally go and ‘GET INFO’ on each movie on the hub. You can find the links to multiple types of these applications within this forum.

The Apps allow you to enter in a destination

say, Z:\WDTVLIVEHUB\DIVX\

and as long as you have your movies named correctly such as Avatar 2009.mkv instead of Avatar.1080p.x264.Dimension.DTS.Mkv

then it will scan all your movies in your folder and so long as you have them named like i said previously, it will automatically create and download all the info for the XML and the DVD cover.

2.) The Hub used to allow for your metadata to be shown outside the folder, along with inside the folder. But the newest firmware update changed all that because there used to be a main folder that stored ALL the XML files, and now the xml files are storted within the same folder as your movie. Alot of users have been asking that WD allow us to create a foldername.xml to place the metadata information outside the folder. It is my feeling that upcoming firmware updates will allow so way to place the metadata outside the folder again,. The same with the DVD Cover showing enlarged outside the folderr, this used to be possible on the older firmware, and again the newer firmware changed that. So i also believe that upcoming firmware updates will again allow for the DVD Cover to show outside the folder next to the metadata.

I really don’t understand all the consternation surrounding this. I simply made a folder on the Hub named Movies and copy all my movies to it. I select them and then use the Get Info command to download the metadata. Takes all of about 15 seconds per flick. I end up with a folder that looks like this when I navigate to it on the device.

http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y67/RADRick1/?action=view&current=2011-02-09112952.jpg

Okay, it sounds like you guys have ALL your movies in ONE folder.  What about those of us that already have a thousand movies in their respective folder, so a thousand folders
  Is there a program out there (hopefully mac based) that is smart enough to scan FOLDER NAMES instead of FILE NAMES?

I’m starting to think this device is not designed for someone with an already large movie collection
i cant imagine hitting “get info” a thousand times

Hopefully TV Show support will also be included in future firmware updates


The problem is that WD expects users to have ripped their own movies, not downloaded them via bittorrent or usenet.

Nobody names their files like that apart from the ripping scene groups.

If you’re too lazy to rename the films you’ve stolen, you’re on your own.

Not helpful, but funny.  And sure, WD invests $$ to create a device to play most all formats catered to
all the rippers out there! - I got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you
smh

I ‘used’ to have ALL of my movies in their own folder

such as

W:\Videos\Blu Ray\Avatar\Avatar.mkv

But now i’ve moved alot of all my movies into one folder, so that my metadata is shown as i scroll through my movies. But i still have all of my DivX movies in their own folders like the destination path i showed above.

I have a Metadata program i downloaded from here that will allow me to scan

W:\Videos\Divx\

and it will put my metadata and dvd covers correctly in folder:

W:\Videos\Divx\187\187.avi

W:\Videos\Divx\Shaft\Shaft.avi

So long as my acual moviename is just movie-name.avi or movie-name (year).avi

It is a little annoying having 75+ movies all in a single folder, because then you also have 75 jpgs and 75 xml’s and when you scroll through them the backdrops do not respond instantly, so sometimes you wind up with downloading a backdrop as you scroll through, that sticks with you for the next 10 movies until it downloads another one that you pass up.

I did like the previous firmware which allowed the metadata to be shown outside the folder, but i truly believe that WD will fix this in the next firmware, or definitely by the one after that. It’s also pretty annoying that the DVD covers do not show next to where the metadata was outside the folder anymore either. I can’t see this being anything other than a bug, as it used to work on the previous firmware, and obviously users would rather see their DVD cover next to the metadata rather than the ‘video picture’ icon that is static there now.

But to answer your question, i was able to create metadata using one of the apps from here for about 75 movies in probably about 3-4 minutes with a single click. The only time metadata isn’t created for a movie, is if there are multiple movies that will return when you do a search such as (3:10 to yuma has an original and a remake, so you would need to enter the year for it to only return the remake from 2002 or whenever it came out) so 310 to yuma(2002).mkv

Other than that, so long as you have your movies named correctly, and a release year it will grab 99.9% of the movies you throw at it. do a search in the forums and try out all the Metadata editors until you find one that best suits your needs as there are more than one.

And to boot, Tony has created a phenominal TV metadata creator which is insanely simple and quick to use, and now allows you to create your own ouput filenames for each episode, so that you do not have to go and rename all your files to match the jpgs and xml’s. Has many indepth options for you to create them entirely how you would like(dvd cover for season jpgs or an episode screenshot, you can choose how the title is named(currently not working due to a bug but will be fixed in future releases) shud you want it to be Season Name Season Episode Number Episode Name

Breaking Bad - Season 3 - Episode 10 - Fly

or if youd just want

Breaking Bad S0E10 - Fly

Or

10 - Fly

You can pick all of that, along with what backdrops etc etc, So please search through the forums as alot of the users here have spent countless hours making apps, and themes to better the lives of all WD HUB users until future firmware updates enter all of the ideas of users into the app, we can rely on doing it ourselves, and the use of applications to do so.

Thanks for all that valuable information!!

I also wish the directional arrows controlled volume/ff and rewind
that way you can work with 1 remote and not have to look down at it


I think I found a $99 fix to all my problems :slight_smile:

XBMC is now running on Apple Tv 2nd Generation ($99)

http://arturito.net/2011/02/14/apple-tv-2-untethered-jailbreak-on-windows-and-xbmc-media-centre-installation/

So my plan is to use my media live hub as a 1tb media server exclusively
and now i can go back to using one remote - Comcast remote <—really great underated universal remote