Why do my movie sheets take so long to show?

I’m using the “Goodbye Black Mamba” theme and when I go to look at the movie sheet it takes a very long time to show up.  Also in there is a smaller view of the movie sheet compressed into the size of a DVD cover on the page blocking some of the movie sheet.  Is it supposed to take that long to show up (approximately 20-30 seconds)?  Is there a way to not see the ugly compressed movie sheet on that screen or a way to just view the DVD cover in its place?

As always your help is much appreciated!

DT

You definitely have some sort of issue. I use GBBM and the sheets are immediate as I scroll to the next one in Gallery View. I am also not sure of what you mean by a compressed view of the sheet blocking the page, that does not seem correct. The below image is a linksheet for a movie in my Superhero folder. You should have a background image, and then the inset image and the movie’s description. Below that are the rest of the movies in the folder. Note in my picture that the DVD cover is not actually on the sheet. The template just uses the DVD cover art to make the movie’s cover jpeg that is shown along the bottom row with the rest of the movies in the folder that you can select to view.

1) Are you completely shutting down your HUB or just coming from standby. Although that doesn’t seem to effect sheet speed, full reboots do seem to take a little bit longer to pull up the video covers the first time.

2) Are you using the correct linksheets that are go into the root of the theme’s folder on the hub?

3) Are you sure you are using the correct template for GBBM in Thumbgen? The template should be called “Black Mamba Final Movie Sheets by DeVicious”. 20 seconds is very long no matter what, but that sound more like the hub is creating the sheet using XML files instead of just pulling the completed linksheet from the HUBs internal drive. GBBM does not use XML files. It simply looks for a completed sheet in the root of the theme that matches the name of the movie. My movies are on a different machine than the HUB where the sheets are stored, and it is still almost instantaneous to pull the sheet.

4) When you are generating the linksheet in Thumbgen, you see what it will look like in the bottom right corner in the frame called “Movie Sheet Editor”. Does the sheet look correct there before you finish generating it?

This is what a sheet looks like on my HUB using GBBM.

 If you have everything setup correctly and are using the proper templates and linksheets, you should be fine, so something is certainly off here. My guess is that you are not using the correct template and making the linsheets. If you think that it is all setup correctly, maybe post a pic of your sheet so we can see what you mean by “ugly compressed movie sheet on the screen”. 

-P

once set up correctly, you might also want to limit the size of your sheets

a 300 Mb sheet will be displayed faster than a 600 Mb sheet, etc …

@KAD79, though I understand the theory behind smaller sheets being faster, have you actually found that to be the case with linksheets? I had never thought about this before so did some testing. The movie linksheets I have via the Thumbgen Template I use range from 172 KB - 245 KB. The folder linksheets I made with graphics editor go up to 735 KB. While scrolling through in gallery mode, I am not finding any viewable difference between the smallest and the largest (which is a good thing)

Perhaps people are using much larger sheets than I am. At 1280x720 with 96px per inch, I am finding no lag time bringing up sheets, and all seem to work at the same speed to the naked eye. As above though, 735KB is my largest sheet.

-P

for myself, I am currently using a custom version of GBBM

I keep my sheets mostly below 300 Mb

I can see a difference when I stick something in there over 500 Mb or even worse approching 1 GB

wired / wireless may also be a factor

pull 300 Mb wireless less compared to 1 GB I’m sure you’ll notice a difference, at least I do

but I figure, my network is probably more robust than most

with a 3GB trunk to my server and an AC66U connected via bridge

so my bottleneck is the 10/100 port on the SMP, which I’ve still managed to speed test at a consistant 98 Mb/s which is pretty darn close to the theoretical max of that 10/100 port

Sorry KAD79, I am totaly confused. We are talking about pulling the linksheets from the theme’s root. These file are only a few hundred KB not MBs. When you roll over a movie’s cover in gallery mode, the linksheet is pulled up as a background, not the actual movie. What am I missing here? If my linkhseets or backgrounds were 300MB, yeah I am sure they would take a long time to load.

Sorry if I am missing the point. I am under the impression that the posters linksheets are taking 20+ seconds to pull up.

-P

oh your right, doing this from memory while not at home, I got my kb mb mixed

but the bottom line is yes file size will make a difference, at least it is visible to me

also to your second point

your right again on the hub currently the community is keeping them on the internal storage

Phew, couldn’t imagine what you were doing with linksheets that size. Interesting that you are seeing a time differential with the sheet size. GBBM is the only theme I have used since it’s release so I dont have anything else to compare it with, but I have found the sheet pulls to be instantaneous regardless of size. Since they are on the HUB itself without having to go over my network I don’t seem to have any bottle neck. Getting all the DVD covers up especially after a reboot, is where I see latency. I have them and the movies on a networked computer, on mirrored external drives through DriveBender, so I certainly have a few places in that setup that can slow it down the process. 

Original poster gone? We’re happy to help if you can give  a bit more info

-P

sometimes I get ahead of myself and forget that half of what I do with my media player is not what the majority of the community does

KAD79 wrote:

sometimes I get ahead of myself and forget that half of what I do with my media player is not what the majority of the community does

 

Ahh, if only your HUB could talk, the stories it would tell… :dizzy_face:

SAVE ME!!  SAVE ME!!

lol

although I do have something I’ve been working on

it’s an old idea, which I don’t think many have spent much time looking into

but I think it will actuall turn into something usefull for the average user

Looking forward to it my friend

-P

KAD you should get the award for “Most Useful Finds Ever Found”. Linksheets revolutionized the Hub/SMP.

I can’t wait to find out what this one does!

SAVE ME!!  SAVE ME!!

should it be:

SAVE ME!!  SAVE ME!!

</WD SMP> :smiley:

don’t forget recliq 

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-SMP-Discussions/Attention-Themers-1-12-14-Mochi-OSD/m-p/505002#M14381

it’s nothing groundbreaking

and will only be usefull for those with multiple drives that don’t use the media library

the basics of the idea is to set up a playlist to consolidate drives

I don’t have a massive raid array,but I’ve got lots and lots of drives

since I don’t have a working unionfs solution directly on these devices

and exporting unionfs from my server over nfs to the WD would require compiling a new linux kernel with no guarantee that the WD will work with it, the mount cmd’s would require some custom flags, whcih I sort of doubt the WD will set

so I’m looking into playlist

relative playlist work very easily

I’m currently using this with some custom mounted nfs shares

allows me to view 5 nfs shares as 1 directory under local media

linksheets work with playlist entries as well

although thumbnails, actually required an additional xml entry, which I borrowed from the music browse xml’s

but I’m experementing with ways to directly point a playlist at a network source instead of local content

smb

nfs

http

I’m not very far into testing,

and once I get it working directly with network shares, I’ll post up what I find

Folders on movie sheet

This is what i’m seeing.

mods have to approve photos before we can see them, once approved we’ll take a look

DTv10101011 wrote:

 

 

This is what i’m seeing.

 

Okay, that would appear to be the linksheet, but saved to the same directory as the movie as the cover. Check the cover that is with the movie. You should have two files there. For instance if the movie was an mkv. it would be these two

moviename.mkv

moviename…jpg

Open the moviename.jpg and see if it is the DVD cover or the linksheet. If it is the linksheet, that is what is causing your issue. 

If you have not  changed the Thumbgen template, the program will generate two files for you, 1x Cover Box and 1x Linsk Sheet. Both files have the exact same name. The Cover Box will be stored in the folder of your movie file and the Linksheet will be saved in the upper level folder (one folder backwards). The jpg in the same folder/directory as the movie should be the DVD box cover. When you open it in any graphics editor you should be able to tell if it is or not.

From your picture, it seems like you have your linksheets setup correctly in the root of the theme, and your only issue is the moviename.jpg that is in the same folder as the movie. 

  1. I would gen up a sheet for a movie and see if you have the template working correctly where the cover is made correctly, and the linksheet is one folder up from there. If TG is making you two linkheets instead, either you have modified the template, or need to uninstall and reinstall it as it is not working correctly.

You are very close, its just that one jpg with the movie.

try step 1 above and let us know if it gens the two jpgs correctly. One linksheet and one DVD cover

-P

I cant help but think that my problem is lying in the setup of TG.  I’ve gone through a few different tutorials and resources, but I havent had any luck in finding how it should be using GBBM. Are there any resources that you know of that will be helpfull with this?  I know some of my folders dont have the same name as the movie file, but i’d hate to go through 900+ movies to rename them all.  How important is it?  I do believe my folder setup is correct, but verification would be great.  

I have my folder named as the movie title and the movie inside that folder.  

Thanks again,

DT

It has to do with your folders. The structure you are using will make this unnecessarily complicated.

Although you can do it, the easiest way to use GBBM and most other themes is to have “genre” folders that contain lots of movies. Your structure of having each movie in its own folder is making this complicated. The only reason I would use your structure is if all of your 900 movies are in VIDEO_TS folders. If you are in formats where each movie is just one file, (ISO, MPG, AVI, MP4 etc.), having them in “Genre” folders is MUCH easier.

The genre folder linksheet is saved to the theme root with no extension. The movie’s linksheets are saved with the moviename and same extension to the themes root. The movies cover has the same name as the move and a jpg extension and is saved in the same folder as where you are keeping the movie.

Here is an example of a Genre Folder called "Action"that contains four movies and their respective DVD covers. Then the  Theme’s Root and the files that would go there that corresond with those four movies and the Genre Folder.

1) This is the “genre” folder of your movies on the HUB or a network drive. These are the actual movies, and the jpg of the DVD cover.

Action Folder
–>12 Monkeys (1995).DVD.mkv
–>12 Monkeys (1995).DVD.jpg
–>Cowboys.and.Aliens (2011).DVD.mkv
–>Cowboys.and.Aliens (2011).DVD.jpg
–>Fight Club (1999).DVD.avi
–>Fight Club (1999).DVD.jpg
–>Leon.The.Professional (1994).Bluray.mkv
–>Leon.The.Professional (1994).Bluray.jpg

2) This is the matching files in the root of the theme on the HUB. The “folder” linksheet (Action) is a jpg made in TG that has had the extension removed. The movie linksheets are also jpgs you created in TG that you have changed the extension from jpg to match the extension of the actual movie. All of the below that are inside the themes root are really linksheet jpgs that you have changed the extension on.

Theme’s Root folder on your HUB
–>Action
–>12 Monkeys (1995).DVD.mkv
–>Cowboys.and.Aliens (2011).DVD.mkv
–>Fight Club (1999).DVD.avi
–>Leon.The.Professional (1994).Bluray.mkv

I am assuming you know this but note that the TG Template for folders, is different than the TG Template for your movies. For the GBBM theme you are using, the two templates are “Black Mamba Folder Sheets by DeVicious” and “Black Mamba Final Movie Sheet by Devicious”. You will be choosing your template under the “Current Profile” dropdown menu (top left) in Thumbgen.

I feel for your frustration on this, it took me a while to get it down as well. Though it may not be your only issue, your folder structure is the first thing to fix.

How about trying a test first. Make one “genre folder”, whatever you like (Action, Comedy, Drama etc) and copy three or four movies into it. Run TG on the movies. Keep the DVD covers with the movies. Find the linksheet which will be one folder up  and rename the linksheets extensions to same as the movies, and copy to themes root. See if that works. Worry about the folder’s sheet later. Just get a few movies working as a test.

Let us know how it goes

-P

ADDED:

Since you seem to have this somewhat working, I have been assuming you know what I mean by the “Theme’s Root”. If not, it is the GBBM directory that is on your HUB. The actual path is below. The top level directory (.wd_tv) is hidden. To see it you must view it from a computer that you have turned on “view hidden files/folders”

LIVEHUB> .wd_tv / theme / Goodbye Black Mamba Theme / (your linksheets go here)