Author Topic: Adding ISO DVD files to media director after installation  (Read 2300 times)

isesoteric

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Adding ISO DVD files to media director after installation
« on: August 14, 2009, 01:15:02 am »
I have over 100 DVD ISO's I would like to add them to my Media director after I get it all setup.  I know I can use my MD as a DHCP server and let it auto detect all of the files, but I would rather store them locally since there are files I dont want it to find.  kinda want to avoid that fight...  not to mention sucking such larger files over the wireless.  does anyone have any recomendations for uploading them to the MD over the network?

THanks,

colinjones

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Re: Adding ISO DVD files to media director after installation
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2009, 01:38:01 am »
hmm I think you are a bit mixed up on a few concepts here... let me try to straighten it out for you a little.

You don't "add [ISO's] to [your] Media director". A LMCE installation consists of one "core" (which may be a dedicated core, having no media functionality at all, or a "hybrid" which is a core plus a Media Director in one); plus any number of additional Media Directors.

Media Directors (not cores) typically have no hard drive or other form of storage, so it is not normal to place media on a Media Director, as you would have to add a hard drive. The core, naturally, has a hard drive, but even then it is probably preferable not to put media on that drive either. My advice would be to keep your media on a remote device such as your normal home PC (Win, Mac, Linux, whatever) or a dedicated NAS device.

MDs are not DHCP servers, and DHCP has nothing at all to do with auto detecting files. Your core is your DHCP server (see here http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Network_Setup ) and DHCP is used to detect devices such as your PC or NAS, not files. If you create a normal Windows or NAS SMB share on your PC or NAS (with read AND write access for all), once the core has detected that device, it will then go on and detect these shares. When prompted, confirm which of the shares it finds are to be used for media - when asked, tell it you want to use LMCE's Folder Structure (not the Public option).

It will then create the appropriate media folders underneath your share (audio/video/etc) - now simply move your media into the correct folder and wait for LMCE to scan them. They will be added to the media database so that you can play them.

NOTE: if you ripped these DVDs yourself, and didn't use LMCE to do this, then 1) you will be missing the metadata required for them to be displayed in some views and 2) you will not be able to use the DVD chapters. The first can be fixed manually, by adding metatags, the latter is not easy to get around, but may not worry you.

totallymaxed

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Re: Adding ISO DVD files to media director after installation
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2009, 01:43:34 am »
I have over 100 DVD ISO's I would like to add them to my Media director after I get it all setup.  I know I can use my MD as a DHCP server and let it auto detect all of the files, but I would rather store them locally since there are files I dont want it to find.  kinda want to avoid that fight...  not to mention sucking such larger files over the wireless.  does anyone have any recomendations for uploading them to the MD over the network?

THanks,

Firstly your Core is the DHCP server for you LinuxMCE LAN....Not any of your MD's. If your ISO's are located on a Machine that is connected to your LAN you can add that storage to your system by allowing your Core to detect it and just access the ISO's from where they are. I would suggest using the LinuxMCE folder structure when offered the option after the storage is detected...then just move the iso's into the videos subdirectory that your Core will create when adding the storage location. Thats it.

Search the Wiki...there are pages there that explain in much more detail how to actually do the steps above.

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skeptic

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Re: Adding ISO DVD files to media director after installation
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2009, 06:53:47 pm »
Ignoring the DHCP stuff which has been explained, if you don't want to use a NAS and don't want to spend hours and hours waiting for 100 DVD ISOs to copy across your wireless network I'd suggest you use an external USB drive.  Plug the USB drive into the core (or core/md hybrid), format it for ext3, let lmce autodetect it then tell it to use it with lmce's directory structure and let it finish.  If the computer where the files are is linux, just move the USB drive there, copy the files to the correct directory, then move the usb drive back.  If it's a windoze only box, grab a livecd, knoppix or something, boot off the cd into linux then after getting everything mounted do the copy.  This will avoid copying 500G+ of data over wireless, leave you with external storage that you can later move to a NAS or other always on network device.  I would recommend against using ntfs on the USB drive.  I personally tried it that way because I was being lazy, and it caused bad pausing and horrible performance on all my MDs.  Apparently with ntfs every time you mount/umount the nfs (not ntfs) hangs for a few seconds.