Either this interface is garbage or i'm a moron

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

At this point i’m willing to accept either.  Maybe someone can give me a hand with my issues.

So i am coming from other media players like XBMC or the Boxee Box (my boxee crapped out on me, hence the WD Live box) and this interface is either severly limited or just non functional.

So what i want is basically the same thing as i had on those other devices.  I want to be able to select whether i choose from TV or movies, and i want a list of each, clicking on the movie will just start the movie, and clicking on a TV show will let me select a season and then the episode i want.

I setup a media library with my movie and TV show folder, and the way i set it up, is that every movie has a folder and then within those folders are the MKV and nfo files, or video folders with the vob files, etc.  The TV shows all have a folder for each, then within each there is a season folder and all the videos in there are listed as - S01E01, etc.

The media library really appears to have NO other functionality other than let you dictate specific folders for a network share.  If i want to watch a movie, i have to go the video icon, then select “Movies” since the folder is called that, then scroll to the movie name (which is actually just the folder name and has no actual info other than the correct cover art), then i need to click to go into the folder, then i need to select the file (which if i’m lucky, the scraper has managed to actually get info for) and then click to play… that… is… well its ridiculous.

To view a TV show, it works the same way… it makes me navigate all my actual folder names to get to the file… then it actually sorts them in true alphabetical order… so episode 10 is displayed right after episode 1… changing the sorting to “date” actually does it for EVERY folder and file in the whole media library so for the movie folder it just makes it nonsensical.  And the scaper doesn’t actually put any cover art for the TV show folders (although it has done it for one or 2 TV shows, which makes no sense to me), and then i have to navigate to the seasons to actually see some art for the show, which is actually the easiest way to navigate the folders rather than a black box with a blue outline of a folder icon on it.

So, is there a way to get the kind of functionality i want out of this or was this whole thing a waste of time?

2

  i have to go the video icon, then select “Movies” since the folder is called that, then scroll to the

 movie name (which is actually just the folder name and has no actual info other than the correct

 cover art), then i need to click to go into the folder, then i need to select the file 

While both Boxee and XBMC all but REQUIRE a single video per folder, the WDTV has no such requirement.  Though, depending on which view and/or filter modes you prefer to use, it is indeed easier to navigate if you do NOT put every single file into its own folder.

I have my media organized like this:

SHARES:  Movies 1 (Family-safe movies that all WD’s can access),   Movies 2 (Rated PG-13 and higher) that only the Family Room and Master BR can access,  Kids Movies (Rated G or TV-Y) that the little kids WD’s can access

    

   — Multi-movie Sequel-type series are grouped into a single folder

   — All other movies are all grouped together in the root of the Movies share.

SHARE:  TV Shows

   – SERIES Folder

      — SEASON Folder

         – All episodes of this season in this folder.

You can put as many or as few videos into a folder as you wish.  

If you don’t want to navigate by folders (and instead navigate by TITLE) then just change the Filter to “All.” instead of “By Folder”

It makes me navigate all my actual folder names to get to the file… then it actually sorts them

in true alphabetical order… so episode 10 is displayed right after episode 1

TV shows are grouped and sorted correctly when you use the “TV Show” filter.   Only issue with this I’ve seen is that if there are more than 9 SEASONs, then the sorting of the seasons is not quite correct. – And in this filter mode, your folders are also not navigated.

If you don’t want to use the TV Show filter, then you can modify the XML to change the TITLE to whatever you wish, and sorting will work if it’s titled alphabetically.  The third-party tools I reference below give MUCH flexibility here.

 And the scaper doesn’t actually put any cover art for the TV show folders 

I’ve never had an issue where the scraper doesn’t give folder artwork – in fact, people complain that it DOES do that when they don’t want it to – it uses the first “metadata” file inside that folder to be the folder artwork, but that can be overridden.

So now that I’ve given you that info, let me give you this warning:

  *EVERY* platform you decide to use is going to have an inherent expectation of how your videos are stored and organized.    If you’re already “married” to the Boxee / XBMC conventions, then you may find yourself dissatisfied – that’s just the way it is.  

But all of this is much more flexible on the WDTV than it ever was on Boxee (unless Boxee has made major improvements in the last year, which was when I gave up on Boxee)

You can provide your own XML files (metadata)-- and there are a number of third-party free tools to do this;  I wrote one called “The XML Fetcher” which is designed specifically for TV show information.

You can provide your own backdrop files (if you wish)

You can provide your own artwork files

etc. etc.

Last I remember with Boxee you just had to be satisfied with the information it found online and could not change anything.

Hopefully this helps…

3

The only issue that i see with the sorting is that you can’t apply the sorting to an individual folder in the media library, it applies it to EVERYTHING… so i have two shares setup in my media library, and sorting by tv show applies it to the movies as well.

And yes, i did notice the sort by name option but i have 700 movies and 50 TV shows with multiple full seasons in each.  I would like to be able to navigate them a bit easier (excepting the search options of course, since i don’t always know what i’m looking for when i start looking around).  Seperating them into TV shows and Movies just feels more intuitive to me.

my TV show folder structure is exactly the same as yours.  I also dont’ have the need to sort my movies based on content, so all my movie folders are together in a single folder.

I didn’t think my naming convention would really “marry” me to a certain platform, i used the individual folders for the movies cause it looked much cleaner to me and my OCD in digital matters insist that everything look consistant. :stuck_out_tongue:  The TV show structure i did was recommended by every forum post i saw online due to the way scrapers worked.  I have seen people complaining about the media library manager for this device, so maybe the inconsistancy i am seeing is part of that.  I have noticed that using the library manager is MUCH slower and less responsive than just using the “Network Share” option for the videos, but then you aren’t able to apply the content to the movies.

All i really want is a fast, easy to use interface that won’t confuse the other people in my household.  I don’t think it makes sense that i should have to click 4 times after entering into my movie folders just to start watching, especially since NO other media player i have ever used makes it that difficult to get into my content.  Not sure why WD thought this was the way to set it up.

That being said, when i DO watch something, the interface is generally quite responsive and clean.  It allows me to quickly change options and looks good doing it.  I just was hoping there was a better way to setup my navigation.  For the price, this box is a pretty great, but to be honest, if i could justify getting another PC and just installing XBMCBuntu on it, i think its a FAR superior software option.  Since your statement about xbmc and boxee requiring a single video per folder has not really been the case in my experience.  I’m not really even sure why you would think that.  When i setup my first NAS and started putting movies and TV shows on it i put all movies in a single folder and it had no issues with it.

The movie navigation isn’t ideal but its simple enough to deal with.  Its the TV show scraping and sorting and navigation that i really don’t like.

Like i said, i’m perfectly willing to admit that i really just don’t understand the interface options, and now that i’ve had some time with it, i am sure i’ll just deal with it and move on with my life :P, but if there is a way to simplify it then i would like to.

4

Definitely not a moron, the interface is very poor.  I made all the same observations you did when I first got the WDTV SMP and same as you, posted here on the forums asking what I was doing wrong as surely it couldn’t have been as bad as what I was seeing.  But it is.  People will post work arounds about reorganising your folders or playng with your XML files which is fine, but honestly, I wanted to do what you wanted to do - plug it in, it find my media, and then just play it.

I posted my idea of how I thought it should work in the Ideas Forum here:

Custom Views - How the Media Library should work

So, I’d suggest you vote for it and hope that WD devote the time to finishing what they started.

At the moment I wouldn’t suggest the WDTV SMP to anyone based upon the Media Library alone, there’s just too much faffing about with filters and navigating around and that’s a shame, because if the interface was simplified so everyone could find and play their content easliy I’m sure many more would be sold.

5

Richard:  I just read your idea.   Almost everything you describe is already possible.

  [I just wanted to] plug it in, it find my media, and then just play it.

It’s not doing that?   Can’t figure that one out, because it EXCELS at doing that.

Just add your shares to the media library manager.  

Go to VIDEOS – Set the filter to ALL.

Done.

Every video you have will be displayed.

Pick one and press PLAY – That’s all there is to it.

From your idea steps:

  1. Yep – Goes without saying.

  2. Yep – Media Library Manager does this.

  3. It does this already.

  4. It does this, too.

  5. It lumps everything together under VIDEO and you use the FILTER to choose what it displays and how it displays it.

  6. It does this, too.

  7. It does all of this, too via the TV Show Filter.

The Media Library has NO dependency on how you organize your media.   The Media Library is “Structure Agnostic.”  It’s just a database of Files and their locations and metadata.

Sure, the UI could stand some improvement.   But I don’t think it’s fair to romp on it when it actually DOES do most of the things you are referring to.

The whole idea of (to very loosely paraphrase) “I just want it to do everything I want without having to do anything myself” – well, that’s just not entirely practical, is it?  Everyone will want different things, so the user is going to have to do SOMETHING to get it where they want, right?

6

I think you are being a little generous to the Media Library, sure it finds all my media and does a pretty good job at gathering the information but how do you view all that information it has gathered?

“5) It lumps everything together under VIDEO and you use the FILTER to choose what it displays and how it displays it.”

It sure does, and then I can select a number of different views as to how I’d like to view that infromation - the one I’d really like would be the one that displayed the info about the movie or TV show otherwise, whats the point of the Media Library at all. 

So, now to choose my FIlter:

    All.  Completely useless.  Really is everything.

   Folders.  OK, but why, if I have the media library, do I want to navigate through the folders in order to view it?  I actually have to go into the folders in order to view the information about the Movie/TV Show that’s contained within it.

   Genres.  This is more like it, just a list of my Movies with their details, except, hold on, here is a TV Series - with every single episode listed under the genre.  Gah, Action and Adventure starts with 24 episodes of 24, I can’t be btohered to scroll through to see whats next.

   TV Show.  Hmmm, a scrollable list of empty boxes that will tell me what the name of the folder is when I select it.  Brilliant.  Select the folder.  Season 1.  No thumbnail, no description.  Select that folder, OK, here is a list of episodes and their details.  So all I have to do is navigate down into the folder and I can see what the show is all about.  Easy, I’ll just navigate up and down through the folder structure in order to find out what that show is about.

“6) It does this, too.”

Yep, once you’ve navigated down through the folder structure to get to the actual file to play it.

“7) It does all of this, too via the TV Show Filter.”

Yes, but because it is folder based I have to navigate around to play it.  My main gripe here is that the information is hidden within the folders so some way of displaying that at the top level would be much better - even if it was just the first episode of the first season, at least I’d have some idea of what I was looking at before I navigated into the Season(s), Episodes part.

“I don’t think it’s fair to romp on it when it actually DOES do most of the things you are referring to”

Don’t get me wrong, as I said in my Idea, I actually think they have done most of the hard work, so I do give them credit but they just didn’t quite finish what they started and have ended up with a very poor Media Library (interface at least).

This is how the development of the Media Library went:

Dev 1: “Anyone fancy going to the pub?”

Dev 2: “Sure”

Dev 3: “Hold on guys, have a look at what I’ve been doing with the Genre filter, I reckon with a bit of work we could apply this idea across the whole Media Library, I mean, it needs a little tweaking, but take a look.”

Dev 2: “Are you coming or not?”

Dev 3: “I’ll get my coat”