Overview

Use Scan filters to customize what files and folders are scanned or to clean up file names to improve internet lookup matching.

Introduction

These options allow you to filter which files and folders are scanned, and how to treat the file names discovered, such as how to detect multi-part files (films with more than one file). You can filter out files based on their names using case-insensitive strings in exclusion list. You can also strip out any unwanted characters or text strings using RegEx expressions.

Movie Folder(s)

Select the options to determine which folders are scanned to update your AMC database.(moved from main Import tab as of v 6.0.0)

Path to Movies Folders

This is the location of your collection of movie files. This can be a local path (e:\Movies) or a UNC path (\\computername\foldername). Multiple folders can be scanned - separate the folders with a semi-colon. Multiple folders can be added one by one, extending the path info.

If you scan multiple folders, then the override path will not function - please see Override Path below for details.

Note: If you plan to use your My Films movie database on a central location with several clients, you should use UNC paths to make sure, all data can be accessed from each client the same way. This ensures you only once have to maintain your DB.

Override Path

The override path is an important concept for people who store their movie collections on a network.

In order to optimize the scanning speed you may choose to run AMC Updater on the computer where your movies are stored. If, however, you access them from a different computer, then the path will be wrong. For instance, your movies are scanned by entering ‘D:\Movies\’ in the Path to Movie Folders box. Your media PC however will access the files as

\\MovieServer\SharedMovies\

In this case, you can scan

d:\movies

and enter ‘

\movieserver\sharedmovies

as the Override path. The scanner will then access the files locally and change the path data stored in the AMC database to reflect the correct path. This system works equally well whether you store your files all in one folder or in a folder tree structure.

On the other hand, if you enter multiple folders to scan then you cannot use the Override Path; or if you do then you will get unpredictable results. Logically, it is unlikely that two separate folders will be accessed using the same UNC path, so the application will warn you if you attempt to scan multiple folders and apply an override path.

Multi-part files detection

If you store movie files which have been split into multiple parts - common with very large movies and similar - then this Regular Expression will allow AMC Updater to recognize the split files and handle them appropriately. The default expression will detect the following file naming conventions:

• FileName CD1, FileName CD2 etc.
• FileName Disk 1, FileName Disk 2 etc.
• FileName 1of3, FileName 2of3 etc.

If you use another method of naming your multi-part files then alter the regular expression to match before running the import.
Multi-part files will be stored in the AMC database as a single entry, with a semi-colon delimited list of the files.

Strip Characters from Title

You can use RegEx expressions to clean up your filenames when they are imported. This will not modify the original file on your drive; it will however ensure that the movie title is more accurately read from the file name. One default entry is included as an example - ([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]) – which will remove any year value in brackets. For example, “Batman (1989).avi” will be imported as “Batman” with this RegEx value.

Edition Detection

As of v 6.0.0 you can specify search expressions (also regex allowed) to detect editions in the movie file name and specify the corresponding "Name" (Replacement Expression) to be returned. 

Edition names can optionally be added to movie titles on the Database Fields tab - Title Handling section. However, as of v 6.0.0 Editions names are added to the extended Editions field for AMC4 catalogs, and display in the Big Icon List layout. Using the Edition field offers the added advantage that you can view all your films by Edition names.

See Editions Setup for a more detailed tutorial and Using My Films > Editions for display options.

File and Folder Exclusions

The system uses a case-insensitive text comparison to determine which files or folders to ignore.

For example, if you have entered only the first part of a multi-part file using the convention -CD1, MediaPortal will recognize it and play all related files (-CD2 etc). However, AMCU will then find all your -CD2 files as new movie files and try to add them to your database.

You may exclude these by adding CD2 in the files Exclusion list.

Note:  If you exclude CD2 files, then disk #, length, file sizes, etc. will be incorrect.

Related

• AMC Updater