Simple black backgrounds

i dont mind the mochi theme except for the anoying cycling of backdrops. is there anyway to just have a simple black background e.g., replace the contents of the background folder with a simple black jpg?

Simplest way is to just delete the “” tags from the metadata XML files.

You can use programs like TextCrawler to make that a simple task.

thanks tony i was hoping i could do that. i was concerned becuase i thougtht that modifying the xml would not impact the media library (i saw a post noting that using your own xml files from thumbgen etc will not allow you to filter on genre etc.)

i know this is not on the topic, but related  - can i modify the genre info on the xml file so i have the right genre lists when i filter by genre?

thanks for the help

mschlee wrote:

 

i know this is not on the topic, but related  - can i modify the genre info on the xml file so i have the right genre lists when i filter by genre?

Absolutely.

But keep in mind that only *ONE* genre is supported, even though the XML file(s) may currently have more than one listed.

If you do this change, you’ll need to clear the media library so that the WD can re-import the XML into the media library; changes are not made real-time.

mschlee wrote:

i saw a post noting that using your own xml files from thumbgen etc will not allow you to filter on genre etc.)

 

That’s not true, using xml files from Thumbgen will still allow you to filter by genre.

thanks to you both for the help not only here but throughout the forums. from what i’ve read, my plan is to:

  1. let scan run automatic - my movies are all named pretty well so should be fairly accurate and i can change those that are not manually (to force scan i think i can set to automatic and then go to the folder and select “scan” from options)

  2. use text crawler to remove the backdrop tags from all the folders (great tool btw)

  3. make any mods to the genre etc with xml notepad. at this point can i rescan the folders (with above method) or do i need to clear the library and redo?

hopefully this will give me a simple setup that is easy to maintain.

That’s alot of trouble, especially since you can do the same thing in one pass with Thumbgen.

If you look at my tutorial for Thumbgen in my themes and set up everything like I tell you to in the tutorial, but only generate the xml (nfo) and the coverart (don’t generate any moviesheets), then it will not put anything in the xml for backdrops.  Once set up, you can generate in Automatic mode and not have to manually generate the data for each file.

However, this is not going to give you a black background (no matter which way you do it), your going to see the background that you have for the home menu and every other view.

Also, just to let you know, if the “rotating” backdrop is your issue, you do know that you can set it up to have a semi-static backdrop.  This basically makes it so that you only have one backdrop display with no rotating (or at least not that you’ll see because it takes so long for the next backdrop to load).

To make moviesheets/backdrops semi-static, on the HUB, select Setup, then select Photo Settings.  In the Photo Settings menu, select “Slideshow Transition” and set it to “Fade”, then select “Slideshow Interval Time” and set it for “5 minutes”.

 

Just FYI.:smileyvery-happy:

ah yes, that was the other option i’m playing with right now. everything seemed great but when i went through the library i saw some things were not showing up e.g., for some movies, the thumbs of the cover would show twice (normal behavior i think, one cover on lower portion of screen and one on top next to the descriptive txt) but others i would  not see the large thumb on top next to the descriptive txt.

i went through the folders of one that worked and one that didn’t, but i couldn’t see any difference.

maybe it was an issue as i was importing my nfo’s from xbmc. i’ll try it clean and see how it works

good to know i have at least two viable options

btw if i delete the backdrop tags, it does indeed have a black background (at least doing the method i described previously - get info from within wdtv, remove “backdrop” from xml files

good to know on the backdrop interval change. and you are right, i dont mind that much having the backdrop there it is the annoying rotation and the performance hit it takes because of it. how anyone thought this was a good idea is beyond me

thanks again

tried TG again set up fresh.and same issue. some work perfect, others dont show the images - maybe it is a sizing issue?

  1. cleared everything out of folders so each folder only contained the mp4 (i stream to ipads as well)

  2. ran TG and it put in in the xml and jpg file

  3. cleared the library in WDTV (live not the hub if that matters)

  4. waited for the rebuild

same issue. of the 10 or so movies i tried, about 5 did not work. in the videos menu (source = media library) the txt info is there but the image only appears in one of the two places (across bottom with list of all pics) or above in the larger pic next to the description txt - or neither place

any ideas?

Did you ever have .metathumbs for your thumbnails?

i didnt, but just adjusted the output settings to output the cover as metathumbs and that seems to work partially. i’m still getting some of my metadata showing, but not all - weird so probably user error.

sorry to be thick, but do i need to clear the content info in the options menu, then create it with TG, and then clear the library so it rescans? should i also clear the contents of each movie folder before i rescan so that there is only the metathumbs and inf file in each folder? all my movies are in their own subfolder named same as the movie mp4 file.

one last thing, not sure if this causes an issue, but i have xbmc data in the folder already which i just import in TG and then output. it seems like everything work well, but want to check if it is ok to still have the xbmc files in the folder.

also on xml notepad, i’m getting an error opening the wdtv generated xml files. something like “name can not begin with “>” character …” then has the hex location of the character int he file. it works fine with other xml files and ones generated from TG, but not ones generated from wdtv

thanks again for the help