In 0.19 MythVideo has taken a major step back IMHO. Like others I setup myth to handle my large dvd/divx/mpeg media library stored on DVD's. It all worked fine under 0.18, but under 0.19 logic has gone out the window.

eg
Video Gallery Browses Files = on
You can now see folders BUT if your videometadata points to files not currently locally available then they don't show up (in 0.18 they did). I therefore wrote a simple script to create dummy files for all the filename entries in videometadata as a workaround and then they appear. BUT it then takes 2 minutes for mythvideo to startup whereas in 0.18 it took 15 seconds, so it's useless (5000 records, lots of short music/karaoke videos). I presume on 0.18 it just read the metadata in and used it, whereas in 0.19 it is finding each real file, then searching for it in the metadata and doing god knows what but it is very time consuming. Also in this mode you can no longer use 'Filter Display' and Files marked to not be Browseable still appear anyway!

Video Gallery Browses Files = off
Now ALL files appear as though in the same directory, NO longer in subfolders making it impossible to navigate unless you have less than 60 or so files, (which beggers the question why you even need a database in the first place). 'filter display' is now available and non-browseable files work properly. So in this mode it works properly ala 0.18 BUT how can you browse 5000 files without subfolders?

This makes Gallery & Browse mode unuseable in 0.19. I liked gallery mode with all my covers in 0.18 but those days are over, (unless you wanna create dummy files and wait 2 mins for mythvideo to load)

The only real way you can use MythVideo with a large DVD library in 0.19 is to use list mode and set
video list browses files = off
video list loads metadata = on
This then appears to works in the way gallery view did in 0.18. However you then get the problem that the files are sorted alphabetically but the folders appear at random places in between the files in no sort of order! I think this is because it uses the filename now NOT the title as it should in this mode.

Ideally the setting 'video list loads metadata' would be changed to simply 'load metadata' and apply for all 3 views the same, then 0.18 gallery functionality would be possible. I'm not sure what logic they wished to achieve in mythvideo 0.19 but it hasn't worked, they took a great mythvideo 0.18 and trashed it, it is hopelessly broken. There are a LOT of other problems I uncovered in 0.19 that I can't be bothered to go into, it should be scrapped and the 0.18 code reverted to.

The only options needed are:-
Video Manager To scan for new videos (delete ones not found prompt)
Play Videos
Option : Load MetaData
Option : Show files not found in database
It should always use the title field for display

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PS this doesn't work either now ( used to work great in 0.18 ) I used to change the def display on the fly using diff entries in the menu in library.xml so one view would show the entries in the db metadata in gallery mode and the other view would show the files on my pc hard drive. It seems to maybe cache the settings and doesn't regrab them from the db so the changes get ignored.

You really need to tell this to the MythTV developers who are quite seperate from the KnoppMyth developers.

Well I was posting it in the mythtv forum here so i thought it would be ok, also to act as a warning to others as 0.19 seems to be a mess. But I take your point. Thing is it seems maybe myth is heading off in a new direction of total madness

You probably know this, but in case anyone reading the thread doesn't...

THe MythTV developers DON'T read this forum. They like to use mail lists, and you can join their "dev" list and their "user" list. Like the O.P. says, you can put stuff here to warn other KnoppMyth uers about something related to MythTv, but don't think the Myth devs ever saw your comment here. They didn't.

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It's perfectly OK. It's just not reaching anyone who can do something about it, so it seems likea waste of time. Then again it's your time. <shrug>

On the other hand I've generally been quite happy with 0.19 so far, and the most of the parts that I use commonly seem much improved. However, I've got zero videos or game ROMs, don't care about streaming, or VOIP, or Net Flix, or ..., and haven't had the problems some folks have with recording schedules or the like.

OK I have posted a 'more polite' version on the myth-users list. I am going to clone this myth 0.19 install to an older smaller drive for future experimentation and then reinstall myth 0.18 on this drive so I can again use myth properly. Using MythVideo as a video library was one of the main draws for me. It should be stressed to people that IF you are using an older version of myth than current that works fine I would stick with it. I have read of a LOT of other problems with 0.19, (nova-t cards etc) it might be best to skip it and wait for 0.20.

I was going to tidy up and release my scripts that aid in setting up MythVideo as a video disk library but there seems no point until/if the current Myth direction is sanitised.

cheers

This sounds very discouraging, I'm glad I haven't upgraded. My Myth usage is probably 60% videos, 20% recording/tv, 20% music. I've never been 100% pleased with how MythVideo works, and it sounds like it's much worse now.

I personally have not seen a big diff between the two...

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

I agree that mythvideo is hard to use. My videos have no meta-data and I have no intrest in adding it. The filenames and directory structure I store them in are enough. But Mythvideo doesn't sort directories correctly! So to find a particular file in a couple of nested subdirectories might take a while. Simply adding a alphabetical sort that applied to the directory names would make it 100% better.

If just wishing to browse files in a folder hierarchy then none of the functionality of mythvideo is really being used, they may as well have just knocked up a simple file explorer in an afternoon.

Once you setup the mythvideo database with all the metadata, covers etc for a large library, so you can search, filter etc that's when you can appreciate the potential power and how it has been ruined in 0.19. I think it's been changed by people who totally missed the point of the original author's intelligent design or don't know what a database is really used for and so added functions to just bypass the database to speed it up for their own use as a simple file explorer. The database is now treated as a hindrance to be bypassed.

It IS a database driven app and so should have been tested as such with 10,000 records which would have exposed it's failing in 0.19. By all means provide a simple disk browser for those not interested in using a full database driven app. It's just a real waste to alter something really good so it now does neither job particularly well. Yer I know "Well change it then" - Well yer I fully intend to, once I've worked out how development works on linux (windoze me)

If you wanna appreciate it first hand backup your database using webmin and try these out scripts out.

Create's 10 k video records in subfolders. uncomment early exit to also create dummy files (needed now if you wanna use gallery mode in 0.19, but not req'd in 0.18).
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/attachment/t ... reatedb.sh

create's 3 records that shows how it no longer sorts folders alphabetically but rather in the order of the titles of the files they contain!
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/attachment/t ... sort.2.sql

This single SQL command gives you the full sorted path hierarchy from the database in an instant even with 10k records

Then as you traverse to each folder $FOLDER_NAME, you can grab all the files in that folder sorted by title on the fly. (Here I LIMIT it to just grab the first 10 records as that's as many as get displayed at once in mythgallery for me)

So it shouldn't take longer than a few ms to do anything regardless of the size of the database.

I was seriously thinking about creating a DVD Jukebox using Mythtv but now I'm a little worried. I want to backup my DVD's to ISO then play them but I also wanted to have titles, info and covers stored in the Mythtv database.

HappyTalk, should I install .18 instead? I plan to rip my movies manually on my file server and host them there. I can manually create the directories and file structure. I have around 100 DVD's and plan to add more.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for the info!

8bit

I consider myself a pretty heavy MythVideo user since R5A16 and honestly can't say I notice too many downsides to .19 over .18, besides somewhat slower launch time. I see a lot of HappyTalk's points as valid, but remember the he is reffering to a 5000-10000 title database. I probably have 200 titles and have no problems, I customize my setting to show folders, not have to import title, and use the file structure to organize in a browse view.

If you want to try .18 download and install knoppmyth R5A30.2 which is rock solid.
If you want to try .19 download and install knoppmyth R5D1 which is also solid.
If you want to wait .20 MythTV should be out within next few weeks according to mailing list. .20 has a few fixes for MythVideo that may fix the issues HappyTalk was reffering to.
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/query?compon ... stone=0.20

I suggest downloading one or both of the above Knoppmyth version and giving it a whirl. Both installs are fast that way you can give it a hands on to see for yourself.