Some newbie questions

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Hi all, still getting to grips with my new WD TV Live streaming, which I recently purchased to replace my ageing TVIX M6000 (which kept switching off part way through a movie and re-booting - very annoying).

I’m trying to understand Linksheets, Moviesheets, custom firmwares etc, and have a few questions which I hope some of you experts wouldn’t mind enlightening me on ?

  1. Do I understand correctly that regardless of wether the WD TV Live is running a custom theme or not (I’m currently trialling “TITAN”,), then the unit will automatically search or “scrape” for movie infomration from the TMDb database, and that the only difference is how it’ displayed on screen - i.e. vanilla style if no custom theme is uploaded, or in a more stylsh way if a custom theme (like Titan or Darklight for example) ?

  2. I know that using a custom theme and using Thumbgen I can create a Moviesheet which is much more detailed than WD unit will do by itself, but it does seem to clutter up the folders with dozens of additional files, and also when displaying on screen, it does take a second or so for the movie information to “populate” the moviescreen background (which again is a little irritating). Do I need all these addtional files or just the _sheet.jpg and *.xml file only ? Is there a way to “embed” the XML data into the background so that it displays instantly (I don’t need fancy changing background screens, just one will do) ?

  3. Do I understand correctly that a Linksheet requires a custom firmware to be running, but makes just one file with all the data on it, and these “backgounds” can reside on the external NAS (in my case) drives, which hopefully makes displaying much easier ? Is this even possible on the TV Live Streaming or just for the Hub ?

  4. When I had the TVIX, I used a very old program called TVIXIE, which created all my custom backgounds for the TVIX, but obviously the templates aren’t suitable for the WD TV Live (as they are full screen, and thus the moives thumbnails at the bottom of the screen would cover up some of the information. However one thing I liked about TVIXIE, is that it created just 2 files - a folder.jpg for the correct movie folder icon view, and a backgound.jpg. Is there a magical naming convention that I could use to create my own backgrounds though TVIXIE (which is MUCH easier to use than thumbgen) to create just one background file per movie (all my movies on the NAS are in seperate folders within one of 12 genere folders). ?

I appreciate some of these questions may have been asked before, but I’ve just spent the best part of an hour and am more confused that when I started.

Is there an idiots guide to Themes, Moviesheets, linksheets etc that could answer moany of th above that someone could point me in the direction of please ?

2

Answers:

Question 1: Search / Screen scrap works with any theme, like Titan.

Question 2 & 3: There are 2 different directories, sections or areas when you are talking about the XML files and the movie sheets / link sheets. 

Section 1: The location of your video file, thumbnail file, xml file and your backdrops folder

Section 2: The location of the WDTV user interface theme files

On WDTV SMP, when you upload your theme, like Titan, these files are placed in a memory chip on the WDTV SMP in a separate location. 

The WDTV SMP has only 30 Mbs of storage for themes and if your theme does not use all 30 Mbs, then the left over room can be use for movie sheets.

So, in the main/root directory of the theme with most of the other XML theme files is the location where your movie sheet files need to go. To avoid confusion, I organized my movie files and movie folders to all start with the same thing. So, when viewing all of the theme files, I can quicly find my movie sheets because they all start with the same thing.

If you are using movie sheets for your videos then you do not need to scrap or search on the WDTV box, thumbgen does it for you. You could totally remove those WDTV SMP xml movie information files and use the movie sheets. By removing those files your navigation would be faster because the WDTV would not have to try to read the XML movie file. There are different ways you could view your movie sheets and I wrote down how I did it in another article.

If you want to have more room for storing you movie sheet files, then the WDLXTV method is the way to go.

Question 4: In the theme folder, where your movie sheet files go, you need to re-label / re-name your JPG images of your movie sheets to the same name as the video file. This is confusing, but this is how it works. If you have 00_SF_Matrix.mkv or 00_SF_Matrix.mp4 then in the theme folder you copy your movie sheet file 00_SF_Matrix_movie_sheet.jpg to the theme folder and name it 00_SF_Matrix.mkv or 00_SF_Matrix.mp4.

So it will appear you have movies in the theme folder but they are really just your movie sheets. This works for folders too, so if your folder is called 00_SF, then you would copy your folder backdrop 00_SF_folder_backdrop.jpg to the theme folder and rename it 00_SF.

Just for my own sanity, I made duplicate files in my theme folder, one with the fake name as I explained and one as the same name but a “.jpg” at the end of it. This way I know it is a movie sheet and if I want to view it in Windows, I can just view the .“jpg” file without renaming the other file with a  “.jpg” extension.

Yes, creating duplicate files take up more space, but I’m using the WDLXTV method and I have my theme and my movie sheet files all on my 64 Gb thumbdrive. I think I have over 300 to 400 files already and I have about 58 Gb free still, so using the WDLXTV method is the way to go for me.

If you look at my other aritcles I give other information and the link of where WDLXTV is.

– Hope this helps.

Note: Besides thumbgen I also use Notepad+ for editing XML files. Both programs are free and easy to use.

Also, as far as thumbgen being hard to use, I find myself using the manual mode for every video file, because thumbgen, like any other program can not automatically find the correct stuff for movies. Sometimes I have to input the data right into thumbgen and for every movie I ususally prefer a different backdrop image than the image it sets.

Yes, it has a tough learning curve, but when you have your configuration settings set the way you want, it is easy to use.

WDLXTV Link:  http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7663

3

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Is there an idiots guide to Themes, Moviesheets, linksheets etc that could answer moany of th above that someone could point me in the direction of please ?

 

 

Head over to the wdtv live hub site and download the Simplicity Linksheet theme, the creator has included a really good manual on how to use and where to put the linksheets created. She has even created a Thumbgen bundle that includes the preset profiles for Thumbgen so you can create linksheets for both movies and tv series.

Link below :

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-Themes/Simplicity-Theme-by-DeVicious/td-p/578508

Cheers

4

Thanks guys very good of you. Lots to read and learn.

I’ve taken a good look at the link to the “Simplicity Theme by DeVicious”, using Movie linksheet, and had a play around on my local HDD creating Genre Folder, Covers and linksheets, and they all look great, but am a lttle unsure on the following.

I know the Simplicity theme was actually developed for the Live Hub (which has an internal HDD), but I’m intending on using it on a WD TV Live Streaming unit (SMB), which obviously doesn’t have an internal HDD. I understand that the theme on these is actually flashed across the network and resides on the NVRAM inside the unit (and is only 30mb in size). However, all my movies are stored on a ReadyNas 4 bay NAS drive in another room (connected vis gigabit Lan). All good and the movies (even the blu-ray rips) play without stuttering at all perfect then.

My structure for the movies on the NAS is a bit antiquated (was designed for the earlier TVIX unit). Thus I have a main share called “MOVIES”, and this share is then sub-divided into about 12 Genre folders (Action, Drama, Box Sets, Sci-Fi etc.). Each movie in that genre is currently placed inside it’s own folder (and the original TVIX artwork sits inside the folder along with the movie .ISO, MKV, AVi file etc.

As I understand it, it seems it’s best to move all the movie files out of their respective folders and into the root of the Genre folders ie.

Movies

    Action

        A few good men.iso

        Jack Reacher.iso

        ARGO.mkv

        Collateral.mkv…etc.

My questions (eventually). are where do the linksheets that I would have created in Thumbgen (renamed to the exactly the same name as the movie file) reside. The instructions for the Simpliciity theme says “now move the entire selection into the Simplicity Theme Folder on your device”. Does this mean onto the SMP unit (which as we said has very limited space available), or do they reside in the Genre folders alongside the movie files ?

Also, whilst it mentions that the linksheets and genre folder sheet should be renamed to the same as the folder and movie names (without an extension), hat do I do with the covers (the small Movie covers that populate across the bottom of the screen. Where do these go and how do I name then (I assume folder.jpg doesn’t work ?)

thanks in advnce.

5

Sootchucker wrote:

…

 

My questions (eventually). are where do the linksheets that I would have created in Thumbgen (renamed to the exactly the same name as the movie file) reside. The instructions for the Simpliciity theme says “now move the entire selection into the Simplicity Theme Folder on your device”. Does this mean onto the SMP unit (which as we said has very limited space available), or do they reside in the Genre folders alongside the movie files ?

 

Also, whilst it mentions that the linksheets and genre folder sheet should be renamed to the same as the folder and movie names (without an extension), hat do I do with the covers (the small Movie covers that populate across the bottom of the screen. Where do these go and how do I name then (I assume folder.jpg doesn’t work ?)

 

thanks in advnce.

  1. yes, you want the videos to be in the main genre folder, not in individual folders for each one.

  2. The Linksheets need to be in the root of the theme, the one on you SMP. In your case, you would be putting them in the simplicity folder on your SMP. As posted above, unless you do some manipulation, you will be limited to the 30MB that are available on that device for themes and sheets. That includes the video linksheets, and the folder linksheets.

  3. The movie covers stay on your NAS with the movies.  Each movie should have a jpg that has the same name but with a jpg extension. For the genre or folder Icon, you use folder.jpg as you mention. The covers need to be in the same directory as the video for it to work, and each genre folder would have it’s own folder.jpg.

Good Luck

-P

6

Thanks Pearl.

So If I understand you correctly, the linksheets (just to be sure I’ve got the terminology correct - these are the movie image backdrops that contain the background, synopsis, actors etc, in a jpg style file but without the actual jpg extension.), must be transferred over the netwrok to the SMB and therefore reside in the flash memory of the device ?

Hmm, think this is my issue as I currently have over 600 movies on the NAS drive, and if each one has a linksheet say at approx 200kb (looking at the samples I have created), that would be about 117mb of linksheets which is obviously far too big for the SMB to handle as it only has 30mb available and some of that will be used for the theme itself.

If that’s the case, then it looks like my options are

  1. Stick with the auto scraping through the SMB unit (although the results are very much less pretty or detailed than the linksheets method).

  2. Create moviesheets with a custom theme like TITAN, with the resulting hundereds of xml and other type files it creates. tried this and found it very confusing.

  3. Buy a WD Hub to replace the SMB and use linksheets ?

Does that sound about right ?

7

Seems like you pretty much have it down. Linksheets are just jpgs that have a picture and movie information in them. Using the XML method, you are dynamically building a back drop sheet from metadata. With linksheets, once you have made it, it is what it is unless you replace it since its… a static jpg.

So yes, trying to fit several hundred linksheets will not work within the 30MB parameter set on the SMP. Some folks do linksheets for genres folders and go the XML route for the rest of their stuff.

For your options, you pretty much summed it up. If you really like linksheets (and I really do myself), than getting a Hub would solve that issue for you. No spatial limtation. There are several methods that you can find to extend the 30mb barrier. Some hacking the system required and some alternate FWs available, and even discussed in this thread. I won’t advise on those options. It takes some additional knowledge and there is risk involved. You may want to invesstigate a bit, but you won’t find support in this forum.

If you can get a HUB I would do it. A lot of folks here would suggest otherwise since the SMP is getting the latest updates being the new “standard model”. I have one of each, and I really love the HUB over the SMP. Ease of linksheets is the main reason, but I also find it to be very stable on the latest FW and I love having an internal drive. Now that I have used it for a while, If I had the option to go back to when I bought my SMP, I would have gotten another HUB instead. Just one man’s opinion which aint worth much.

Anyways… looks like you have  a good understanding of what your choices are at this point and how to proceed.

Good Luck and let us know how it works out.

-P