[mythtv-users] Video storage groups question....

[faginbagin]

On 1/16/2021 03:33, stinga wrote:
> On 16/01/2021 04:48, faginbagin wrote:
>> On 1/15/2021 00:09, stinga wrote:
>>> G'day all,
>>>
>>> I struggle with video storage groups.
>>>
>>> I have 4 drives and each drive shows up as 4  separate dirs when I go to videos.
>>> This makes it hard when you want to watch something as you need to know what disk it is on.
>>>
>>> I suspect I am not setting it up correctly.
>>>
>>> To get around this, I am creating a dir that is full of links to the original storage groups, but this takes a while to populate and does not seem to be correct to me.
>>>
>>> I was sort of expecting a similar thing to recorded shows, where mythtv provides a list of things to watch and I don't need to care what disk they are on...
>>>
>>> Any help for me? Am I setting up something incorrectly?
>>>
>>> MariaDB [mythconverg]> select * from storagegroup;
>>> +----+-----------+----------+--------------+
>>> | id | groupname | hostname | dirname      |
>>> +----+-----------+----------+--------------+
>>> | 67 | Videos    | mythtv   | /sg/mv1      |
>>> | 83 | Videos    | mythtv   | /sg/movies   |
>>> |  5 | Fanart    | mythtv   | /sg/fanart   |
>>> | 69 | Videos    | mythtv   | /sg/mv2      |
>>> | 65 | Default   | mythtv   | /sg/tv2/tv/  |
>>> | 66 | Default   | mythtv   | /sg/tv3/tv/  |
>>> | 77 | Coverart  | mythtv   | /sg/coverart |
>>> | 10 | LiveTV    | mythtv   | /sg/live_tv  |
>>> | 81 | Videos    | mythtv   | /sg/mv4/     |
>>> | 82 | Videos    | mythtv   | /sg/mv3/     |
>>> +----+-----------+----------+--------------+
>>>
>> I suspect you still have per frontend settings for video directories. To find out, go to the following from the main menu on your frontend:
>> Setup -> Media Settings -> Videos Settings -> General Settings
>> Once there, you will see things like:
>> Directories that hold videos
>> Directory that holds movie trailers
>> ...
>> All of these "Directory/Directories that hold" settings should be blank. If they are not, they override your storage group settings. To fix each one that's not blank, use a keyboard, select each non-blank entry, press Enter, erase the contents using backspace, cursor down to OK, press Enter. Once that's done, I suggest doing a rescan from the command line:
>> $ mythutil --scanvideos
>> Wait until your system's cpu is 99% idle, then go into "Watch Videos".
> 
> I have no overrides.
> My storagegroup table above is correct or should it be a comma separated list or something?
> 
> I have another thought, maybe I should make my link dir the stoarge group?
> All the info about SGs seems to refer to live recording and that works just fine, I have 2 disks and it works.
> 
> -- 
> 'ooroo
> 
> Stinga...(:)-)

One thing I just noticed is that some of your storage group directories don't have a trailing slash. Have you been using mythtv-setup to create those entries? In my experience, mythtv-setup ALWAYS adds a trailing slash if you don't when creating or editing a storage group entry, as well as verifies it can write to the directory.

As for you question in "Is my video screen correct?": Given the storage group table you've provided and assuming you're using the list view, which should show you the directory structure under each storage group, you should not see "4 separate video directories that I need to descend", UNLESS each of those storage group directories has exactly one sub-directory whose name shows up in the first column of the list view. If you are seeing mv1, mv2, etc, maybe it's because you're missing the trailing slash in those storage group table entries? I don't think adding an intermediate directory and mount point is going to help.

Perhaps it would help to share how I've configured my video library. I've got three disks that hold videos and one is shared with recordings for historical reasons. They are all mounted at the top level (/video, /video4, /video5), but the storage group entries are two directories below the mount points (/video/mythtv/videos/, /video/mythtv/recordings/, /video4/mythtv/videos/, /video5/mythtv/videos/). The output from  the command:
$ echo 'select groupname,dirname from storagegroup' | mysql --user=$DBUserName --password=$DBPassword $DBName
groupname       dirname
Banners /video/mythtv/MythVideo/Banners/
Coverart        /video/mythtv/MythVideo/Posters/
Default /video/mythtv/recordings/
Fanart  /video/mythtv/MythVideo/Fanart/
Photographs     /video/mythtv/videos/
Screenshots     /video/mythtv/MythVideo/Screenshots/
Trailers        /video/mythtv/MythVideo/Trailers/
Videos  /video/mythtv/videos/
Videos  /video4/mythtv/videos/
Videos  /video5/mythtv/videos/

Note that each dirname has a trailing slash. Both /video4 and /video5 contain rips of the DVDs we own and are separated between TV shows (in sub-directory DVD) and movies (in sub-directory DVD-Movies). Here's a subset of the directories on /video4 and /video5:
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD/Arrested Development
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD/Cagney & Lacey
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD/Hustle
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD/Lovejoy
...
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/A Christmas Story
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/A League of Their Own
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/Bad Boys
/video4/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/Evil Under the Sun
...
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD/Asterix
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD/Cheers
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD/Columbo
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD/Frasier
...
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/A Fish Called Wanda
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/Brassed Off
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/Mamma Mia!
/video5/mythtv/videos/DVD-Movies/Naked Gun
...

Each TV show has it's own directory. Each movie is in its own directory along with trailers. What I see in the first column of the list view of "Watch Videos", is:
DVD
DVD-Movies
... (home movies from /video/mythtv/videos)

When DVD is selected, I see the following in the second column:
Arrested Development
Asterix
Cagney & Lacey
Cheers
Columbo
Frasier
Hustle
Lovejoy
...

When DVD-Movies is selected, I see the following in the second column:
A Christmas Story
A Fish Called Wanda
A League of Their Own
Bad Boys
Brassed Off
Evil Under the Sun
Mamma Mia!
Naked Gun
...

I can move a directory for a TV show or movie from /video4 to /video5, or vice versa, as needed to re-balance disk space and I don't need to re-scan to play them from the new location. Hope this helps.