Two Boxees Don't See The Same Media

MosBen

I've got a Drobo hooked up via USB to a desktop, which is connected to my very recently wired network, and on which I've installed Boxee. I've also just gotten a Gateway SX2840-1 to use as a HTPC, which is running Boxee. The Boxee install on the desktop doesn't recognize a lot of the shows stored on my Drobo, but most of that, as far as I can tell, is due to the files being poorly named. Eventually I'll get around to fixing that. The Boxee install on the Gateway, however, is looking in the same places that the desktop is for files and yet it recognizes far fewer movies and tv shows than the Boxee on the desktop. For example, the desktop Boxee sees the Star Trek movies that I have ripped onto the Drobo. The Gateway Boxee doesn't. Thoughts?

darkphoenix22

Out of curiosity, did you try XBMC, just to see if the problem wasn't just Boxee?

blackranger3d

darkphoenix22 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, did you try XBMC, just to see if the problem wasn't just Boxee?

+1

I tested a bunch of HTPC front end type apps. The best two (IMHO) were boxee and XBMC. With XBMC being about 10000000 times easier and better to use.

Try XBMC its free.

Sorry I can't help you with the boxee stuff

MosBen

I downloaded both a while ago and just found Boxee more appealing. XBMC doesn't seem to pull things like box art/movie posters as well as Boxee. I also really like Boxee's app stuff, which as far as I can tell just don't exist for XBMC, or at least it's not built in like it is in Boxee.

Today I loaded up XBMC to see how it did with seeing files, and while it sees some things that the desktop does (Trek movies), it misses other things (Season 3-5 of Angel, which both Boxees see). Before I got the Gateway HTPC I started using The Renamer to reformat the titles of my TV shows into something Boxee might understand, and I did get it to recognize several shows it hadn't seen before, but again, they're just not showing up in Boxee on the Gateway.

darkphoenix22

Ya all those covers are a lot more trouble then they're worth.

MosBen

I disagree. While I don't care about sorting through file names, I'm trying to get to a setup that is easy for an average non-tech person to use. Having easily identifiable cover art in a nicely organized front end makes for a very friendly user experience. It's also a nice replacement for the browsing you can do with a DVD rack. And when it works right it's totally awesome. I've got the desktop Boxee to the point where only a few shows are giving me headaches, so the rest of the library is pretty damn impressive. Unfortunately, it really only counts on the HTPC.

useless4

Remember to use the following format:

MOVIE NAME (YEAR) (SUFFIX).EXTENSION

With suffix being the IMDB /I or /II etc if there are more than one movie in the same year with the same name.

For example:
Ink (2009/I).m4v

One thing I suggest if you have a Mac is use VIdalin to tag your files for iTunes.... the side benefit is : It uses Netflix as primary catalog meaning if it's legally out in DVD or coming out at some point it's got an entry, it uses the Internet Movie Poster Awards database for thumbnails instead of the usually god awful dvd art, it throws out Boee XMBC compatible file names when it's done!

I manually tagged my whole collection when I played with Boxee... I won't do it again.
If i had to do it over, I would seriously spend the extra 60 seconds per movie to use Vidalin (and it has a que so it doesn't literally mean you have to spend an extra 60 seconds per)

Supposedly it does tv shows but I haven't been that ambitious yet.

MosBen

Alas, I have only PCs. I'm using a program called "The Renamer" which helps a bit, but there's still a lot of manual renaming, which is a pain in the ass.