unRaid + Meedio (thumbnails issue)

This isn't really an unRaid software question.  I'm using Meedio, and I store my DVD ISOs in folders along with a thumbnail of the cover.  Since I have unRaid spinning the drives down, when I fire up my HTPC, the thumbnails don't appear at first (until all the drives spin up) which is kinda annoying.

How are other Meedio users getting around this?

I have Meedio set to cache images (I think).  Is there a way to store the images locally?  I'm not using any of the movie info plugins, but I'd like to.  Actually, the reason I haven't yet is because I like the larger Amazon.com images (and I go as far as to crop that image to get rid of the plastic DVD box).  I don't want it to overwrite my images.

musicman,

I use Meedio too and I have my thumbnails stored locally on my HTPC hard drive.

I use DVDProfiler and have a plug-in (XML2Mee) that converts the DVDProfiler XML file for use by Meedio.

The XML2Mee plug-in was written by EnemyWithin and can be found on the Plugins forum on the Meedio website.

Of course, you will have to use DVDProfiler if you want to use XML2Mee. The professional version is $20 and well worth it as the thumbnails are high rez jpeg.

Regards,

TCIII

I also use Meedio with my Unraid server and was wondering what you guys think about Meedio now since Yahoo has it? You staying with Meedio as is? or switching to something else? I have spend many long nights getting Meedio the way i like it and hate that it is no more.

Thanks for the info, TCIII.

JM2K5, I'm pretty satisfied with Meedio right now.  I'm trying to treat my HTPC as an appliance, so I just want to configure it and forget it.  I had tried MCE2005 (after using myHTPC and Meedio for a while), and I was too impatient to try to figure it out (that and it seemed to take forever to catalog a handful of mp3s). 

I'm sure I'll switch to something else (probably MCE) at some point in the future, but I'm not sure what'll push me over the edge. 

It's because of myHTPC and Meedio that I felt it was worthwhile to create a media-optimized server.

What I do is store thumbnails and "shortcuts" to IFO files (and other types of video files) in a directory called "c:\movies" on the HTPC.  The shortcuts are generated by a batch file (contents below).  Use the Meedio importer to import the .lnk files.  This works great because you don't have to have any UnRaid disks spinning to browse through the collection & by commenting out lines in the batch file you can avoid spinning up all the UnRaid disks after moving media to only one disk (you would comment out all the disk you are moving to).

Batch file uses a program called "shortcut.exe" which is widely available on the web.

@echo off
cd \movies
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk1\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk2\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk3\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk4\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk5\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk6\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk7\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk8\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk9\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk10\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
for /D %%G in (\\server\disk11\movies\*.*) do (call :sub "%%G")
goto :eof


:sub
if exist "%~n1.lnk" goto :eof
echo %~n1
shortcut.exe /F:"%~n1.lnk" /A:C /T:%1\video_ts\video_ts.ifo
goto :eof

I use Xlobby which does the same thing however it does it automatically and on the fly.  When Xlobby loads it pulls thumbs of all media (DVD, CD, whatever) and loads them all into a folder on the local drive in the Xlobby directory.  After that all browsing thru collections is rocket fast because you don't need to ever wait for an UnRaid drive to spin up.  Once you select to play something (again anything) the drive spins up (wait, wait) and the media plays.

Xlobby is free and IMHO a far better application than Medio, much less MCE looking, has lots of great plugin's and works with any DVD software.  Actually within the program is a very powerful screen editor so you can make it look anyway you would like, it's totally up to you.

www.xlobby.com

I'm using Meedio + DVDProfiler + XML2mee + TheaterTek 2.3.

I used the example above (thanks!) to create shortcuts to my movies. I can double click on a shortcut and TheaterTek starts and plays the video. It will not play when fired up from within Meedio. I tried creating a simple batch file like this:

"C:\Program Files\TheaterTek\TheaterTek DVD 2.0\TheaterTek DVD.exe" foo.lnk

And see the same behavior, TheaterTek won't play. It looks like it's not resolving the link.

Anyone else run into this? I have the same question out over in the TheaterTek forum.

Thanks,

Tom L.

Heard back from the TheaterTek forum. This will be fixed in the upcoming 2.4 release.