Looking for pc software that will display the xml files and let me play videos

[mhatch]

I am giving a WD TV Live (WDGBXT0000NBK) to each one of my kids. Most will have a common configuration where the Wd TV Live feeds directly to the TV via hdmi. However, at least one will have just a laptop/desktop PC because they are a student and do not own a TV.

I know it is pretty easy to just get to the attached USB drive via Windows networking and play the .mkv files. (Done that). (Or even just connect the USB drive directly to the laptop.)

But it would be fun if there was a player running on the PC that could understand the WD TV Live “xml” files and display info on the movie, thumbnails, background images, etc., just like those that are lucky enough to have a TV.

Does such a thing exist? Done a lot of searching here and wdtv forum. Cannot find any mention. The closest thing I found was a comment that XMBC could not read the WD TV Live xml files and that the conversion was not simple…

Any pointers?

Thank you!

Mark

[JoeySmyth]

Just change the extension it worked fine for me (just tested on XBMC PC)

(note: my xml’s contain & tags … i assume XBMC reads the )

eg.

Gravity.xml    to   Gravity.nfo

for XBMC to see WDTV generated Thumbnails

Gravity.jpg    to  Gravity.tbn

Or alternatly, just use XBMC’s scraper to auto re-scrape the movies again.

[mhatch]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion. That would certainly work. Either I could create a set of parallel files (copies or symbolic links(? win 8 support that?) with .nfo and .tbn or just rescrape them. Then you would get a decent way to browser the files from either the wdtv live device or a pc running xbmc.

But is there any way to avoid creating that set of parallel files/symbolic links? I am a little worried that they would get out of synch over time.

Too bad that XBMC would just read .xml and .metathumb directly. 

Mark

[JoeySmyth]

symbolic links?

WDTV reads xml  jpg .metathumb (XBMC doesent)

XBMC reads nfo and tbn files (WDTV doesent)

So, depending on which device you are using at the time it will simply ignore the format it doesent recognize.

So, all my Movies are setup like this…

Gravity.jpg

Gravity.mkv

Gravity.nfo

Gravity.tbn

Gravity.xml

Havent experienced any problems so far.

[mhatch]

Joey,

Thank you, that will certainly work. Just looking for a solution where I don’t have to maintain the same files under two names. Would have been nice if either xbmc could recognized wdtvlive extensions or vice versa… 

In regards to the comment on symbolic links, my linux heritage is showing. If I *had* to maintain two different names for the same file, would prefer that I didn’t have two exact copies. Would like to have one that is the real file and the other file name in the directory just points at the “real file”, basically an alias. 

Regards,

Mark

[JoeySmyth]

it might be possible to define a New custom extension ?   (dunno, i have never messed around with it)

In XBMC…   advancedsettings.xml

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=advancedsettings.xml

[mhatch]

Thank you! I will give that a try. Looks like you can at least extend XBMC to read the metathumbs. Not sure yet of the nfo files.

With a few more Christmas gifts to buy, might not get back to this for a few days. Will report back anything that i find.

Mark