Video management

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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 ▶ Video management

Introduction

Now that you have your library setup and have become confident with using Kodi, you can start experimenting with modifying your library so it better suits your preferences.

This page will guide you to other wiki pages that are commonly used to modify the library.


Common

Artwork
The use of artwork will transform your mundane media player into a showpiece to be proud of, especially when teamed up with your favourite skin. Kodi will allow you to display Posters, Fanart, Album Covers, Actor and Artist images to name a few. Install the Picture Slideshow add-on, and you will have a constant display of video or music fanart to brighten your entertainment room.
Backup
Like all technology, disaster can strike at any time, either due to a hardware failure, operating system crash which has corrupted Kodi data, or unexpected results from the use of a nightly or development build of Kodi. For these reasons, backups of Kodi are essential to enable you to quickly rebuild your setup.
Bookmarks
Video Bookmarks allow you to create Save points within movies and episodes in order to easily return to them at a later date. Episode Bookmarks allow mapping of the start of an Episode to the library entry. Useful when there is more than one episode in the video file. eg ISO files, or other full disk rips.
Cinematic Universes
Through the use of specialised filenaming and a smart playlist, Kodi can build a cinematic universe for any of your favourite movie and tv show franchises. Using this method allows correct canonical sorting, or any sorting required by the user, which cannot be accomplished with any other method. This method has the advantage of creating these universes without affecting movie sets or library listings in the movie or tv show library.
Custom Menu Items
It is possible to create additional Main Menu items that appear on the default Main Menu. For example, adding Home Movies, Kids Movies, Sports, Documentaries and other menu items. Kodi can already filter and separate library items using a number of methods. Combined with a skin that supports Custom Home Items, the library and main menu can be laid out to meet your requirements.
Edit Decision List (EDL)
An edit decision list (EDL) contains information about edits that should be made to the video during playback. Edit decision list information is contained in a separate file to the video that is read by Kodi just before the video is played. Examples of use include can be to skip commercials, cut out content inappropriate for children, or skip over the half hour acid trip in 2001: A Space Odyssey .
Extras
The Extras add-on allows easy access to all the bonus material that usually comes packaged with the main movie of the DVD or BluRay. Save these Extras, such as Bloopers, Cast Interviews, Production Notes, etc along with the main movie in a folder named Extras. Access theses Extras from the Context Menu of the movie.
Filtering
Filter is a Music and Video Library feature that allows a user to quickly reduce a list of titles to a smaller list that matches a user specified criteria. For example, filter the main listing of movies to only movies whose genre is Science Fiction.
Media Stub Files
  • If you have a collection of DVD's and Bluray disks but do not want to rip them to a hard drive, then a Media Stub File allows you to add the collection of disks to the Kodi Video Library.
  • It is a simple text based file that is added to your Source in exactly the same way as any other Movie or TV Show, which is then scanned or scraped into the library.
NFO Files
NFO files are used to populate the music and video library using locally stored information. They are helpful if data for your particular title does not exist, such as for home movies and sporting events. A Parsing and Combination NFO file can be used to control the search behaviour of scrapers when problematic and ambiguous titles prevent your preferred title from being scraped.
Nodes
Video nodes are defined views that are used to organize your media from the videos menu. Title, Director, Year, Studios, Countries, Genres are examples of Nodes. These Nodes can be customised using an XML file which gives flexibility in how you display your media. Custom nodes will work with any skin, but for ease of use a compatible skin is preferred.
Parental Controls
Methods to help control accessibility to your movies and tv shows
Playlists
Create new curated lists of your content using either Basic or Smart Playlists
Profiles
Profiles allow users to save all of settings as a profile and change them at the touch of a button. It also allows you to grant access to specific folders and network shares based on the profile being used. This is ideal for systems that have multiple users. It works much the same as setting up individual users on your home computer.
Stream Files
Various internet video and audio streams can be played back in Kodi as if they were locally stored on your media center by using STRM files. As long as the format and streaming-method (network-protocol) is supported by Kodi, stream can be added. These are basic text files that look like <name>.strm and contain a URL to the internet stream. STRM files can also be added to the video library and can have cover art, summaries, etc.

Some internet sites may have an add-on available that can also access these media streams, rather than having to manually create STRM files. See Add-ons for more information on how to find and install add-ons.

Trailers
Trailers can be scanned or scraped into the library along with the movie metadata and artwork. Watch the trailers independently or specialised add-ons can be used to re-create the cinema experience by playing trailers before viewing a movie.
Video Library Tags
Video library tags, aka Tags or Keywords, can be used to further sort and organise your library into meaningful lists. Sites such as IMDB and TheMovieDB use Keywords to describe themes, plot details or character types to group and easily locate similar titles. They are generally different to the genre.
Watched & Resume Points
This page describes three advancedsettings.xml settings that can be used to modify when "watched" and "resume" marks are saved. These settings can also be used to prevent automatically saving watched and resume points. A watched point records if a video has been watched or not. A resume point records where in a video file playback has stopped, so it can be resumed later.


TV Show Specific

The following options are specific to TV Shows

Combine TV Shows
Do you have two TV shows that are really the same show, but are listed seperately at the scraper site? This guide will show you how to combine the two TV shows into one show for your library.

This method can also be used for those Netflix shows that are broken into parts per season, but each part is treated as seperate Seasons at the scraper sites.

Link Movies to TV Shows
This feature allows you to link a Move to a TV Show without the need of keeping two copies of the video file on your system. eg, linking Serenity (2005) to the tv show Firefly.
Rename Seasons
The Season Rename feature allows you to change the name of a TV Show Season from the default Season x format to a name of your choosing. This can be used in Anime, or those TV Shows that have special names for Seasons, like Torchwood.


Movie Specific

The following options are specific to Movies

Convert Movies into Episodes
Do you think that a particular movie should be an episode of a TV Show? Maybe those two related TV Shows should actually be one TV show? Then read on to discover how to make a movie an episode of a TV Show or how to combine TV Shows.
Movie Sets / Collections
A Movie Set is a collection of related films that are part of the same fictional universe. The scraper sites include artwork and metadata for Movie Sets which is scraped by Kodi and creates the Movie Set in your library. Movie sets are versatile and can be easily edited to suit your own needs.
Movie Set Information Folder
The Movie Set Information Folder (MSIF) is a user nominated folder that Kodi will scan to locate local artwork for movie sets/collections.
Video Versions
Video Version is a new Kodi feature introduced in v21. It allows users to keep multiple versions of the same video title in the library.

Do you have the DVD, Bluray, 3D and 4K version of a title? Do you have the Theatrical Release, Director's Cut, Extended version or any other type of version for the same title? Do you dislike the same title being repeatedly listed in the library?

All these different formats and versions can be attached to a parent title in the library. Think of it as Movie Sets for the same movie.



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