How to display a movie series

[Maniac1982 3]

Evening. This is my first post so if this topic has been discussed please point me in the right direction.

 

I would like to know if I can retain a movie collection view within my main movie folder. Hard to explain, but an example should do it.

 

I have many movie series on my pc atm, such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, LOTR, etc. I have these movies sorted within one folder in my main movie directory. Such as D:/MoviesThe Star Wars Collection/ Star Wars I

/ Star Wars II etc.

In media browser classic it retained this file structure and displayed the "Collection" folder with my chosen background's etc. And I could drill down into a collection folder, and pick the movie from there. Essentially condensing 5, or 6+ movies into one Poster on my MB viewer. I noticed when I switched to MBT, which is fabulous, it no longer kept they structure and it displayed all movies on the viewer. So back to all 8 Harry Potter movies displaying.

 

I prefer the collection view, to reduce clutter, but also keep any "collections" I have with all my other movies. Is this a possibility or setting to within MBT? Or is there some way to setup the folders to keep that structure.

 

Yes it's a bit OCD, but I like it neat and simple. Plus this has become almost a hobby at this point, so might as well make it how I want.

 

I hope I am able to articulate my question properly. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Chris

[Vidman 589]

You can use the web client metadata editor (or the auto boxsets plugin) to group your movies into collections and then choose how you would like them displayed.

 

Or alternatively in user preferences in the web client you can choose to have your collections folder separate from the rest of your movies

 

 

Click on your user icon in the top right of the web client to set your preferences/views

Edited September 17, 2014 by Vidman

[shaefurr 1337]

I think I understand what you're saying. When clicking Movies in MBT you get ALL your movies, including all the ones in your collections.

 

Theres 2 ways to get to boxsets in MBT.

 

1. Click on the movies tab or All movies icon, then tab over to "Boxsets", this will display all your collections

 

 

2. Or you can go to the Folders tab, then click your movies collection, this will open all your movies, along with the collections as they were in MB Classic.

 

 

Not sure if this will be an issue or not, but I think collections should be named Harry Potter [boxset] as opposed to Harry Potter Collection. Also if you dont have a "Folders" tab in MBT, enter the web client, click your profile image on the top right and go to my preferences, check the boxes for Display a Collection view to show movie collections & Display a folders view to show plain media folders.

 

Hope this answered your question.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

If you want to do boxsets through your folder structure, and this can ultimately be a PITA to maintain but it's your time, you need to put in the [boxset] tag in the folder name.  So the folder can be named Harry Potter Collection [boxset] and the server should treat the contents as a collection.

[shaefurr 1337]

I don't think its a pita to maintain. It only takes an extra 10 seconds to drag a movie to a boxset folder. Yeah the initial sorting of movies into boxset folders can take a while but once its done adding new movies takes no time at all.

 

Just curious what about it is a PITA for you?

[Deathsquirrel 741]

In fairness sorting into boxsets was only ONE of the folder structures I was maintaining so perhaps it's less work when that's the only folder-based sort you have.  Even that is extra work that isn't needed though.  I've gone from a complex folder structure to a simple one.  It looks like this and it's darn easy to maintain:
 

C:\Movies

    MovieTitle1 (Year)
    MovieTitle2 (Year)

 

The metadata controls everything that shows in the UI so the structure doesn't matter as long as the program can read it.  I spend a lot of time on movie art and metadata so I've eliminated all time spent on organizing files.  It's not like I'm looking at my movie server's drives often

[Ozpeg 1]

I am having a similar issue, where I have approx 1034 Movies and  140 collections/boxsets.

 

I have installed MBT on my NAS as a plugin - it's scanned the movies without any issues

 

I then went into the WebUI and set the MBT to group movies into collections

 

I installed MBT on my Windows 7 machine and can't find any collections - MBT lists all movies individually

 

I have read the instructions above by Shaefurr and installed the Auto Boxset plugin, but it has only picked up 3 of my 140 Collections

 

I have even added [boxset] to several collections, again MBT is not picking up the Boxsets, even after clicking on the option to 'Refresh Box Sets" with no success after several hours of waiting

 

Is there i can install in MBT oon my Win7 machine to force the Boxset collection ?

[Deathsquirrel 741]

This method is discontinued and no longer works correctly.  Movies should no longer be put in folder-based collections.  If you were building a kill bill boxset for example you used to create a folder like this:

 

\\movies\kill bill [boxset]\kill bill volume 1

\\movies\kill bill [boxset]\kill bill volume 2

 

It should now look like this:
 

 

\\movies\kill bill volume 1

\\movies\kill bill volume 2

 

All movie folders go into one flat folder structure.  You then create the boxset in the UI by hand or using the autoboxset plugin.  There is nothing you need to do for boxsets in storage at all.