Set content and scan

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Adding videos to the library/Contents

Home icon grey.png   ▶ Video library ▶ Management ▶ Set content and scan

When you "Set Content", you can set your video content as Music Videos, Movies, or TV Shows. Scroll through the options until you get to the correct one. If you did not "Set Content" when you added a source, you can do so later by selecting the source and bringing up the contextual menu (C on a keyboard by default).

Setting content for subfolders

You can also "set content" for subfolders, even if the parent folder has content set that is using a different setting. For example, you can have a folder for your TV shows, and in that folder have a folder for "Star Trek" that contains the different Star Trek TV shows. If you do this normally then Kodi will think that "Star Trek" is one single show, but if you set content on that specific folder, then it will scan everything in correctly.

Avoid adding a subfolder as a separate source, as Kodi will might make duplicates if there are two sources that lead to the same files.

Movie content options

Set content.movies.png
Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title
If you keep each of your movies in its own folder with the movie name in it
Example: /Movies/Big Buck Bunny/Big Buck Bunny.mkv
If you keep all your movies in one big folder then leave this option unchecked.
Scan recursively
Scans sub folders for movies as well as the main folder. Great for if your movies are categorized into sub folders (e.g. genres, a-z), etc.
Example: /Movies/Action/Big Buck Bunny.mkv
Selected folder contains a single movie
This option is intended for adding one movie at a time.
Exclude path from library updates
Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.


Movie scraper settings

Add-on:The MovieDB

TV show content options

Set content.TV shows.png
Folder contains a single TV Show
This option is intended for adding one TV show at a time.
Exclude path from library updates
Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.


TV show scraper settings

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.


Season ordering

To get a match for episodes you need to understand thetvdb.com data has 3 different ways of ordering the episode numbers;

  • DVD Order
  • Absolute Order (aka Single Season)
  • Aired Order

In the configuration of the TVDB Addon if neither of the 2 tick boxes for DVD Order or Absolute Ordering are ticked then the order of episodes will be in Aired Order and this is the default listing order for the the TVDB addon.

You can see these options on thetvdb.com at the bottom of the page and when trying to match the order with how your files are named, you can confirm it with the page URL eg. http://www.thetvdb.com/index.php?tab=seasonall&id=71361&lid=7&order=absolute the other options in this case were DVD and aired.

Note: Even if you set the above for a global/parent folder/source for one setting, each folder, such as an individual TV show folder, can also have it's own content settings, which can be checked via Video->Files->"highlight show folder"-> context menu-> change content-> settings. The folder's setting has precedence over the global setting.


It is also important to understand thetvdb.com does not have absolute ordering for some shows and thus ticking the Absolute Order button may result in the episode number not being found and thus no match found or an incorrect match. Additionally whilst absolute ordering may exist on thetvdb.com, that data may not be available to the scraper due to the way thetvdb.com feeds that data out - see the section on debugging show matching (yet to be completed).


Music video content options

Set content.music videos.png
Run Automatic Scan
Scans the source's files into the library after selecting 'OK'
Scan recursively
If your music videos are categorized into sub folders (e.g. genres, a-z).
Exclude path from library updates
Excludes the selected path from scans and updates, even if it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.


Music video scraper settings

Grab album thumbs from theaudiodb.com
enables album artwork download from theaudiodb.com
Grab album thumbs from fanart.tv
enables album artwork download from fanart.tv



Local NFO only options

NFO files are an alternative to going online for the library data. Kodi will always look for the existence of an NFO file before going online to download that data, even if you have setup an online scraper. Once scanned into the library the NFO file isn't used and only serves as a backup. If you make changes to the NFO file you will need to refresh that library entry for the changes to be loaded into Kodi.

The local-NFO-only option is only needed if you want to prevent Kodi from using scrapers for video files that do not yet have NFO files.

For example, if you use a 3rd party media manager to make NFO files and you haven't generated NFO files for your new video additions. The NFO-only mode will prevent the videos without NFO files from being added to the library until they have NFO files.

If you are only using NFO files to restore from a backup of the library, or doing something like moving from a local library to MySQL, then you will want to use the normal scraper settings and not use the NFO-only option. This way Kodi will still use the online scrapers for new videos, but only for those new videos that don't have NFO files.

(None) content options

Set content.none.png

Settings a scraper to (None) on folders or subfolders can be used explicitly to set no scraper so that when excluding a path that contains no valid scrapable media info, can be easily achieved. In combination with other options this maximizes the effectiveness of excluding a path from scans.

The directory contains (None) Current scraper
Ensure that the selected source doesn't have a content set, works with exclude path from scans, even when it's a subfolder of a folder that has contents set.
To exclude folder from scans, check the option as well.
Also a intermediary choice when changing content on a source. see also: Switching scrapers and removing sources from the library


Excluding directories/folders

Kodi can exclude certain directories from the library all together using a few different methods.

  • Use the "Exclude folder from scans" option when the content type is set to "none"
  • Place a file (even an empty one) named .nomedia in the directory you want to exclude
  • Folders with -trailer or sample in the name will be automatically skipped (for the exact pattern match, see here


Scanning and updating files

There are several ways you can scan your videos into the Video library:

  • When a source or file has "content set" or changed, Kodi will ask you if you wish to update the library after you are done.
  • In Library view you can choose "Update library" from the lefthand sidebar menu by pressing (left).
  • Select the item in file view and either press I on the keyboard, or bring up the contextual menu (press C) and select "Movie information" or "TV show information"
    • If the file is already scanned in, you can also use the info screen to refresh/update that entry in the library.
  • You can select the share, folder, or TV show (anything that is basically a folder) that your videos are in and choose "Scan for new content" from the contextual menu (press C or Menu), which scans all files in that specific share/folder.
  • Have Kodi scan for new items upon start up by going to Settings -> Video -> Library -> Update library on startup
  • Add-on:XBMC Library Auto Update can be used to schedule automatic updates to the library.
  • Add-on:Library watchdog can be used to watch folders for new files to trigger library updates.

Refreshing the library

Note: Kodi only scans each video once for information. The next time you update it will only add new videos, but won't download new art/summaries/etc for existing videos. To refresh the information for existing videos:

Refresh individually
  1. Select the item in file view and either press I on the keyboard, or bring up the contextual menu (press C).
  2. Select "Movie information" or "TV show information".
  3. Then select "Refresh".

When refreshing individually you can also choose to just refresh or manually select images for various views (cover art, fanart, thumbnails, etc).


Refresh by source/folder
  1. Remove a source/folder from the library by changing the content setting to "None".
  2. When Kodi asks you if you want to remove those items from the library, say yes.
  3. Kodi will then show a progress bar and remove those entries.
  4. Change the content setting back to what it was before.
  5. Kodi will then rescan in those entries.

Switching scrapers and removing sources from the library

Setting the content back to (None) after previously having selected a scraper for a source, will prompt users if they want to remove the contents from the Library.

This is recommended if you wish to switch scrapers. First set content to (None) and then choose the new scraper.

Setting content to (None) also removes the contents of the selected folder from the Library altogether. This is useful if you want to remove the contents of an entire folder from the video library as removing entries from the contextual menu will only remove single items.