Creating NFO file for dummies

[Ronald]

Thanks for your help darcilicious.

My folder structure is like this:

(edit: hey the indenting doesn't seem to work. If you don't see the indenting, the "movies" folder is not indented. "Crash", "Noi", and "Star Trek" are indented one level. "audio_ts", "movie.nfo", and "video_ts" are indented 2 levels. "bunch of vob..." are indented 3 levels.)

Your indentations are killed by the standard text reformatting used by nearly all forum software of this kind. But when you need to use indented listings you can do so by using "[ c o d e ]" and "[ / c o d e ]" brackets (except that you remove the extra spaces I inserted here, to keep them visible as normal text...).

So inside such brackets the list you made will look like this:

movies
     Crash
          audio_ts
          movie.nfo
          video_ts
               bunch of vob and ifo files (dvd rip)
     Noi
          audio_ts
          movie.nfo
          video_ts
               bunch of vob and ifo files (dvd rip)
     Star Trek
          audio_ts
          movie.nfo
          video_ts
               bunch of vob and ifo files (dvd rip)

Note that I didn't edit any of this to add back the indentation tabs, as they were still intact in the part of your post that I quoted here. It's just in the post display rendition that the indents are 'killed'. In storage they are all intact.

I was working on the nfo file in the Noi folder. The contents of that .nfo file are (and yes, it's saved with UTF-8 encoding):

<movie>
	<id>tt0351461</id>
</movie>

In theory that should be enough, though I never use an ID-only NFO myself. I always add the specific title I want too, as there are usually alternative titles and I want to be sure of what I get.

First, the Boxee Box wasn't resolving my Noi movie before I added the nfo file to the Noi folder (I think that's because the movie is named "Noi the Albino" in the Boxee database). So I changed the name of the folder to something weird, added the nfo file, rescanned the drive, and the Boxee Box found the correct Noi movie and loaded the artwork and description/synopsis. That's why I'm certain that the Boxee Box read the nfo file.

Agreed. Without any clues in file and folder names it would have to be the NFO file that caused the identification to work.

But I wanted to see where the "use the nfo file" option was, so in the Local Movies listing, I clicked the Noi movie, and the rest is as I described in my previous post.

Then I tried going to the Files menu, drilling down into the "movies" folder, and clicking the Noi folder. Still no "use the nfo" option.

I think you have misunderstood where that option appears. It is never visible in the main popup submenu for a movie. It appears as a popup choice only after you have clicked the command icon for identification search in that popup (one of the icons at the top, normally the rightmost one).

Instead of going directly to the search dialog, with its text entry field, you then get an extra popup first, where you get to choose between using "NFO" or "Manual" search method. This extra popup only appears when the Boxee notices that an NFO file is present, but it is usually quite good at that. Mostly I don't even have to re-add or rescan the source just to add an NFO.

I'm stumped! My firmware is the October 25 version.

So is mine, and for me this works fine.

Best regards: Ronald

[peteybaby]

I think you have misunderstood where that option appears. It is never visible in the main popup submenu for a movie. It appears as a popup choice only after you have clicked the command icon for identification search in that popup (one of the icons at the top, normally the rightmost one).

Instead of going directly to the search dialog, with its text entry field, you then get an extra popup first, where you get to choose between using "NFO" or "Manual" search method. This extra popup only appears when the Boxee notices that an NFO file is present, but it is usually quite good at that. Mostly I don't even have to re-add or rescan the source just to add an NFO.

Thanks Ronald. I did understand that I had to click the Identification icon first--I guess I didn't write what I meant clearly. Anyway, yes after I click the Identify icon, I go straight to the Search dialog box, every time.

I'm wondering now if the extra popup only appears if the movie has not been identified/resolved yet. All my movies are resolved. But I don't know how to have a movie that has an nfo file, and is not resolved, since the Boxee Box automatically uses the nfo file to resolve it... I'm probably a little confused.

[Ronald]

Thanks Ronald. I did understand that I had to click the Identification icon first--I guess I didn't write what I meant clearly. Anyway, yes after I click the Identify icon, I go straight to the Search dialog box, every time.

I'm wondering now if the extra popup only appears if the movie has not been identified/resolved yet.

No, it should appear even for an already resolved movie.
But I'm not sure if Boxee is 100% consistent in this.
So you might get more consistent results by 'unidentifying' it first.
(More on this follows below.)

All my movies are resolved. But I don't know how to have a movie that has an nfo file, and is not resolved, since the Boxee Box automatically uses the nfo file to resolve it... I'm probably a little confused.

To 'unidentify' a file is simple.

In the same search dialog discussed above there are two command buttons.
One button entitled "Search", so as to search for the movie/show name in the text field, and another button entitled "Remove". And the latter button only appears for files that have already been identified.

Using that "Remove" button will remove the movie or show episode from the list it was in and instead place it in the list of unidentified files. That list can be accessed in two places when you later want to re-identify the file. One of those places is the "File Source" submenu of the "Settings" menu, and the other place is at the very bottom of the "Files" list entries.

But personally I like browsing to the file in question through the raw folder structure (whether SMB or local USB), since access to the file there is independent of any previous scan results.

And this is also the only way to access a file when the scans have missed it completely, so that it wasn't placed in either of the lists for "Movies", "Shows", or "Unidentified Files". That should of course never happen, but for unknown reasons it sometimes does...

Best regards: Ronald

[peteybaby]

Thanks Ronald. I discovered why I don't see that extra popup: it doesn't work with DVD rips using the video_ts folder structure. I tried a bunch of tests earlier today, and could not see that extra popup. But just now I tried adding a single-file .mpg movie to my movies folder, and added an .nfo file for it. When I try to identify it, voila I see that extra popup asking me if I want to identify it with the .nfo file.

Also, I have now added .nfo files for ALL of my movies, so I erased the BB's internal database and let it scan the drives again. It missed 12 of my movies. I manually identified those ones, but it would sure be nice not to have to do that. They're not even obscure movies: Adaptation, Cool Hand Luke, etc. Seems like a bug. I double-checked the .nfo files too and they're fine.

[Ronald]

Thanks Ronald. I discovered why I don't see that extra popup: it doesn't work with DVD rips using the video_ts folder structure. I tried a bunch of tests earlier today, and could not see that extra popup. But just now I tried adding a single-file .mpg movie to my movies folder, and added an .nfo file for it. When I try to identify it, voila I see that extra popup asking me if I want to identify it with the .nfo file.

I don't use the VIDEO_TS method much myself, preferring ISO files instead, but I think it should work with VIDEO_TS movies too, if you do it right.

You can't just take a VIDEO_TS folder and rename it to the movie name, and then put NFO and folder JPG inside that folder. That will never work.

You should create a new folder for the movie, and inside that folder you place the NFO and folder JPG, as well as the original VIDEO_TS folder. This way the NFO and JPG relate to the VIDEO_TS folder in the same way that they would relate to a normal movie in a single file (or multi-part files).

In fact VIDEO_TS folders are treated as a special case of multi-part movies, as you can see by the "stack:" pseudo device shown in the path displayed in the popup for such a movie.

Also, I have now added .nfo files for ALL of my movies, so I erased the BB's internal database and let it scan the drives again. It missed 12 of my movies. I manually identified those ones, but it would sure be nice not to have to do that. They're not even obscure movies: Adaptation, Cool Hand Luke, etc. Seems like a bug. I double-checked the .nfo files too and they're fine.

This always happens, for a large collection anyway. I think one of the reasons for it is that the online server requests sometimes time out without any search result, and whenever this happens it throws the resolver 'out of whack', causing it to reject the identification, even if that was really nailed down in an NFO.

A similar kind of rejection also happens whenever the title parsing runs into something that throws it off-stride, such as usually happens whenever a movie or episode title contains a four-digit number. Many such movies and TV show episodes I have are always rejected, appearing after a scan either in "Unidentified Files" or as extra instances of a TV show, in parallel to the real one containing all the other episodes. For these cases I have found no other good method than re-identifying these videos through manual search.

Making a full NFO set without ID tag would also work, of course, but then I'd be forced to add a separate NFO file for every single episode, or do without any episode info, so for a TV show with many episodes this is not practical.

This kind of rejection is definitely a bug.

When an online search attempt fails, either due to a timeout, or an unexpected number/string found in parsing a title (though it really should tolerate such), this should only lead to rejection of the file if it has no NFO.

But when a movie/show does have an NFO the online search is only intended to supply 'filler' info, for whatever the user left out of that NFO. Thus any failure in that search, no matter how it happens, should never lead to the rejection of a movie, show, or episode. But it does, and therein lies the bug...

Best regards: Ronald

[peteybaby]

You should create a new folder for the movie, and inside that folder you place the NFO and folder JPG, as well as the original VIDEO_TS folder. This way the NFO and JPG relate to the VIDEO_TS folder in the same way that they would relate to a normal movie in a single file (or multi-part files).

Yep, that's how my folders are arranged. Oh well, if it's not working for me, at least I know why.

[jamierobins]

Hi can someone help out!

ive been using ember media manager to create my nfo & tbn files, all good except for some reason the runtime of tv show/movie is in seconds rather than minutes within the nfo file, hence i have to change or delete so it doesnt read incorrectly on boxee, how can i change the setting for this within ember so it is automatically mins?

thanks

[gmd024]

Hi can someone help out!

ive been using ember media manager to create my nfo & tbn files, all good except for some reason the runtime of tv show/movie is in seconds rather than minutes within the nfo file, hence i have to change or delete so it doesnt read incorrectly on boxee, how can i change the setting for this within ember so it is automatically mins?

thanks

Not sure why EMM is showing runtime in 'seconds' although I seem to remember this happening to me briefly some time ago, but it hasn't reoccured since

Check the att'd screenshot (from v1.2.2415) for the setting that may help

[jamierobins]

ok thanx will have a look, just been browsing and app its an issue on a certain release, will ne to check mine, cheers

[amunoz_tico]

It's a bit off the current discussion, but it relates to the topic of the original forum post, so bare with me for this little "advertisement" ;o)

I too love my Boxee Box, and is also happy with the new support for NFO-files. I happily started creating NFO-files for the few movies my Boxee Box didn't recognize properly. But when I started on the second one, I immediately thought (as the developer I am), I can code my way out of this...

So I did. I created this little web-site to assist in creation and download of movie NFO-files for the Boxee Box. It uses www.themoviedb.org to get data for the NFO-file.

http://nfo.sprocket.dk/

:-) Kingo

Great Web Site !!!!

As developer, could you create batch program? In other words, a quickly way to download a group of NFO files.

Regards!