Boxed sets vs multi disc in MyMovies

[Brent94Z]

First off, this isn't strictly related to SageMyMovies but asking here because I'm finding the "right" answer to be a bit hard to find and am trying to clean up my collection a bit.

I've looked through the Collection Manager help and FAQ and been through their forums a bit but still not finding a good answer so thought I'd ask the experts here

I'll use "The Mentalist: The Complete Second Season" as my example. There are 5 DVDs in this set. I have folder monitoring turned ON. I ripped all the DVDs to the hard drive in 5 different folders named "The Mentalist S02D0X". Each of these was recognized as Disc 1 of The Mentalist Season 2. I did then manually change discs 2 to 5 in Collection Manager to be correct. In SageMyMovies, these show up as 5 "movies" with the same DVD covers and descriptions. My goal is to get this to show as one "item" which I'd then drilld own to the 5 individual DVDs.

My question is, what is the proper way to make this "right" in Collection Manager? I tried to create what I think is called a "holder" but when I tried to add "The Mentalist: The Complete Second Season'" it told me I already had that in my collection and I wasn't able to add it??? I thought I would be able to add that and then add the 5 discs to my "holder" but it didn't work.

I've seen where some people say boxed sets should be used for something like "The Jason Bourne Collection" which contains 3 different movies and that multi-discs should be used for TV seasons type DVDs with multiple discs. But then I saw where somebody was using boxed sets for I think it was 24??? Which is correct?

Would a MyMovies/Collection Manager expert be so kind as to explain how these boxed sets vs multi discs are *supposed* to work as well as how to actually make my "The Mentalist" example above show as one DVD in SaveMyMovies which I then would drill down to play one of the 5 DVDs in the season.

Thanks!

[PLUCKYHD]

Brent it is a prefence thing.

I prefer to to disc seasons in multi disc format. What this will give you is a nice popup to select which disc you want to play on the main menu.

To make a disc multi disc you simply pick a title in the collection manager and click the disc icon. There you add the additional disc and their paths.

cheers

[Brent94Z]

Thanks, Plucky! The part about picking, for example, Disc 1 then associating Disc 2 through 5 to it confuses me a bit (seems like I'd need to associate Disc 1 through 5 to a place holder) but will give it a shot when I get home and see if it all just kinda falls together. LOL

Thanks again!

[sleonard]

I do create a placeholder title and then assign discs 1 - x to the placeholder. Collection Manager doesn't much like the manually created placeholders since they don't match anything in its online database but it does allow you to do it.

Using a manually created placeholder allows the SMM box set feature behave more intuitively as well.

S

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I do create a placeholder title and then assign discs 1 - x to the placeholder. Collection Manager doesn't much like the manually created placeholders since they don't match anything in its online database but it does allow you to do it.

Using a manually created placeholder allows the SMM box set feature behave more intuitively as well.

S

Boxed sets and multi disc are 2 different things. Not sure why you would use a placeholder for multi disc that isn't really necessary and won't show up fully correct as placeholders are really meant for boxed sets. Mutli disc are meant to be built of a single title like lost season 1 with all the disc assigned.

[Brent94Z]

Ok, been doing some experimenting and it ain't going so great. LOL

I started with the 5 DVDs from my example above of The Mentalist The Complete 2nd Season. They were all listed as Disc 1 so the first thing I tried was to change each DVD to the correct disk. If I go to navigate away from the DVD, it tells me it isn't saved and asks if I want to save the changes. I say YES. I then do the next DVD and so on. Well, when I go back and look at them, all the DVDs are back to being Disc 1??? Not sure if this has something to do with folder monitoring putting them back or what? Anyway, I then think maybe I need to add them to the boxed set.

So, I then figure I'll try boxed set like you mention Plucky. So, I click on the 1st DVD which is the first disc of the 5. I then click the series/Boxed set button in the lower right. A pop-up comes up asking me to add child titles that belong to the title. Well, this seems odd because I don't really want to assign discs 2 to 5 as child discs to disc 1 but I continue anyway. I scroll to see the rest of my season (discs 2 to 5) and add those.

After doing the above, I update my SageMyMovies database and go take a look... I have only one DVD cover for The Mentalist Season 2 as I would expect. I click on that and I drill down to 5 of the same DVD covers in a view that looks like Coverflow view. I click the 1st one and the screen flickers and the top menu goes up then comes down but nothing else happens. I click the 2nd one and another pop-up comes up saying it is a multi-disc and gives me the option to play disc 1 or disc 2. If I go back and select the 3rd one and I then have the option to play disc 1 or disc 3. etc.

I'm obviously not doing this correctly. It seems like it should be so simple but it just ain't cooperating. LOL Also, it was mentioned how boxed sets vs multi disc is a preference but I see only the option to do boxed sets in Collection Manager.

Any ideas? I thought this is how you were telling me to assign the discs to group them, Plucky, but I'm sure I must have misunderstood. It doesn't seem right to assign discs 2-5 as child discs to disc 1 but I don't see how to do it otherwise since Collection Manager won't let me add another The Mentalist The Complete Second Season. It also seems odd that I can't assign the correct disc numbers to my discs? Do I need to do something convoluted like turn folder monitoring OFF, make my changes, lock the titles, then turn folder monitoring back on? This seems to be a bit of a work around that I wouldn't think would be required?

Sorry to be a pain... just trying to figure this out and it is beating me. LOL

[sleonard]

You're correct. I was describing what I do for Box Sets not multi-disc sets.

S

[PLUCKYHD]

yup you are doing it wrong

for multi disc you only one one title in your collection manager for season 2 for instance and you want all the disc assigned to that one title. You don't want multiple titles in the collection manager for a multi disc.

Now if you have folder monitoring on once you add multiple disc paths to the on title the other should disappear shortly or at least that has been my experience.


Hopefully that "clicks" and explains it better for you

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

yup you are doing it wrong

for multi disc you only one one title in your collection manager for season 2 for instance and you want all the disc assigned to that one title. You don't want multiple titles in the collection manager for a multi disc.

Now if you have folder monitoring on once you add multiple disc paths to the on title the other should disappear shortly or at least that has been my experience.


Hopefully that "clicks" and explains it better for you

CLICK CLICK CLICK!!! hahaha

Yep... having only ONE entry showing in Collection Manager was the big picture point I was missing. I got my online TV series stuff figured out now. THANK YOU!!! hahaa

Now, on to my OFFLINE stuff

I imported my DVDProfiler collection into MyMovies. Since I barcode scanned everything that I have offline, it was a direct match for MyMovies and was a piece of cake. However, I'm not sure all my multi disc and boxed set stuff imported correctly. Some of what I'm seeing is what led me to thinking that each disc was an entry in Collection Manager. Example that I'm curious about now for OFFLINE content is my collection of 24. Right now in Collection Manager I am seeing the following....

24: Season One
24: Season Two
24: Season Three
etc.

But, in addtion to that, I'm also seeing...
24: Season One: Disc One
24: Season One: Disc Two
etc.

What this looks like in SageMyMovies are tons of DVD covers/entries for 24 in all the different views. But, what is a little different about this one is that some of the discs have different covers as compared to the "main box" for that season. Now, based on what I just learned above about The Mentalist (quick learner LOL) should I go into Collection Manager and DELETE all the individual disc entries for 24 since I have the "main" entry of "24:Season One", for example? Are these different DVD covers and descriptions for each individual disc (within a season) located somewhere? The reason I ask is because if I go to just "24: Season Five" for example, I don't see how all the different DVD covers and descriptions are associated with that one title? This is assuming that I should only be seeing ONE entry in Collection Manager for all of a particular season, correct?

Or, with this example where each disc within a season has a different description and DVD cover, does one have to use a Boxed Set and then make each individual disc in a season a child of the main entry such as "24: Season One"?

I think I almost got it... but just having trouble how with the multi disc option you can get individual artwork and descriptions for each disc?

Thanks! I'm getting there. If there was a "MyMovies For Dummies" book I think I'd have to buy it. LOL

[Hunter69]

So I have been experimenting with this but have not been able to get this setup to work with certain types. For example I have 3 austin power movies and would like to see a cover austin power and assign the three movies to that 1 cover. I have done this with the band of brothers, P90X and insanity. What I did with those was assign the proper dvd's to the one cover folder and place a blank mymovies.dna inside the movies I did not want the folder monitor to add. I attempted to do this same setup with austin power but I never could get it to play correctly. Then I learned it was nearly impossible to reimport those movies once you add that mymovies.dna. I even deleted the .dba file and it would not reimport. So if - wanted to set something like this up, what is the correct way. The austin powers movies are not a muti disc/boxed set, just three individual movies that - own.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

So I have been experimenting with this but have not been able to get this setup to work with certain types. For example I have 3 austin power movies and would like to see a cover austin power and assign the three movies to that 1 cover. I have done this with the band of brothers, P90X and insanity. What I did with those was assign the proper dvd's to the one cover folder and place a blank mymovies.dna inside the movies I did not want the folder monitor to add. I attempted to do this same setup with austin power but I never could get it to play correctly. Then I learned it was nearly impossible to reimport those movies once you add that mymovies.dna. I even deleted the .dba file and it would not reimport. So if - wanted to set something like this up, what is the correct way. The austin powers movies are not a muti disc/boxed set, just three individual movies that - own.

why would you add the .dna I never do that.

Basically do you want it to act like a box set or multi disc?

[Hunter69]

I added the .dna to stop folder monitoring from auto adding the movies I was adding to the movie.

So this is what I tried:
I have austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

To that disk I added the spy who shagged me and gold member. Well I got the movies to play, but they have not disappeared yet. In order to make them disappear do I have do anything else other than assign the disk to one cover?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

I added the .dna to stop folder monitoring from auto adding the movies I was adding to the movie.

So this is what I tried:
I have austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

To that disk I added the spy who shagged me and gold member. Well I got the movies to play, but they have not disappeared yet. In order to make them disappear do I have do anything else other than assign the disk to one cover?

This would be better done with boxed sets no?

Either way I would have to see a database rebuild log to see why certain ones aren't linking.

[mkstretch]

What is the series/ box set button compared to the disc(s) button? If I have say the auction powers trilogy and a tv show series wouldn't I use the series/ box set button? I used the disc(s) button for season 1 of chappelle show and it shows 2 DVD covers instead of 1.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mkstretch

What is the series/ box set button compared to the disc(s) button? If I have say the auction powers trilogy and a tv show series wouldn't I use the series/ box set button? I used the disc(s) button for season 1 of chappelle show and it shows 2 DVD covers instead of 1.

Please read above I explained it pretty well

If you use the disc button you will only get one cover if you have more than one you didn't do sometihng correct.

[mkstretch]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Please read above I explained it pretty well

If you use the disc button you will only get one cover if you have more than one you didn't do sometihng correct.

Sorry It would help if I would not skim through it! I got it now very nice. So If I have a tv series I add each episode by clicking on the disc button and if I have a movie like toy story 1,2,3 I add it with the box set.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mkstretch

Sorry It would help if I would not skim through it! I got it now very nice. So If I have a tv series I add each episode by clicking on the disc button and if I have a movie like toy story 1,2,3 I add it with the box set.

That is how I do it yes be sure and click placeholder on the main boxset title so it knows it is just a "box" for the movies inside/

[mkstretch]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

That is how I do it yes be sure and click placeholder on the main boxset title so it knows it is just a "box" for the movies inside/

Where is the placeholder button?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mkstretch

Where is the placeholder button?

Button right when adding your movies to the boxset.

[mkstretch]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Button right when adding your movies to the boxset.

is that the box that says do not include holding title as part of the series/box?