Newbie Questions About the duration of "Scanning Movies Folder"

**exhibita** · January 26th, 2010, 12:38 PM

Hi - New user trying to point Boxee to my "movies" folder.

I'm in the process of renaming my movie files in a format compatible with Boxee and IMDB and now that I have renamed and moved about 900 videos (just under 1TB) into a common directory, I thought it was time to give it a shot. I added the location and got the "Boxee is scanning the Movies folder on your computer. It may take a while for movies to appear." message.

Any insight on how long this should take? It was scanning for just under 12 hours before I had to quit Boxee, disconnect my laptop, and go to work. Is there anywhere I can monitor the progress?

Also, am I starting over now that I had to quit before I got any results, or is this a cumulative process?

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

**cogadh** · January 26th, 2010, 12:45 PM

There is currently no way to monitor progress of the scan, but that may be added in a future release. As for how long it takes, it depends on a number of factors. If you are already naming the files to IMDB standards, then you have already addressed the biggest factor. By all rights, you should start seeing detected movies showing up in your library after about 5 minutes of scanning but the entire process can take several hours, if you have a large number of files (which it appears you do). The process is cumulative, so you haven't lost anything by quitting Boxee and returning later. One question though: where do you have the files stored, locally or on a networked drive? If on a networked drive, how is it connected (SMB share, UPnP device, etc.)?

**exhibita** · January 26th, 2010, 02:26 PM

THanks for your prompt response. Forgive my ignorance here, but my movies are simply stored on a 1TB LaCie USB drive connected to my laptop. I can play the movies from the "files" section, but obviously I want to add them to "my movies."

Thanks!

**cogadh** · January 26th, 2010, 02:35 PM

As far as Boxee is concerned, a USB connected drive is just a local drive, so the scan process should start producing results fairly quickly (under normal circumstances). When I first started using Boxee, I found that I had to remove the default movie directory entry in Boxee before it would really start detecting any of the movies I have in a separate directory. I still do that now out of habit every time I install a new Boxee version, but I don't know if it is really required. If you don't use the default directory, you might try doing that.