Any way to export Movie list with director/actors?

[jan_axhell 4]

I've just tried the Reports plugin and while it exports a complete spreadsheet of my movies, no director/actors info is included. I don't see any option to choose that in the Columns section. Nevertheless the UI shows all that info and much more. Any way to export that?

[visproduction 315]

Paul,

Another nice to list your collection is to join imdb.com and create a public list.  Then look up each movie and add it to your list.  Of course, with a thousand or more features, that can take a while.  But you get the ability to send a link to anyone and they can review your list sorted many ways, as thumbs or in more detail and clicking on any movie will open the complete imdb page and often a trailer is available.  It's interactive and behind a obscure link, open to anyone, you just send an invite email.

Here is a public movie list I used to invite friends over to watch movies in the home theater.  I haven't used it for years and it's still there.  https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006700541/?sort=user_rating,desc&st_dt=&mode=detail&page=1&ref_=ttls_vm_dtl

It's a little bit of effort, but the end result can be great and you can share it online.  

[jan_axhell 4]

I think you posted in the wrong thread...

 

[Luke 42079]

HI, I don't think the reports plugin currently exports this, but i agree it would be a good idea to add. Thanks for the feedback.

[Carlo 4561]

On 11/8/2021 at 1:29 PM, jan_axhell said:

I've just tried the Reports plugin and while it exports a complete spreadsheet of my movies, no director/actors info is included. I don't see any option to choose that in the Columns section. Nevertheless the UI shows all that info and much more. Any way to export that?

How often are you going to need this data?

I ask because you could make a copy of your library.db file then use DB Browser for SQLite.  It can export results of any query to different formats include a spreadsheet.

So it would just be a matter of creating the correct query to use.

[jan_axhell 4]

Sorry, notification was long disabled, noticed your reply just now. I need to export that each time I fill up an HDD and append to a spreadsheet that allows me to quickly find any movie I have. I usually do that in a semi automatic way: I scan the files with BatchMediaInfoSuppoter, export the list and manually fill non-technical data. I have absolutely no idea how to use SQLite, my spartan database is in MS Works (since the '90s) and I sometimes export it to CSV to allow friends to browse it with Excel. 

[Carlo 4561]

Are you taking these HDDs off line?
If you explain why you need this it would be easier to give you a proper solution.
It almost sounds like you want a movie/show inventory program which used to be more popular when people tracked discs but many work for online storage as well.  But that's just a guess as we don't know what you're trying to achieve.

I'm struggling to understand why you need cast info for files based on location?  As long as the media is in Emby you can find anything with a search regardless of where it's located.

I can certainly understand why people would want a list of files stored on each disk just in case of failure but you can get that with a "dir/s > filename.txt" which is usually good enough for this purpose if you use proper folder/file names.

Regardless the info is in the sqlite library.db file so a pretty simple query could be used to output this data based on drive letter/location on just about any other criteria. A quick shutdown of Emby Server to make a copy to work from (library.db) is all you need to get started.  https://sqlitebrowser.org/dl/
 

[jan_axhell 4]

Thanks, installed and opened library.db, now I have no idea what to do.

As I stated, I started my MS Works spreadsheet in the 90s: no external HDDs, no home servers, no nothing, just thousands of DVDR's. When it became possible and affordable, I started storing movies and stuff on USB drives. Now I have about 80 (+4800 DVDR's) and since EMBY (or any other media server than I know of) deletes every entry it cannot find when I swap HDDs, I cannot have a persistent total database of what I have, hence I keep using MS Works to find movies and swap the HDD that contains it. Years ago I asked (or read posts of several people asking, not sure) if it was possible to keep "live" all the added data to EMBY with some flag showing available/unavailable for stuff online/offline, but I was (or they were) told that it's not going to happen. Technically yes, I merely use EMBY just to download pics and info, then plug the HDD to TV and watch with KODI, taking advantage of those extras. I wish I had 10.000 euros to spend on a 200Tb Qnap and keep everything there always online, but I haven't. 

[Carlo 4561]

That sounds a lot like what many of us have done with one exception. We just keep adding more storage but keep it online. Then similar to you, make backups we keep offline .Between Blu ray and DVD I've got probably 15K and then about 5K DVR movies as well. Then there is the TV Shows which for me takes more storage then movies, Music as well as home videos.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone use Emby the way you are specifically but it could be used to keep an index of your whole collection regardless if it's online or not two ways.

First way is using Media Stubs https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44001159146-media-stubs
You could do something like the following but instead of using the word "Movie#" it would be the movie name similar to "Top Gun (1986)" or "Days of Thunder (1990).

/Movies
   /USB1
      Movie1.dvd.disc
      Movie2.bluray.disc
      Movie3.hdtv.disc
      Movie4.vhs.disc
      Movie5.hddvd.disc
   /USB2
      Movie1.dvd.disc
      Movie2.bluray.disc
      Movie3.hdtv.disc
      Movie4.vhs.disc
      Movie5.hddvd.disc

You could then have your full collection indexed and available to search based on any criteria. You would get full collection support and playlists etc.  It would be like using Emby normally except none of the movies are actually online so you couldn't stream it.  In a sense it would be used like a great Movie Manager.

The second way to do this would allow you to have one of more USB drives online while the rest are offline. Emby would keep your whole collection online but obviously would only allow playing or streaming what's actually available.

The trick to doing this is make sure every USB disk is mounted unique.  Emby will not remove content from the database if it can't access the root or parent folder. In your case you probably mount every USB disc the same way giving it a drive E letter or similar.  So Emby sees the same path but different media so it removes items and adds items based on the disk plugged in.

Instead of doing that don't use drive letters at all but use mount points! So like above you could create a c:\Movies directory.  Then under that USB1, USB2, USB3, etc...
You then setup Emby with a new item for each drive so you would start with a mount point of C:\Movies\USB1, then add C:\Movies\USB2, etc

The trick here is to plugin the USB drive then mount it to the unique location setup for Emby use ie (C:\Movies\USB22). You can do this type of mount in just about any OS including Windows & Linux and I'd assume Mac. For windows it's as simple as shown here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/assign-a-mount-point-folder-path-to-a-drive Once you've done that anytime you plug the USB disk in it will automount to the proper location.  You would also want to use the disk volume label as well to name each disk to match.

This way when Emby does a scan and gets an empty response back for the list of folders/files for a mount point it will know the storage is offline and won't touch it!

Just an FIY: You can get 5 to 8 bay drive towers pretty cheap (couple hundred) that would allow you to have a decent amount of content live this way.

With all that said it sounds like you are doing pure disc rips storing everything as a disk based mirror of the disc.  While there is nothing wrong with that it's so "20 years ago" in this day of streaming.  What most of us do is rip the disk, use MakeMKV (or similar util) to extract the main movie or show episodes to a streaming format using MKV.  Then to save online storage we would convert it to HEVC (mostly used these days) format, selecting only the audio and subtitle channels we wanted. You will end up with a single file that is streamable using 1/10 to 1/3 the space the actual disk rip needed that will play back on just about any device you own via Emby.

I know this isn't the answer to what you're originally looking for but is an alternative way to manage your library a bit more modern.   You can however extract the information you originally wanted directly from the database so it would be worth putting in a bit of time to learn how to do simple SQL statements like selects with joined tables.

[jan_axhell 4]

Thanks for the extensive explanation, I'll try (again) the second method. Last time I tried EMBY messed up downloading subs&pics of offline drives onto current drive, sometimes 10's of clones of the same files, so I discarded that. But maybe it was a bug that now has been solved. That would be perfect for me (until Qnap).

I do not keep stuff online adding storage because ten years ago I did not have room for a server and then I got used to just store on USB drives. Now it's either a full Qnap or nothing. Should I ever get one of those, I will make room. The fact that I do not follow the mainstream does not mean I don't know what the mainstream does. Also I don't mirror pure disc rips, who said that? I rip since CSS has been cracked. I would like to learn how to do this single task with SQL, but I'm not going to spend any time blindly googling N sites full of  unrelated/misleading/improper explanations. Been there, done that, maaaany times. EMBY already partially does what I came here asking for and I will just wait when/if it eventually extends that task. Anyway if the above method works, I don't even need that. I'm busy learning Docker/Portainer now. I am actually populating an EMBY instance with MP3's and Music Videos on a Raspberry Pi. At least that stuff fits on a single drive.  

[jan_axhell 4]

Ok, after tinkering with Raspberry, I'm back on Windows. I'm trying to use the mount point strategy, but EMBY just ignores drives mapped as such. It didn't in the past, I tried it already, but it was years ago, I can't remember how I did it. Gave up for problems explained above.

Now if I map drive P: as O:\EMBY\Movies01 and scan library/metadata of that particular drive, EMBY does nothing. If I combine P: with O:\EMBY\Movies01 in folders selections, EMBY does scan the drive, but when I swap it with another, everything from drive 01 is removed. If I launch Scan Library in Scheduled tasks, EMBY scans everything except that mount point.

In Windows I can browse the contents of P: from O:\EMBY\ and just use it as normal, but for EMBY that is an empty folder.

I have also tried to Share O:\EMBY\Movies01 and add it as optional shared folder, but nothing changes, it's still an "empty" folder.

I can only scan drives with their own real letter, not a mount point. 

Any advice?

[Luke 42079]

On 12/27/2021 at 3:32 AM, jan_axhell said:

Ok, after tinkering with Raspberry, I'm back on Windows. I'm trying to use the mount point strategy, but EMBY just ignores drives mapped as such. It didn't in the past, I tried it already, but it was years ago, I can't remember how I did it. Gave up for problems explained above.

Now if I map drive P: as O:\EMBY\Movies01 and scan library/metadata of that particular drive, EMBY does nothing. If I combine P: with O:\EMBY\Movies01 in folders selections, EMBY does scan the drive, but when I swap it with another, everything from drive 01 is removed. If I launch Scan Library in Scheduled tasks, EMBY scans everything except that mount point.

In Windows I can browse the contents of P: from O:\EMBY\ and just use it as normal, but for EMBY that is an empty folder.

I have also tried to Share O:\EMBY\Movies01 and add it as optional shared folder, but nothing changes, it's still an "empty" folder.

I can only scan drives with their own real letter, not a mount point. 

Any advice?

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