Adding video sources

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Revision as of 04:49, 25 March 2018 by Karellen (talk | contribs) (Fix Sections)
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Create Video Libraries
1. The Basics
2. Source Folder
3. Movie Setup
4a. TV Show Setup
4b. Seasons Setup
4c. Episodes Setup
5. Music Videos Setup
6. Add Source & Scrape
7. Scraping Problems
Home icon grey.png   ▶ Video library ▶ Adding video sources


Introduction

The Source is the main folder on your hard drive which contains your collection of Movies or TV Shows or Music Videos or Music. These four classes of media cannot be mixed in the one Source. Once Kodi is pointed to the Source, it can perform the appropriate actions to display your media. There is no limit to the number of Sources that can be added to Kodi for each media class.

This module of the guide will enable you to complete the following actions:

  1. Adding Sources - Add the Source folder to Kodi
  2. Set Media Type - Advise Kodi what type of media is in the Source
  3. Scraper Settings - Advise Kodi which Information Provider (Scraper) to use and adjust the settings to your preferences
  4. Add to Library - Scrape (import) the media into the library

Each section is a direct continuation of the previous section, and only separated for clarity. Although the page looks complex, it is not. It is possible to perform the steps on this page in less than one minute once familiar with the process.


If you have come directly to this page without following the guide and are unsure of how to set up your Sources on your computer/NAS, skip back to Naming Video Files at the start of the guide.

UPnP does not work with the library features of Kodi (scanning data in like summaries and movie covers). It is recommended that you share your media using another protocol such as SMB


Adding Sources


Set Content


The left image is the Set Content screen for Movies. The right image is the Set Content screen for TV Shows. Select the appropriate one, not both.


Movies- Content scanning options
Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title
  • If Enabled Kodi will use the folder name to scrape the movie
  • If Disabled Kodi will use the filename to scrape the movie
Scan Recursively
Used for deep folder structures such as when additional Genre or Movie Set folders are used. Will allow the video scanner to search deeper to find the playable file
Selected folder contains a single video
Normally greyed out unless you have selected a single movie folder within an existing source. It allows you to change the Content settings for a particular movie without affecting the entire Source
Exclude path from library updates
Prevents the Source from being scanned when an Update Library is running


TV Show- Content scanning options
Selected folder contains a single TV show
Allows you to change the Content settings for a particular TV Show without affecting the entire Source
Exclude path from library updates
Prevents the Source from being scanned when an Update Library is running


Alternate scrapers are available, and can be installed using the Get More button from the Choose information provider screen in Step 9 (not pictured). Only change the default scraper if you have a particular reason to.


Movie Scraper


From Step 9a above select Settings to access the settings page for the scraper Add-on:The MovieDB Press OK to accept the changes. The screen in Step 10 will be offered


TV Show Scraper


From Step 9b above select Settings to access the settings page for the scraper

Note: When DVD Order and Absolute Order are disabled, Aired Order will be used.

Use DVD order
Uses the episode order on the DVD/Bluray instead of the Aired Order.
Note: If no DVD Order details exist for the TV Show, the scraper will fall back to using Aired Order.
Use absolute ordering (single season)
Treat show as having only one season so that file names only require episode numbers. Often used for single series and anime. S
Note: The Absolute Order data for the TV Show must exist at the TVDB in order to use this. There is no fallback when using this option and missing data means this show will not scrape.
Enable fanart
Download Fanart or not.
Language
Language to use for summaries and other metadata.


Press OK to accept the changes. The screen in Step 10 will be offered


Add to Library


Once you press Yes, Kodi will scan your library and attempt to match each title in your library to the title at the site of the Information Provider. If a match is found, the metadata and artwork is downloaded and used for the library display. Depending upon the size of your library, this could take some time. A single movie could take approx 30 seconds, a library of 400 movies could take over an hour.

When the scraping process is complete, be sure to check the Event Log to view any titles that were not added to the library, which is normally due to incorrect naming. See... Scraping Problems


At this point, you should now have a fully functioning video library. Repeat the steps on this page to add the remainder of your media.



The remainder of this page deals with Special Use cases and can be safely ignored.


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Adding Remote sources

For details on the supported protocols and configuration

See: File sharing

Follow the steps (above) for adding a source, but when you get to the 'browse' section (step 4 & 5), you need to do one of the following:

If your remote device is visible from one of the existing choices (e.g 'Network File system' , 'UPnP Devices' etc)

  • Select a remote location, and you should be able to browse to the remote server.

If the device is not visible, or

  • It is a remote NAS
  • It is an SMB server

You will need to add a new network location:


Making one source from multiple locations

Multi locations in one source.png

You might notice that Kodi has an "ADD" button in addition to a "BROWSE" button when you are adding a source. After you add your first location, you can add a second location (network or local. you can even mix them) and Kodi will show both folders as a single folder/source.

Kodi will also combine the subfolders within the source/locations. For example, if you had a hard drive for TV shows, but ran out of space, you could make a second hard drive with the same folder paths and Kodi would merge them together to a single directory path. Such as

Hard drive 1/TV shows/
Hard drive 2/TV shows/

and the same is true for an additional nested folder with the same way:

Hard drive 1/TV shows/American Dad/
Hard drive 2/TV shows/American Dad/

You could have half of a show on one hard drive, half on another, and Kodi will show it to you as if it was in a single location by using multiple locations in a single source.


Note: This only impacts the basic "Files view". The default Library nodes will combine things by show even if their files are spread across multiple drives. Most users will not really benefit from using multiple paths in a single source.


Password protected sources

See: Media sources#Locking



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Next step: Scraping Problems