DVDpedia - Import Video_TS w/ Linking - Best way?

[jeremymc7]

I need some help with importing the back-ups on my drives. Whats the best way?

Getting the titles in is no big deal. Copy the directory. Paste in excel. Export as comma. Then bring into DVDpedia.

Bu whats the best method to get all the linking. I don't want to have to assign each one at a time.

What would be great is if you could just select a list of files, drag them over to DVDpedia, and then DVDpedia would pull the name from the root folder, as well as input the linking. I tried hoping it MIGHT work, but no go. =)

Suggestions how to add root folder name AND folder linking easily???

Thanks.

[Conor]

The import function allows for a link, so create the link in the text file as well, so you can import one column as the title and the other as the link.

In Excel you should be able to duplicate the column name as a second column and then prefix it with the path to the movies.

I would do it using Text Wrangler; paste the directory into an empty file then use the following regular expression to create a link:

Code: Select all

(.*)\r 

replace for:

Code: Select all

\1\t/Users/me/Movies/\1/video.avi\r

It won't do the last movie as there is no carriage return after that one, but you can do that one by hand.

The automatic adding of entries is complicated because there so many setups. We could link the files dragged to DVDpedia over the table view as new DVDs but getting the name right would be a hit or miss thing. You can drag links over the info view of a movie to link files to an existing entry, not that it helps with your current situation but it will in the future when adding new movies.

[lannp]

I have a question/request that would fit in this thread (and also that of powertowerpro, a post on Aug 30, 2007.) This is related to the databases used by DVDPedia and how it links to the DVD images on different hard drives.

I have several hard drives each containing many ISO files. Let me use an example with only two drives USB-A and USB-B.

When I started using DVDPedia, I created two different databases for A and B. They are in separate folders FolderA and FolderB. In each folder, there is the info.xml and Database.pediadata

I can use DVDPedia with these two databases and I created links so the ISO can be played using DVDPedia.

I need to be able to use DVDPedia to change from database A to database B (without getting out of DVDPedia and restart it.) Can it be done?

I am not sure I understand if there is any relstionship between the "databases" and the "collections" within a given database.

The reason I use separate databases is that my ISO are on different USB drives. I am not sure what is the best way for DVDPedia to handle multiple drives. I know that mounting the ISO and link DVDPedia to the corresponding Video_TS is a major manual task. I have written an Apple Script to mount the ISO files, but timing is a headache.

So, my big wish list is "how to get DVDPedia to play movies that are on separate external drives, and it be smart enough to know which movies are on which drive; then mount and link them." To me, that would be the ultimate DVDPedia.

[Conor]

I need to be able to use DVDpedia to change from database A to database B (without getting out of DVDpedia and restart it.) Can it be done?

You can change databases without restart by clicking the Database.pediadata file. This is the file with all your information, by clicking the file you will make DVDpedia unload one database and load the one double clicked if it's not the current selected database (you can also use the open command and select the file).

Each database is a unique entity, the collections within a database are unique to that database and there is no relationship between databases. You can export from one database as .dvdpedia and import the file into the other database as a new collection, but you are not creating a link but a copy of the data.

There is no need to have separate databases for separate drives, this is a personal choice. Each link would point the the appropriate drive (Unless you are storing the movies inside the DVDpedia data folder in which case the link would be relative to the data folder and the location of the database would be used in determining the location of the linked ISO).

I will check if there are possibilities for mounting the ISO and playing the movie automatically. Some other users have linked both, so that they can mount the ISO with one link and play the movie with the second link. This sound like the kind of thing that AppleScript would be useful at. You could create a link to an AppleScript that would, based on a link, mount the ISO and play the contents of the newly mounted system. I am not even sure if what I am picturing is possible as there little resources on the net about ISO and AppleScript.

[lannp]

These are information that are nice to know. Is there a user manual for DVDPEdia describing this somewhere? I found a bug in the full screen/view display and am reporting it on the bug report side. Meanwhile, it will be VERY nice if the full screen displays the name of the collection that is being pointed to in DVDPedia from the View side. At this time, if the database has multiple collections, the user does not know which collection is being displayed. Regarding the automatic mounting of ISO, I manually make a link to the ISO then add another link to the TS folder. Once that is done, clicking on the triangle in full screen mode will play the movie. This is very nice, but the ISO must be mounted before this can work. So the hard part is to mount all the ISO that are linked from the database. I will post the Apple Script I use now in the next post, but I cannot make this script run automatically. It always hangs after mounting the first few ISO files. I think the problem is timing, but I do not know Apple Script well enough to solve it. I have to put a "display pause" then hit the Enter key to quickly mount all the ISO files. Then everything works.

[lannp]

Here is my Apple Script (I am a novice.)

set f to choose folder with prompt "Choose a Source folder:"
-- display dialog source_Folder as string
-- set source_Folder to "my-computer:volumes:my-freeagent:iso"
-- display dialog source_Folder
-- set MyList to (every file in source_Folder)

tell application "Finder"
set aF to files of entire contents of f
repeat with sf in aF
if class of sf is alias then
display dialog "Is alias"
else
display dialog "not alias" & sf
with timeout of 1000 seconds
--This will give the script plenty of time to work
try
tell application "DiskImageMounter" to open sf
on error
display dialog "Bummer!"
end try
end timeout
end if
end repeat
end tell

This works fine on my Mac-Mini, but I need to repeatedly hit the Enter key responding to the prompt display. Then all of the ISO on the USB drive are mounted. When I remove the prompt, this will hang after mounting a few ISO files. I don't know how to put a real timer and wait for the ISO to mount before going to the next so it won't hang.

[Conor]

Try passing the commands to the terminal to mount the ISO. That way you might be able to get rid of the timer it should be something like this:

Code: Select all

do shell script "hdiutil mount " & quoted form of POSIX path of sf

[Conor]

I have updated the current beta so that when you have an .iso link it check inside the mounted volume for a VIDEO_TS folder, if it find one it plays it. Get the DVDpedia beta and with linked .iso DVD files the movie should start playing.