Diamond 3.0 Writeup/Walkthrough

[dbone1026]

Not sure if this is much help but here is a writeup I just posted for Diamond 3.0

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011...e-walkthrough/

Great job by Team Diamond

[PLUCKYHD]

Thanks a couple of the key points you pointed as missing are on the list

[tmar89]

Thanks, this is helpful. This is really pushing me to migrate from BeyondTV finally!

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Thanks a couple of the key points you pointed as missing are on the list

Yeah I figured, it is only the first release so I am sure there is more on the way

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Thanks a couple of the key points you pointed as missing are on the list

Hey Plucky,

Here is a question of how Diamond interacts with BMT, is BMT absolutely required? For example, you can use posters/backdrops outside of what BMT creates, and since My Movies Collection Management can create .properties files as well as folder.jpg/backdrop.jpg in theory you should be set just using MyMovies CM.

I guess at a minimum you need to use BMT for TV Shows since MyMovies CM currently does not export anything SageTV related for TV Shows (and I don't recall seeing any Diamond options for TV Shows to not use BMT)

[stuckless]

Thanks for giving a quick walkthrough of BMT as well. I realize you despise the product, so that fact you even mentioned it was a bonus

You haven't posted anything in the bmt forums since 3.1, but I sense that the 4.x release is causing you some grief as well BMT is a one man show, so it's hard to put in the options that make everyone happy, and it was never meant to compete with collection managers (and it never will), but rather in an ideal world, it would simply integrate with things like MyMovies and DVDProfiler, etc.

Something you may want to consider for your walkthrough guide (in the bmt section) is to link out to the bmt user guide. I think that everyone should read the guide, especially if they are just starting out with bmt.

Again, thanks for the special mention, given the circumstances.

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Thanks for giving a quick walkthrough of BMT as well. I realize you despise the product, so that fact you even mentioned it was a bonus

You haven't posted anything in the bmt forums since 3.1, but I sense that the 4.x release is causing you some grief as well BMT is a one man show, so it's hard to put in the options that make everyone happy, and it was never meant to compete with collection managers (and it never will), but rather in an ideal world, it would simply integrate with things like MyMovies and DVDProfiler, etc.

Something you may want to consider for your walkthrough guide (in the bmt section) is to link out to the bmt user guide. I think that everyone should read the guide, especially if they are just starting out with bmt.

Again, thanks for the special mention, given the circumstances.

TBH I actually was a little hesitant to write about my issues with BMT since I do understand all the work that goes into it and it is only being done on your free time, and of course the last thing I want to do is discourage any sort of development. It just wasn't my day with BMT, and I am still not 100% clear what caused the issue except basically deleting my central fanart folder, removing all sources, and then adding back only TV shows did the trick (I just remoted in and I can see that BMT is still slowly adding the TV Show metadata which started around 5 hours ago, so hopefully the remainder will be completed soon enough and then I will try adding back my Movie sources). Once again, I didn't mean to come across as being overly critical or harsh, my intention was just to spend time documenting Diamond and got frustrated that I spent much of that time troubleshooting the issues I was having with BMT.

I have had BMT running for a while but have been using Sage MyMovies with the HD300 so haven't needed to rely or monitor BMT. I will add your link to my walkthrough.

[stuckless]

Also, in the guide, you mention

Phoenix Core Services, and Batch Metadata Tools – Web Interface (each install will require a restart of SageTV).

The step can be optimized in that IF you just install the Batch Metadata Tools, it will also install the Phoenix Core Services (since bmt depends on it). That will save an extra restart was well.

Something to consider with BMT and fanart... in order to process 1000s of files, bmt will scan the files for metadata and queue up the fanart downloads, since downloading fanart is more time consuming. This gives the impression that the scanning is done... but really, only the metadata portion of the scan is complete... and in the background, bmt is downloading 1000s of pieces of fanart. Because Diamond caches "misses" then if you check diamond right away, and the fanart it not there, then the lack of fanart will be cached. BMT web ui does the same thing, since finding fanart on the filesystem can be a time consuming, so caching the misses is important for performance. But on the other hand, it also means that even after the fanart has been downloaded, it might not show up right away

I'll try to add some better monitoring to the bmt web ui to let people know about the background downloading of fanart. I've thought about this several times, but I've never found the time to put it in

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Also, in the guide, you mention



The step can be optimized in that IF you just install the Batch Metadata Tools, it will also install the Phoenix Core Services (since bmt depends on it). That will save an extra restart was well.

Something to consider with BMT and fanart... in order to process 1000s of files, bmt will scan the files for metadata and queue up the fanart downloads, since downloading fanart is more time consuming. This gives the impression that the scanning is done... but really, only the metadata portion of the scan is complete... and in the background, bmt is downloading 1000s of pieces of fanart. Because Diamond caches "misses" then if you check diamond right away, and the fanart it not there, then the lack of fanart will be cached. BMT web ui does the same thing, since finding fanart on the filesystem can be a time consuming, so caching the misses is important for performance. But on the other hand, it also means that even after the fanart has been downloaded, it might not show up right away

I'll try to add some better monitoring to the bmt web ui to let people know about the background downloading of fanart. I've thought about this several times, but I've never found the time to put it in

Thx, I have updated the BMT section to mention these items.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

Hey Plucky,

Here is a question of how Diamond interacts with BMT, is BMT absolutely required? For example, you can use posters/backdrops outside of what BMT creates, and since My Movies Collection Management can create .properties files as well as folder.jpg/backdrop.jpg in theory you should be set just using MyMovies CM.

I guess at a minimum you need to use BMT for TV Shows since MyMovies CM currently does not export anything SageTV related for TV Shows (and I don't recall seeing any Diamond options for TV Shows to not use BMT)

Bmt is not required. For tv it is the only way to get metadata outside of recorded tv data.

[mayamaniac]

Awesome write up, Damian. I agree with you on the final thoughts. Diamond 3.0 didn't seem that much different from previous version at first, but once you dig into all the options, you start to appreciate how much work was done by the developers. I love all the folder views/filters and OSD options. So thanks to all the Diamonds developers.

But in contrast, I prefer BMT for simple fanart and meta deta scrapping. I just install it with a few mouse clicks and it does what it is suppose to and I really don't have to do anything else. I really despise MyMovies, so much that I stopped using SMM. It seems like such a badly written software for retrieving fanart and metadata. So thanks Stuckless and keep going with BMT.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I really despise MyMovies, so much that I stopped using SMM. It seems like such a badly written software for retrieving fanart and metadata. So thanks Stuckless and keep going with BMT.

To each their own I turned 1800 tv files loose on it the other day and it hit every single one.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

So thanks Stuckless and keep going with BMT.

Thanks! BMT and MyMovies really are different beasts... I rarely use the bmt web ui myself, since I rely on the automatic fanart/metadata. The key, with any of these metadata scrapers is clean filenames. The better your filenames, the better the odds of getting a hit. It think if you don't have box sets, tv specials, etc, and all you want/need is simple fanart/metadata, then bmt works fine. Beyond that, you need a collection manager. BMT is like the convenience store, where as MyMovies is more like walmart

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

To each their own I turned 1800 tv files loose on it the other day and it hit every single one.

And for what it is worth I got about a 93% to 94% hit rate with bmt on the same collection.

My prefernce for mymovies is mostly detail provided and speed. Since they user their own servers they scrap and download so much faster than TVDB or TMBD can provide.

[dbone1026]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

And for what it is worth I got about a 93% to 94% hit rate with bmt on the same collection.

My prefernce for mymovies is mostly detail provided and speed. Since they user their own servers they scrap and download so much faster than TVDB or TMBD can provide.

I just like having the option of being able to use BMT or another for metadata/fanart in SageTV. I see two benefits:

1) This is specific to me, but since I do a lot of testing of various devices/front ends, it makes life easier just using one metadata tool (such as Collection Management). Right now I have probably 4-5 metadata programs installed on my PC, wouldn't mind narrowing that down

2) Much easier to move between front ends, and I think it makes switching from say WMC to SageTV much easier if you can keep your WMC metadata/fanart

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by dbone1026

I just like having the option of being able to use BMT or another for metadata/fanart in SageTV. I see two benefits:

1) This is specific to me, but since I do a lot of testing of various devices/front ends, it makes life easier just using one metadata tool (such as Collection Management). Right now I have probably 4-5 metadata programs installed on my PC, wouldn't mind narrowing that down

2) Much easier to move between front ends, and I think it makes switching from say WMC to SageTV much easier if you can keep your WMC metadata/fanart

Agreed 100% I am always smelling the roses at other frontends and MyMovies works across XBMC,WMC,Dune and mostly Sagetv.

[Biggen]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Also, in the guide, you mention



The step can be optimized in that IF you just install the Batch Metadata Tools, it will also install the Phoenix Core Services (since bmt depends on it). That will save an extra restart was well.

Something to consider with BMT and fanart... in order to process 1000s of files, bmt will scan the files for metadata and queue up the fanart downloads, since downloading fanart is more time consuming. This gives the impression that the scanning is done... but really, only the metadata portion of the scan is complete... and in the background, bmt is downloading 1000s of pieces of fanart. Because Diamond caches "misses" then if you check diamond right away, and the fanart it not there, then the lack of fanart will be cached. BMT web ui does the same thing, since finding fanart on the filesystem can be a time consuming, so caching the misses is important for performance. But on the other hand, it also means that even after the fanart has been downloaded, it might not show up right away

I'll try to add some better monitoring to the bmt web ui to let people know about the background downloading of fanart. I've thought about this several times, but I've never found the time to put it in

Does this explain why the the poster art (icon) shows inside of BMT but doesn't always show inside of Sage?

For example, I just ripped about 120 movies and then installed BMT/Phoenix/Diamond. I went through BMT and made sure I have the correct Metadata for all my movies. I then did the Refresh Fanart/Update Meta Data from within BMT and then went and looked in Sage to see what happened. I am missing about 5 posters from some reason and I can't figure out why.

It is driving me crazy. I have the meta data for these movies, I have the poster art showing up inside of BMT, and I have the fan art showing up in Sage when I select the movie. But all be damned if I can figure out why I cant get the poster art to show up...

[mguebert]

There is one thing SMM does better than any of the other options at the moment and that is Parental Controls. I like that I can setup tiered access and it will not show any movies not approved for that tier.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Biggen

Does this explain why the the poster art (icon) shows inside of BMT but doesn't always show inside of Sage?

For example, I just ripped about 120 movies and then installed BMT/Phoenix/Diamond. I went through BMT and made sure I have the correct Metadata for all my movies. I then did the Refresh Fanart/Update Meta Data from within BMT and then went and looked in Sage to see what happened. I am missing about 5 posters from some reason and I can't figure out why.

It is driving me crazy. I have the meta data for these movies, I have the poster art showing up inside of BMT, and I have the fan art showing up in Sage when I select the movie. But all be damned if I can figure out why I cant get the poster art to show up...

I can't really say why it's not showing in diamond, but it may be caching thing. If the poster is showing inside of bmt, then bmt has downloaded fanart, and it is ready to be used.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I can't really say why it's not showing in diamond, but it may be caching thing. If the poster is showing inside of bmt, then bmt has downloaded fanart, and it is ready to be used.

Also a quick look at your sagetv log after clearing diamond cache and trying to see the poster would tell me what diamond is getting returned