YAMJ with multiple sources

[yabadaba]

Sorry for the long post, but I seem to have a problem of being able to explain anything in less than a million words! Okay, this isn't a huge problem for me, more a case of wanting to understand how this all works....

All my movie files are on Windows 2003 Server machine, spread across 3 hard drives (physical, not partitions). This machine is running Windows Services for UNIX, as in testing I found that NFS allowed for smooth high bitrate 1080p playback, whereas SMB didn't. Each physical drive is shared from root level and the path to each drive is mapped on my PCH.

When I first tried to get YAMJ working I created a libraries.xml with entries for each drive. An index.htm was successfully created that included the movies from all three drives and I then figured out that I had to move all the Jukebox files from the YAMJ folder where they were created to one of my shared media drives for the PCH to 'see' the index and display it on my TV.

At that point I had only copied the Jukebox files to one of the 3 hard drives, but soon found that I could only actually play movies via the YAMJ index that were stored on that actual shared drive. I had thought that the PCH would also be able to play the movies stored on the other drives because the Jukebox files contained the correct path to the movie files and would point the PCH to where they were located. But that didn't happen and I found it made most sense to start again and have YAMJ scan and create files for each drive separately. So, that's where I am at now - one set of YAMJ files on the root of each physical h/d, indexing only the media on that drive.

Q1: Is it possible to just have one set of YAMJ files with one index.htm that includes the movies from all three of my h/d's? I'm thinking it must be because I've come across posts debating where to store the Jukebox files, which implies they don't need to be on the same drive as the media.

Q2: When I select one of my three NFS shared drives via the PCH Source menu, I am immediately presented with the index screen, which is nice. But, I was hoping I'd get the sub-menu I used to see, with the Movie, Music and Photo icons available....and that selecting Movie would give me the index. Is that possible?

[jhmiller]

I'm having the same problem, i have YAMJ scan 2 folders on the PCH internal HD (TV & Films) and a shared HD in my desktop pc.

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
        <libraries>
    
          <library>
              <path>Z:\Films/</path>
              <nmtpath>file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK/Films/</nmtpath>
              <exclude name="sample,tmp/,temp/"/>
          </library>
        
          <library>
              <path>Z:\TV/</path>
              <nmtpath>file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK/TV/</nmtpath>
              <exclude name="sample,tmp/,temp/"/>
          </library>
<library>
              <path>L:\StarGate/</path>
              <nmtpath>file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/NETWORK_SHARE/L/StarGate/</nmtpath>
              <exclude name="sample,tmp/,temp/"/>
          </library>
        </libraries>

This is what i have in my xml file, the L drive is shared on the PCH as L(do i need to share it on the PCH or will the PCH see my shared folders on my desktop pc with out being added?)

Thanks for any suggestions.

Jamie

[staffanw]

(12-07-2008 10:45 AM)yabadaba Wrote:  Q1: Is it possible to just have one set of YAMJ files with one index.htm that includes the movies from all three of my h/d's? I'm thinking it must be because I've come across posts debating where to store the Jukebox files, which implies they don't need to be on the same drive as the media.

The PCH will only keep one share/mount active at the same time so the only option is to use an internal drive in the PCH which could be an Compact-flash card if you don't want an internal harddrive. Use jpg-format for YAMJ pictures as they tend to be smaller than png.

Is it not possible to change the NFS export from the Windows2003 server so that you first mount the 3 disks on /export as /export/d1, /export/d2 and /export/d3 and then only export /export and in the YAMJ libraries.xml file have the 3 entries as you had before.

[yabadaba]

(12-07-2008 12:35 PM)staffanw Wrote:  The PCH will only keep one share/mount active at the same time so the only option is to use an internal drive in the PCH which could be an Compact-flash card if you don't want an internal harddrive. Use jpg-format for YAMJ pictures as they tend to be smaller than png.

Is it not possible to change the NFS export from the Windows2003 server so that you first mount the 3 disks on /export as /export/d1, /export/d2 and /export/d3 and then only export /export and in the YAMJ libraries.xml file have the 3 entries as you had before.

Thanks, so it looks like it's all to do with the PCH only keeping one share active at any one time. I do actually have an internal H/D in my PCH, but hadn't tried putting the YAMJ files there because I guess I'd gone down the road of assuming that the YAMJ files had to be on the shared drive itself. I'll try this when I get chance later today.

Not sure I fully follow your second para.....not your fault, almost certainly my shaky understanding of networking!

[duder]

An alternative solution is to use myIhome with the YAMJ plugin.

No problem with having one index for all hard drives,
No problem with high bit rate films.
No problem with accessing movies/photo/music.


Have to keep your PC running all the time though

[staffanw]

(12-07-2008 12:54 PM)yabadaba Wrote:  Thanks, so it looks like it's all to do with the PCH only keeping one share active at any one time. I do actually have an internal H/D in my PCH, but hadn't tried putting the YAMJ files there because I guess I'd gone down the road of assuming that the YAMJ files had to be on the shared drive itself. I'll try this when I get chance later today.

This is the simplest way and the way I do it myself with multiple shares

(12-07-2008 12:54 PM)yabadaba Wrote:  Not sure I fully follow your second para.....not your fault, almost certainly my shaky understanding of networking!

or my understanding of Windows 2003 Server. In Unix/Linux I believe that you can mount a physical disk wherever you want so instead of mounting the first disk on /d1 and exporting /d1 as a separate share just mount all the disks on /export as previously described and then only do one nfs-export of /export

/staffan

[yabadaba]

(12-07-2008 01:49 PM)duder Wrote:  An alternative solution is to use myIhome with the YAMJ plugin.

No problem with having one index for all hard drives,
No problem with high bit rate films.
No problem with accessing movies/photo/music.


Have to keep your PC running all the time though

Yeah, I do use myIhome with the YAMJ plugin and it works a treat. I wouldn't bother with NFS if it wasn't for the fact that I have loads of DVD image files (.iso & .img) that myIhome won't play and I've even got a couple of MKV's that refuse to play via myIhome but do play via NFS.

[Omertron]

(12-07-2008 03:21 PM)staffanw Wrote:  This is the simplest way and the way I do it myself with multiple shares

(12-07-2008 12:54 PM)yabadaba Wrote:  Not sure I fully follow your second para.....not your fault, almost certainly my shaky understanding of networking!

or my understanding of Windows 2003 Server. In Unix/Linux I believe that you can mount a physical disk wherever you want so instead of mounting the first disk on /d1 and exporting /d1 as a separate share just mount all the disks on /export as previously described and then only do one nfs-export of /export

/staffan

Yes you can do this in W2003, although it is fairly advanced and I'd say steer clear unless you know what you are doing. A better way might be to look at software like winbolic
Create one symbolic directory and share that.

[yabadaba]

Okay, I created a index.html (and the other Jukebox files) for all 3 of my drives and copied them onto the PCH's internal h/d. But this still isn't a 'perfect' solution. Although I can see all my movies I can only play ones that are on the shared drive that was last accessed (or currently mounted). That means that before being able to play a movie that is on a different shared drive I have to go Sources and select/mount the drive in question.

I've gone back to having 3 separate index files, one for each of my media drives. But, at least this bit of experimentation has helped me understand the limitation of the PCH only being able to have one shared drive mounted at a time.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

[qwerty454]

I have a folder called "Movies and TV Shows" on the computer. Under that folder I have symbolic links to the entire collection no matter where it physically resides. My collection is spread out over four different hard drives but appears to be all under a single main directory. Under that main directory are many sub directories.

So.....YAMJ sees it as a single source.

[jhmiller]

(12-07-2008 11:24 PM)qwerty454 Wrote:  I have a folder called "Movies and TV Shows" on the computer. Under that folder I have symbolic links to the entire collection no matter where it physically resides. My collection is spread out over four different hard drives but appears to be all under a single main directory. Under that main directory are many sub directories.

So.....YAMJ sees it as a single source.

Can you post your xml file so i can see how your settings differ from mine?

[yabadaba]

(12-07-2008 11:24 PM)qwerty454 Wrote:  I have a folder called "Movies and TV Shows" on the computer. Under that folder I have symbolic links to the entire collection no matter where it physically resides. My collection is spread out over four different hard drives but appears to be all under a single main directory. Under that main directory are many sub directories.

So.....YAMJ sees it as a single source.

Hmmm...interesting. I'll look into this later on, but I don't know much about symbolic links and whether Server 2003 supports them. Aren't they a UNIX thing?

[Omertron]

(12-08-2008 09:24 AM)yabadaba Wrote:  Hmmm...interesting. I'll look into this later on, but I don't know much about symbolic links and whether Server 2003 supports them. Aren't they a UNIX thing?

You can mount the disk as a folder on Windows rather than a disk letter, so if you have three disks, C: D: E:, if you go into disk management in the admin console, you can de-assign the drive letters D & E and assign them to folders on C:, so:

Code:

C:\Media\Old_D_Drive\
C:\Media\Old_E_Drive\

and share C:\Media. Not sure if this will work as I've not tried it.

As I said earlier, winbolic might be a better solution as it does this all for you.

[qwerty454]

(12-08-2008 06:03 AM)jhmiller Wrote:  Can you post your xml file so i can see how your settings differ from mine?

Doh.......forgot to mention......This is a Linux box. (isn't everyone running Linux nowadays?) Symbolic links are a simple matter.

If you run windows I have seen a few programs that can create symbolic links for you.

I have zero experience with this program but it looks like it might do the job.
http://alax.info/blog/ntfslinks

My xml files wont help as there is nothing out of the ordinary. I dont even use a library file. Just one simple command to run YAMJ

Code:

MovieJukebox.sh /mnt/sda3/Movies.and.TV.Shows/ -o /mnt/sda3/Movies.and.TV.Shows/

The first in the executable script. Second is the location of my collection. Third is where I want the index and jukebox files to be stored (same location as collection)

---

(12-08-2008 10:41 AM)Omertron Wrote:  You can mount the disk as a folder on Windows rather than a disk letter, so if you have three disks, C: D: E:, if you go into disk management in the admin console, you can de-assign the drive letters D & E and assign them to folders on C:, so:

Code:

C:\Media\Old_D_Drive\
C:\Media\Old_E_Drive\

and share C:\Media. Not sure if this will work as I've not tried it.

As I said earlier, winbolic might be a better solution as it does this all for you.

Thats pretty much it.

Winbolic looks pretty cool

http://www.pearlmagik.com/winbolic/

[Omertron]

There's a guide here for installing winbolic and yamj, it is a little old but should be ok.
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showth...p?tid=4831