Moving files (and metadata) to a new server

[wayner]

I will be building a new server in the next few weeks and I am wondering what is the best way to move metadata? Should I create .properties files and copy these over? Will BMT then read the .properties files automatically or do I have to run a manual process to do this?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by wayner

I will be building a new server in the next few weeks and I am wondering what is the best way to move metadata? Should I create .properties files and copy these over? Will BMT then read the .properties files automatically or do I have to run a manual process to do this?

From the Tools menu in the BMT Web UI, there is an "Export .properties". I would run that, just to make sure that you have a backup of all the metadata.

If you are moving/upgrading your server, and you are going to use the same wiz.bin, then you probably don't have to do anything, since you'll still have all the same metadata in there (provided that all your paths stay the same, etc).

But if you are starting fresh, and you have exported the .properties, then when you add your video sources, then SageTV will simply read the .properties for each item (bmt not required). But, if you do use the export .properties, and then you start with a new wiz.bin, then i'd recommend installing bmt first before adding your video sources. This way, while bmt will not do a lookup on the items, since they have metadata (.properties), it will check for an X-Watched property in there and set the watched status accordingly (if you care about that).

So, in a nutshell, for a new server install...
Export .properties on Machine A
Install Sage on Server B
Install BMT on Server B
Copy Files to Server B
Add Video Sources
Copy Fanart from Server A to Server B
Set Fanart path on Server B to new Fanart location

If you are going to preserver the Wiz.bin from Server A, then you really don't have to do anything (provided the paths all stay the same), just copy the Fanart and set the fanart folder on Server B

[wayner]

I am not sure if I am going to reuse the wiz.bin or not. I am guessing that I don't really need it since Sage now embeds metadata in the video file. Therefore will it not add any files in the RecordedTV folder that have metadata from Sag7 as RecordedTV?

To be honest I don't really care if it doesn't as the files that I will want to keep are kids files that I will eventually move to my Kids Shows folders in my Video Library anyhow and then there are movies recorded from TV that I can move to the movies area of my Video Library also.

Any pros/cons to copying over the wiz.bin. The "old" system has only been around since July/Aug so it is not like the wiz.bin will have had lots of opportunities to get corrupted. I set it up as a V7 temporary test server on old hardware, it just has a single core CPU, and can't handle transcoding for playback via Placeshifter or iDevices and the case can't handle enough hard drives for my liking.

[stuckless]

I destroy my Wiz.bin all the time... the only thing that I really miss when I re-create my wiz.bin is the watched status on movies... so I added the, X-Watched flag to the .properties export (and i read it on import) to set the watched status.