New WHS Server - Best Setup for Movies???

[nwboater]

I recently built a WHS Server and have SageTV installed and running well. I am viewing thru an HD100, HD200 and one client PC. All SD at this point but will have HD in a couple of years. Also am running the default STV. We have about 30 movies recorded from TV (with more coming regularly) and would like to rip about 100 DVDs to the WHS.

There seem to be several ways to gather metadata: MyMovies, BMI, DVD Profiler and perhaps others. And then there are different ways to organize/display the movie collection besides the default STV: Movie Wall for MC, Movie Wall for Standard STV, a possible future Media Wall and various fan art addins. I think I understand a little how Movie Wall works, but not sure about fan art. There are also probably many more than what I am aware of.

I'm not too sure how and what of the above play together. For instance if I go with MyMovies for WHS does that rule out Movie Wall?

Since the way I rip and file the movies may be dependent on the approach I take I am holding off doing that.

I would sure appreciate some wisdom from this group on what may be the best way to setup my system. In other words if you were starting from scratch what approach would you take?

Thanks very much.
Rod

[hingepin]

I finally went to WHS the other day. So far, I like it. I'm sill getting use to how to install stuff and work with it. As for movies, I use WHS and SageMC newest version Mike put out; prerelease 17. So far, it is the best as far as getting the data and covers. Not sure about fanart. From what I can tell, you have to have 1250 points to download fanart (someone correct me if I'm wrong) so I stuck w/the free version for now.

The one thing I can't figure out is playing multiple disc sets with MyMovies. From what I can tell, it merges all discs into one playlist.

Not sure about SMW and MyMovies. I have never had luck with that but I blame myself for not taking the time to learn how to set it up correctly. The WAF is pretty good with the reliability I'm having w/WHS. I'd imagine it would work though once you set your data provider as MyMovies.

[chrisc983]

I've been using WHS with SageMC for about a year and half for now. I've been using MyMovies for about 4-5 months and have been very satisfied. I also just use the default SageMC. I burn the movies on a client PC and transfer it to WHS and then MyMovies is monitoring the DVD folders and downloads the metadata and covers.

As for series I put them all in one folder. I then go back in and change the title to disc 1, disc 2, and so forth through Sage itself and I have

[nwboater]

Hingepin & chrisc983 - thanks very much for your responses.

Just to show the state of my confusion in this whole area I thought "Fanart" is a way to display the movies - a la in a 'fanned' display. So I looked it up on Wikepedia and found that it is art done by fans!

It would be very helpful - I think to many of us here - if one of the knowledgeable Sage users who has been through a lot of this could make a kind of 'Made Simple' guide to the various way of setting up movies in Sage. There are so many options and many of them are not clear what they end up doing.

Am I alone in this bewilderment? I just have a feeling that many of us are not at all getting the full benefits of what our systems can do.

Thanks,
Rod

[mayhewda]

I would agree with this request. It is confusing (at least to new users). I have just built a new WHS/SAGE box and have about 70 ripped DVDS. At first I thought i needed dvdprofiler and so i bought a copy of that. Now dont use it. I ripped the dvd on another PC, xfer that to the whs box. Then using sagemc i simply use the function of sagemc to download the description and picture (usually like the front of the dvd) from the IMDB database. Now either the hd200 from sage itself, you have the metadata and graphic to highlight the movie. I like this. Its not as fancy as perhaps other solutions, but its easy and works. You dont need anything else like BMT, or SMW or fanart or whatever the other stuff is.

I definitely agree this needs to be made clearer. Someone mentioned they use Mymovies for WHS? I thought Mymovies was only for VMC? Clear as mud.

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by mayhewda

I would agree with this request. It is confusing (at least to new users). I have just built a new WHS/SAGE box and have about 70 ripped DVDS. At first I thought i needed dvdprofiler and so i bought a copy of that. Now dont use it. I ripped the dvd on another PC, xfer that to the whs box. Then using sagemc i simply use the function of sagemc to download the description and picture (usually like the front of the dvd) from the IMDB database. Now either the hd200 from sage itself, you have the metadata and graphic to highlight the movie. I like this. Its not as fancy as perhaps other solutions, but its easy and works. You dont need anything else like BMT, or SMW or fanart or whatever the other stuff is.

I definitely agree this needs to be made clearer. Someone mentioned they use Mymovies for WHS? I thought Mymovies was only for VMC? Clear as mud.

Thanks very much for admitting that you also are confused. Based on the low response I was beginning to think it was just me - now at least there are 2 of us!

It's sad that you bought extra software that you don't need. I am trying to avoid this, and quite possibly a great deal of trials and tribulations. I also have a lot of movies to rip, and I would like to do it one time and have them end up in the format and file structure that will work. Glad to know that SageMC and IMDB are working well for you.

I have been wondering if the lack of response here may be a bit of a personal thing - ie, not wanting to step on someones toes or to be showing favoritism. Perhaps it's the attitude of 'I did a bunch of research and experimentation and you can too!'. BTW I have read a lot of forum posts on this topic.

One thing I have decided is to start using SageMC - it looks like a lot of the options utilize it. This brings up another part of the confusion factor: Sage TV is sold as Sage Media Center but then I will be adding SageMC which is an STV (I believe). Now I at first thought that STV stood for Sage TV, but (I believe) it is the User Interface. Don't mean to nit pick on the small stuff here, as I am really asking for some kind of large picture overview of the options. Only trying to point out how easy it is to get confused with terminology, let alone what the various options do.

It would sure be great to have some of the experienced users chime in here - even if it's to tell me I'm going at this the wrong way. I'm very open to suggestions.

Thanks,
Rod

[DOS64K]

Originally Posted by nwboater

It would sure be great to have some of the experienced users chime in here - even if it's to tell me I'm going at this the wrong way. I'm very open to suggestions.

Thanks,
Rod

Rod,
It's not that you're going about it the wrong way, it's just that you have fallen into the most common trap that other newcomers to SageTV have - they discovered SageTV's remarkable flexibility over other PVRs, but find that it isn't as plug-n-play as say VMC. What I mean is that to gain the most out of your SageTV experience, you're going to have to get your hands dirty.

I was a MCE2005 convert and loved the extensability of SageTV, but, like you, found that it wasn't like installing plug-ins to gain new features. I had to read quite a bit and experiment even more - but I knew going in that I was treading in new waters and was prepared to take the time necessary to squeeze the most out of my purchase. I can tell you that there are plenty of friendly, hard-working folks on these forums that will gladly help you, as they have helped me and countless others. I'm very happy with my current setup and I couldn't have gotten to this point without some perserverance (and a healthy dose of tinker-itis).

Bottom line - don't get discouraged. Just keep in mind that if you aren't satisfied with SageTV "out-of-the-box", then you need to be prepared to get a little dirty.

Cheers, and good luck

[jsin]

Some random thoughts....

1. I used to use SageMC and its built-in IMDB lookup for Movie Metadata. Turns out though, the metadata then gets stored in Wiz.bin and every time I remove/add Video Folders to re-arrange my Video folder structure, metadata gets removed and I have re-do the IMDB lookup on the whole collection. That wasn't a big deal initially but as my movie collection grew, this was not acceptable. So I moved on to using BMT.

2. I'm told that BMT has a nice GUI as well as Web interface for managing metadata. But having been burned several times by "adding too many customizations", I decided to use BMT only in command-line mode (outside of SageTV install directory) to generate the thumbnail picture, metadata file, and FanArt files. This way, I can remove/add Video Folders without losing metadata. I only do this once, when I add a new DVD to the collection.

3. I am using DVD Profiler for my movies not because I have to, but because it does offer some advantages: it generally has more information for a given movie then what IMDB will provide; it also has information for DVDs of TV shows (like SpongeBob SquarePants DVDs, True Blood DVDs, etc.) that you don't find in IMDB.

4. I generally convert all DVDs to either MP4 or WMV (depending on whether or not it has subtitles) mainly because I find FF and REW to work pretty poorly in SageTV with DVDs (but it also saves disk space too). If there are any "Special Features" on the DVD that I want to keep, I may convert them in to MP4/WMV as well.

5. Yes I use WHS (it has Eight 1.5 TB drives). I have not used MovieWall or My Movies for WHS so I can't tell you how they are. I just use SageMC for now.

Hope that helps / gives you an idea.

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by DOS64K

Rod,
It's not that you're going about it the wrong way, it's just that you have fallen into the most common trap that other newcomers to SageTV have - they discovered SageTV's remarkable flexibility over other PVRs, but find that it isn't as plug-n-play as say VMC. What I mean is that to gain the most out of your SageTV experience, you're going to have to get your hands dirty.

DOS64K -
Thanks for the response. You are certainly right that to expand Sage it is mostly not Plug-n-Play". I don't at all mind getting my "Hands Dirty". It would just be nice if I don't have to get them so totally filthy that it will take a tremendous amount of time to get them cleaned up and usable again!

Rod

[nwboater]

Originally Posted by jsin

Some random thoughts....

1. I used to use SageMC and its built-in IMDB lookup for Movie Metadata. Turns out though, the metadata then gets stored in Wiz.bin and every time I remove/add Video Folders to re-arrange my Video folder structure, metadata gets removed and I have re-do the IMDB lookup on the whole collection. That wasn't a big deal initially but as my movie collection grew, this was not acceptable. So I moved on to using BMT.

2. I'm told that BMT has a nice GUI as well as Web interface for managing metadata. But having been burned several times by "adding too many customizations", I decided to use BMT only in command-line mode (outside of SageTV install directory) to generate the thumbnail picture, metadata file, and FanArt files. This way, I can remove/add Video Folders without losing metadata. I only do this once, when I add a new DVD to the collection.

3. I am using DVD Profiler for my movies not because I have to, but because it does offer some advantages: it generally has more information for a given movie then what IMDB will provide; it also has information for DVDs of TV shows (like SpongeBob SquarePants DVDs, True Blood DVDs, etc.) that you don't find in IMDB.

4. I generally convert all DVDs to either MP4 or WMV (depending on whether or not it has subtitles) mainly because I find FF and REW to work pretty poorly in SageTV with DVDs (but it also saves disk space too). If there are any "Special Features" on the DVD that I want to keep, I may convert them in to MP4/WMV as well.

5. Yes I use WHS (it has Eight 1.5 TB drives). I have not used MovieWall or My Movies for WHS so I can't tell you how they are. I just use SageMC for now.

Hope that helps / gives you an idea.

jsin - Thanks so much for taking the time to write of your experiences. This is the kind of information that will certainly be helpful to me and I am sure to many others as well.

It's going to take some time to digest this and research the plugins you have used, but I wanted to get right back to you with a big thanks. I'm sure I'll have some questions later if you don't mind.

Rod

[jsin]

Originally Posted by nwboater

jsin - Thanks so much for taking the time to write of your experiences. This is the kind of information that will certainly be helpful to me and I am sure to many others as well.

It's going to take some time to digest this and research the plugins you have used, but I wanted to get right back to you with a big thanks. I'm sure I'll have some questions later if you don't mind.

Rod

Nope, don't mind at all. Ask away.

I'm glad you found this stuff useful!

[robogeek]

The setup I use for movies is: DVD Fab to rip DVDs to WHS storage pool, BMI to fetch metadata and fanart for all newly ripped DVDs, and the Default STV. With the Default STV, BMI and Phoenix Fanart for the Default STV plugins are what I use for fetching and displaying fanart. That's really all you need for the basics. I mostly use the MediaMVP on an SD TV, so the fancy movie plugins either don't work on the MVP or don't look good on a 4:3 SD TV. So I use the default Video menu in the Default STV.

I don't have the ripping of the movie stuff automated yet. Basically I just insert a DVD, run DVD Fab HD Decrypter, and let it rip the DVD to a temporary directory. DVD Fab rips the entire DVD to a folder. I rename that folder to match the name of the movie and then move the folder to my DVD share which is setup as an import folder in SageTV. If I don't manually initiate a library scan in SageTV, the next time SageTV does a library scan on its own it will see the new movie(s) and BMI will fetch metadata and fanart.

There is a somewhat more automated way that I tried using a WHS addon called DVD Manager which used DVD43 to decrypt the DVD. But DVD43 failed on several DVDs and DVD Manager for some reason wanted to set all of the files and folders it created with Read Only attributes.

I only have one major issue with the Default STV video library. WHY, OH WHY, can't I sort movies by the date they were added to the library. It's a real PITA trying to find the most recently added movies scattered around the default alphabetical listing when you've got to sift through 200+ videos in the list! Maybe the asterisk or pound key on the remote could be used as a toggle to switch between alphabetical forward, alphabetical reverse, date added forward, and date added reverse. Hey Andy, if you're reading this, how about it for the next STV update

[hingepin]

I would recommend tackling one plug-in at a time and get it set up the way you want and is stable before trying something else/adding another. If you don't have one thing set up correctly, it may affect another plug-in and that is where it can be frustrating. My WAF dropped to 0 (95% my fault for fixing it when it ain't broke), so I'm going to Fios with the whole house DVR. Plus I'll save $50/mo on the quad package from what I pay Comcast now with only 1 HD box. I'll still play with Sage in the background and use my HD200 for music and movies in the bedroom and considering a PS3 for the living room. Sage is still the best product on the market. I just can't justify spending $400+ on 2 HDPVR's+ after just setting up a WHS box and running cat5 to a couple tv's.

[Tiki]

The main reason that this is all so confusing to newcomers is that these add-ons all very new, rapidly evolving, and are not being written or supported directly by Sage. These add-ons are all written by other users who are for the most part just amateur hobbyists doing this in their spare time for enjoyment.

So, here is a very quick primer and history on Fan Art:

1. Fan art is just artwork created by fans or collected by fans of a TV Show, Movie, Band, etc.
2. There are several websites on the internet that host Fan Art. Some are dedicated to just TV or just movies. Some of them also host information about the movies or TV shows (such as lists of actors, lists of directors and producers, original air dates, run time, trivia, etc.). Some examples include IMDB.com and theTVDB.com.
3. Sage currently has almost no native support for fan art. It does support cover art for movies and music albums out of the box, but anything else requires you to load a custom STV or STVi.
4. Fanart comes in many shapes and sizes. There are currently 3 main shapes that are being supported through custom STVs and STVis. They are "Background", "Banner", and "Poster". Backgrounds typically are high resolution images that have the same dimensions as an HDTV screen (1280x720 or 1920x1080 pixels). Banners have a shape similar to a typical horizontal banner ad that you find on a website. The most common dimensions for a banner are 758x140. Posters typically come in the same shape as a Movie Poster or a DVD Cover (this is because Movie Theater Posters and DVD covers are the sources for most of this type of fan art). Size/resolution can vary quite a bit, but a typical size would be 680x1000.
5. The SageMC STV was probably the first add-on to support fan art. Initially it only supported "Background" style fan art and only on certain menu screens. The SageMC developers arbitrarily chose a convention for naming and storing the fan art. They required that the user manually obtain or create their own fan art and store it on the computer where Sage was running according to this naming convention.
6. Shortly after SageMC added support for fan art, some other users decided to create their own STVi imports that could be installed on top of SageMC and make use of that fan art to make some really impressive looking screens.
7. Seeing how cool SageMC looked with all this fan art stuff, but preferring to use the standard Sage STV, I created an STVi that would add fan art to the default STV. I borrowed some of their ideas and added some of my own, including using banners for TV shows in the Guide and Sage Recordings screen. I released a couple of different versions, each with more features, including support for displaying a generic category or genre banner or background if a particular show didn't have any fan art of its own, and support for fan art in the music screens.
8. While all of this was going on, a couple of other users were working on developing tools for gathering "meta-data" from websites like IMDB.com and theTVDB.com. They decided to extend their tools to also grab fan art from these websites.
9. At this point, there were close to a dozen independant users all developing their own imports, some of which leveraged other imports. So, several of them got together and decided to formalize a standard folder structure and naming convention for fan art. The standard that was agreed upon was very different from the original fan art.
10. Some of the people involved in this effort started a side project called "Phoenix". Their goal was to start by creating some programming API's to make it easier to really customize Sage at a new level, and then use those API's to create a new custom front-end (UI) for Sage that would eventually replace the SageMC STV. The first API made public by the Phoenix team was a set of programming functions for handling fan art (storing, retrieving, manipulating).
11. Once the Phoenix API became available, SageMC, and many of the STVi's were re-written to take advantage of it. Also, the BMI (AKA BMT) utility was updated to use the Phoenix API.
12. BMI is a utility written by a Sage user that attempts to scan the internet to find fan art and meta data for TV shows and movies, and stores it so that SageMC and other STVs and STVis can access it and display it. BMI is very powerful and also very complex because it has many different ways that it can be used (manually from command line, manually from web browser, manually from inside Sage, automatically from inside Sage). It has gone through several revisions and at least 2 major overhauls in the last year that completely change how it is configured and used. And, the components it relies on (Phoenix API, Jetty Webserver, SageTV) have all gone through multiple upgrades during that time.
13. As all of this fan art development was occurring, Sage took notice and made a few changes to its core to allow BMI, SageMC, and others to some of the things they were trying to do.
14. Over time, more users took an interest in programming and began releasing even more STVi's such as the Sage Movie Wall. TMiranda released an update of my Fan Art for the Default STV plugin that incorporated the Phoenix API and added some more features.

As you can see, there has been a lot of evolution and everything that I have written has happened in the last year or so. With each new version of each of these programs, STV's, and STVi's the instructions have changed. Also, very few people know everything about all of the many pieces and everyone uses Sage a little differently.

Hopefully this gives you a little idea of what Fan art is, how it's evolved in Sage, and why it is still somewhat chaotic.

[nwboater]

robogeek - Thanks for the full overview of how you handle movies. This is the kind of thing I was hoping would be posted here. Again I need to spend time to read and research it all a bit, which I hope to be able to do some of this weekend.

Tiki - Wow, your have really given an explanation of fanart and its evolution with Sage. Some of it is starting to make a little sense now. I can't thank you enough for spending so much time writing all this. And it is certainly meaningful coming from a developer who has been in the thick of it! With things so rapidly evolving it does make it difficult to zero in on any one approach. I guess the only way I can look at it is to get something that seems right now and expect that it may change before long. Or that I will want to change it to have the 'better mousetrap'.

I think this is a good time to thank all of you developers who put such tremendous efforts into software that is freely shared with all of us. It's a wonderful thing you do! And to also thank all of the folks on this forum that also give so freely of their time and thoughts to help others. Hopefully down the road I will be able to give a little back of what I am being given here.

Rod

[OneOfMany]

Thanks Tiki.. that really cleared up a lot of things. Tiki the Wiki

Grant

[nwboater]

As a prerequisite for many of the movie plug ins today I installed SageMC. It's great - wonder why I didn't do it a long time ago. The WAF just took a giant leap! When I showed my wife the IMDB (Movie Database) I almost couldn't tear her away from it. And we both like the much more polished feel to the whole interface.

So I am going to take 'hingepin's' advice and get one new change at a time to be stable. Actually I don't see anything at all unstable about our installation of MC, but will give it a little more time before further additions.

BTW, our whole WHS system, including Sage on it has gone very smoothly. Have had it running about a month now and it just works!

I am seriously considering trying MovieWall for all the Pizazz it offers. Have just started reading the 51 page thread on it and will probably post some questions there before installing it.

Rod

[Peter_h]

My advice to you, get a test box. Whether it be a client license or another HD200. Do not test out new things on your production box or main TV.

If... correction when something goes wrong, you don't want that happening on your server or main TV in the house. Then you have to drop everything, do a recovery, all the while, the TV is out of commission and you could lose recordings.

It has nothing to do with Sage being unstable, it is that it is so customizable that it is easy to miss one step when you are setting up a new plugin. Or, you could find that two plugins don't play nicely together and it could take a while to track the problem down.

Trust me, all of us that tinker eventually come to this same conclusion. In additional to my WHS license and the HD200 in the living room, I have a client license that I use on my computer in the house purely for testing. Only after a plugin has gone through my testing and proven stable will it go out on the WHS box and the HD200 in the family room.

The cost of the client license is nothing compared to the cost of a reduction in WAF. My $.02.

[nwboater]

Peter h,

Thanks very much for the sage (pun intended) advice. I left out of my last post that I do a full backup of the Sage Folder before making any changes. This is in the hope that in the event of a problem I should be able to revert back to the previous good setup. This must not be adequate or you wouldn't be doing a full Test Box. So I will take your advice and look into setting one up.

How far do you go in the setup? Do you have a tuner card in the test box? Do you copy a bunch of movies over to it? And any other suggestions? My office XP PC - the one I use as the WHS Console - is located right next to the WHS Box.

I'm not sure what the 'Client License' does in this case. It's different than a full SageTV license, right?

Thanks,
Rod

[Peter_h]

Some people have tuners in the test box, I don't. For my purposes, I don't do any changes with the tuners, just add-ins.

The box I have is not a full dedicated sage only box. It's just my PC in the house that I use to remote into the WHS. It has a SageTV client license on it.

A client license is not as extensive as a server license. Once upon a time ago, there were no extenders so you had to have a PC (client) at each TV in the house. You still needed one main PC with a server license that had all the tuner cards in it to do all the recording. Having a client license allowed all the other clients to access a central recording pool on the server as well as all of the movies on the server.

If you want to get technical, the extenders are clients.

For my setup, I install all add-ins that I am interested in using or testing on the client. If it breaks, I can restore it or even do a reinstall if needed. That way I can really screw stuff up and it does not disrupt anyone else in the house. Once all the bugs are worked out and it is to my satisfaction, I install the addin on the server and extender in the living room.