Author Topic: Call for donations for features.  (Read 31623 times)

los93sol

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #45 on: August 24, 2009, 07:58:42 pm »
My request would be to get backup/restore working again.  I haven't personally used it in 0810, but other posts here indicate it does not work.  I think this would help development along too since people could play with a little less fear of breaking things since they would be able to easily restore.  How many hours do you estimate for this and at what hourly rate?

Marie.O

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #46 on: August 26, 2009, 09:38:17 am »
Do you a personal PayPal account set up for this, or should we donate through the LinuxMCE site?

Donation should go thru the link on the http://www.linuxmce.org - All those donations end up in the pockets of the person in need of those donations ;) (as the name on top of the PayPal page is probably well known ;)

soeren

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #47 on: August 27, 2009, 08:54:22 pm »
I have followed this project for a year now. I'm not a user (yet), but when the project matures I will be for sure. Just to see the next release I will put in 25$. I would be nice and decadent if some of you out there would follow me.

dothedog

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #48 on: August 30, 2009, 04:30:42 pm »
Well, I have been a linuxmce user and before that plutohome for years. I have had the system running since the beginning. I am just now updating to alpha2. Thom has helped me enough over the years that I just donated $100 to say "thanks". As for features, I have been using knoppmyth/linhes on a separate box in my home theater because I could never get the linuxmce version to work to where I wanted. I would also like to see vdpau/hd support.

DoTheDog

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #49 on: September 05, 2009, 05:40:00 pm »
I would donate to see a live media browser (nfs, smb/cifs) instead of having to catalog media.  A good part of my media is updated daily and I prefer to keep my media organized by directory instead of by catalog.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2009, 06:23:19 pm by rdmustang »

tschak909

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #50 on: September 05, 2009, 08:00:07 pm »
Not gonna happen. We will constantly improve the database, and make it faster, but we are staunchly against mirroring the file system.

Sorry.

-Thom

skeptic

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #51 on: September 05, 2009, 09:11:11 pm »
Not gonna happen. We will constantly improve the database, and make it faster, but we are staunchly against mirroring the file system.

Sorry.

-Thom

Gotta agree with Thom on this, with one wish list item that may already be in the works or part of 810.  It would be really nice if there was a way in the web admin/media sync page to set type/media sub-type/file format on "all" files in a directory similar to the way setting all attributes currently works.  Not necessarily a dynamic thing such that any file put into a specific directory would automatically have attributes set, but for example browsing to a directory and setting every media file to type movie, or setting them all to TV show/title xyz/season 2. 

On the surface it may seem like organization by directory makes sense, but in my experience as a casual user Thom is 100% correct.  Filesystem transparent media organization is the best way to go.

rdmustang

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #52 on: September 05, 2009, 11:48:02 pm »
Not gonna happen. We will constantly improve the database, and make it faster, but we are staunchly against mirroring the file system.

Sorry.

-Thom

Gotta agree with Thom on this, with one wish list item that may already be in the works or part of 810.  It would be really nice if there was a way in the web admin/media sync page to set type/media sub-type/file format on "all" files in a directory similar to the way setting all attributes currently works.  Not necessarily a dynamic thing such that any file put into a specific directory would automatically have attributes set, but for example browsing to a directory and setting every media file to type movie, or setting them all to TV show/title xyz/season 2.  

On the surface it may seem like organization by directory makes sense, but in my experience as a casual user Thom is 100% correct.  Filesystem transparent media organization is the best way to go.

To me this is one of lmce's biggest problems - it assumes that all computers, network, files, etc are owned by lmce and there are no other external applications required by the users.  If that's the case then lmce is perfect (other than the occasional quirkiness behavior).  Otherwise it has many shortcomings (my suggestion being one).  I agree that if lmce is all you want then the categorization is fine.  Personally I don't like storing 16TB of various types of 'video' (tv, movies, music videos, home videos, comical shorts, etc) in one directory and then having to go in and categorize it manually.  I would rather organize everything by directory (as has long been a standard in computing).  This also works well when having to upgrade or if something ever happened to the core which requires redoing all the work required to classify everything.

Live browsing could be implemented completely separate from cataloging.  I was speechless when I first installed lmce and found that this wasn't possible since every other alternative out there that I've tried has live browsing as the default.  To me that's a lacking feature.  I guess to everyone else that's what sets lmce apart from everyone else.

I wouldn't classify myself as a "casual user" since my media collection is probably 1000 fold that of other "casual users" here.  Setting it up as lmce requires would take far too much of my time.  I currently get around this by listing files by filename as this is close to live browsing but unfortuantely it still falls short.  I understand that everyone is different but I thought I would elaborate on why I think this feature might be enjoyed by others.  Please do not take any of this as a flame, just constructive feedback from someone who is appreciative of all the work that has been put into the project and the assistance I've received in the forums.
« Last Edit: September 05, 2009, 11:52:10 pm by rdmustang »

colinjones

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #53 on: September 06, 2009, 01:13:10 am »
No one said you have to put everything in one folder and categorise separately... that is just being willfully argumentative! Absolutely create a folder structure and file away your media... I do. And that way you can use BOTH the meta-tag sort mode AND the Filename sort mode depending on circumstances.

I don't understand your fixation with "live" browsing... you said yourself your library sometimes updates as much as daily! So what, the Filename sort mode updates every 2 mins, so the most your "live" directory browsing is going to be out by is around 2mins, which frankly is amply frequent if your library files are only getting updated as infrequently as daily!!

And be aware that file systems where not designed as categorisation systems, and are uniquely poor at being used as such. By definition all file systems are single-dimensional - meaning a file can only exist in a single location (and thus category) without resorting to multiple copies or links and shortcuts. This is a very simplistic taxonomy. Tagging systems by design are multi dimensional - meaning a file can be assigned to multiple different values in the same category and have any number of categories.

Say you have a file that is both a horror and thriller, and 720p and movie. Do you create a specific horror & thriller genre under your movie folder? What about action and adventure, and fantasy? How many combinations of genres do you create folders for because the file MUST exist in just one folder. Or do you create individual genre folders, place the move in one, and then symlink it to all the other appropriate folders, so that you can still find it? What about combinations of 1080i/p/720p/etc do you have folders for each under each genre? Can you see how ridiculously complicated this is becoming to achieve what is very basic and seemless using meta-tags?

I don't know where you got the idea that rebuilding your core means you have to redo everything - I suspect that you haven't really played around with LinuxMCE all that much and are trying to impose preconceived ideas. All meta data is stored both in the library database and either in embedded id3 tags (for mp3s) or parallel ID3 tag files for other media. Rebuild at will with no fear whatsoever... when the core rediscovers your media it will reimport all your metadata, good as new!

If we are to compare "other alternative" out there, lets get a few things straight... the mainstream competitor is Vista MCE, and that works in pretty much the same way, there is a library database, and the default views access this to provide a metadata-categorised view in exactly the same way. So you can sort or group by artist, or year and so on... and no that isn't "live" either, Vista periodically rescans its library in the same way. Lets not overstate it.... LinuxMCE's Filename sort mode may not be truly "live" but for almost all purposes it might as well be.... and one of the reasons for it being handled like this is so that all your media sources around the house can be overlayed and merged into a single location even in filename mode.... Vista cannot do this.

LinuxMCE has plenty of quirks, and missing features in managing media, but this realistically isn't one of them.

skeptic

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #54 on: September 06, 2009, 04:02:36 am »

To me this is one of lmce's biggest problems - it assumes that all computers, network, files, etc are owned by lmce and there are no other external applications required by the users.  If that's the case then lmce is perfect (other than the occasional quirkiness behavior).  Otherwise it has many shortcomings (my suggestion being one).  I agree that if lmce is all you want then the categorization is fine.  
Not true at all.  
Quote


Live browsing could be implemented completely separate from cataloging.  I was speechless when I first installed lmce and found that this wasn't possible since every other alternative out there that I've tried has live browsing as the default.  To me that's a lacking feature.  I guess to everyone else that's what sets lmce apart from everyone else.
Seriously, how often are you looking for stuff that is on disk but not in LinuxMCE quite yet?  I don't see how this can be a problem, just something to complain about.
Quote

I wouldn't classify myself as a "casual user" since my media collection is probably 1000 fold that of other "casual users" here.  Setting it up as lmce requires would take far too much of my time.  I currently get around this by listing files by filename as this is close to live browsing but unfortuantely it still falls short.  I understand that everyone is different but I thought I would elaborate on why I think this feature might be enjoyed by others.  Please do not take any of this as a flame, just constructive feedback from someone who is appreciative of all the work that has been put into the project and the assistance I've received in the forums.
I will agree that tagging large amounts of data can be tedious, and why I threw out my suggestion of allowing additional directory based tagging functionality.

Now, to throw out another suggestion in the spirit of the devs:  If it really makes that much difference to you, you can write a script that updates the database with new files based on the directory they appear in.  I wouldn't have the first clue how to do it, but the MythTV that comes with LinuxMCE has a custom user job or two that updates the LinuxMCE database after it records each program.  That might be a good place to start looking.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2009, 04:04:23 am by skeptic »

colinjones

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #55 on: September 06, 2009, 11:53:52 pm »
skeptic - actually jthodges was working on exactly that type of functionality (see my thread http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=7116.0 ) Allowing you to configure definitions for folders that UpdateMedia would then use to automatically apply tags to media within that folder.

I believe he was almost there and was just working on the web interface. I can see that he still comes to the forums occasionally but hasn't posted in quite a while, so I have PM'd him to ask how it is going. Note: this function is quite separate and different from the recursive tagging feature that was added - that feature apparently was buggy and at least Thom found that it screwed up his meta data, so I have steered clear of it!

jthodges

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #56 on: September 07, 2009, 01:19:56 am »
I believe he was almost there and was just working on the web interface. I can see that he still comes to the forums occasionally but hasn't posted in quite a while, so I have PM'd him to ask how it is going.

This feature is complete and posted to a trac ticket (http://trac.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/158).  There's more I would like to do with it, but I wasn't planning any further work on it until I got some feedback from others that were actually using it or I had some need come up for my own use. 

I agree that it would seem to meet the needs you describe.  I am using it to automatically tag files that come in under 'movies', 'tv', etc. folders.  It also uses regular expressions on filenames to automatically tag 720p, dvd, etc. 

colinjones

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #57 on: September 07, 2009, 02:23:21 pm »
possy has changed this from 0810 beta milestone to 0810 Release, which means that it is a long way off yet, and no one except people running a beta dev environment can test it (a handful or so at best!) ... if it isn't added in until the release, does that mean if the related code changes in the meantime, the patch will no longer work and need to be modified again?

jthodges

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #58 on: September 07, 2009, 05:54:40 pm »
That's definitely a possibility, but hopefully unlikely to be an issue.  Most of the changes are in new files, with only 5 existing UpdateMedia source files modified, so even if a conflict arises it should be fairly easy to resolve.  (Unless UpdateMedia changes drastically, of course.)

donpaul

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Re: Call for donations for features.
« Reply #59 on: September 24, 2009, 10:35:14 pm »

 It would be really nice if there was a way in the web admin/media sync page to set type/media sub-type/file format on "all" files in a directory similar to the way setting all attributes currently works.  Not necessarily a dynamic thing such that any file put into a specific directory would automatically have attributes set, but for example browsing to a directory and setting every media file to type movie, or setting them all to TV show/title xyz/season 2. 

I do this already with a sql file:

Code: [Select]
use pluto_media;
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HiDef%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '2' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HiDef%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '4' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HiDef%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/DVD%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '2' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/DVD%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/DVD%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Screener%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '2' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Screener%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Screener%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Comics%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '2' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Comics%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Comics%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/TV%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '1' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/TV%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/TV%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Cam%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '2' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Cam%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '6' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Cam%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos%';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos/HiDef%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos/HiDef%';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '4' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos/HiDef%';
update File set EK_MediaType = '5' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%/data/pvr%' and Filename like '%mpg';
update File set FK_MediaSubType = '1' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%/data/pvr%' and Filename like '%mpg';
update File set FK_FileFormat = '3' where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%/data/pvr%' and Filename like '%mpg';

select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HiDef%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/DVD%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Screener%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Comics%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/TV%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/Cam%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%MediaDiskOnCore [29]/HomeVideos%';
select Path,Filename,FK_FileFormat,FK_MediaSubType,EK_MediaType from File where IsDirectory = '0' and Path like '%/data/pvr%' and Filename like '%mpg';
commit;

Then run it in cron every 10 minutes:
Code: [Select]
0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * /usr/bin/mysql -u root < /root/fix_media_type.sql >>/dev/null 2>>/dev/null

Works like a charm.

Oh, and Thom, great work and many thanks for all you do. LinuxMCE is a lot of fun. I too am unemployed (8 months now) and have been spending a lot of time with it. I hope things work out well for you.