custom actor thumbs

Hi,

question 1:

I have some home movies that I organize with local .nfo files. The nfo are read no problem. However, the actor thumbnails used are moviexxx-poster.jpg files. Is there a way to put custom actor thumbs for serviio to grab instead of using poster.jpg files ? ie. maybe a ".actor" folder containing all actors' thumbnails with correlating names in the root of the video folder. thank you

question 2:

In my local .nfo file, I use the <studio> tag. is there a way for the studio tag to show up ? thank you

[atc98092]

I can't answer the first question, as that's something that only the developer (Zip) can answer. My guess is that it would have to be something new added to Serviio.

For the second question, if that information is saved into the Serviio database, it's up to your player to display the info. I know for a fact that Serviio stores a lot of information in the database, but the players I use (Roku, Shield with Kodi) only show a subset of what's available. For example, my Roku devices show the DVD cover image, the year released, playing length, resolution, file type and size, and a synopsis of the media title (which is truncated if it's too long). It doesn't show the actors or the director, even though I know that info is in the database. Kodi shows even less than that, but will scroll to read a long synopsis. Some players, such as most Smart TVs, show you nothing but a title and DVD cover. So, if Serviio has the Studio tag within the database with the other metadata, it's up to the player to show it. There's nothing that can be done from the Serviio side to tell the player to show it.

Thanks for replying Dan. But I disagree. Because the same player shows the studio category when I use Kodi as media server instead of serviio. Also under Serviio, there is a bunch of other categories that shows up where Kodi doesn't. Also under serviio, the actors category has thumbnails for each actor whereas Kodi doesn't. Which is why I prefer Serviio. So I think it's in fact the other way around - that media servers determine what category shows up, not media player as you suggested.

[atc98092]

Thanks for replying Dan. But I disagree. Because the same player shows the studio category when I use Kodi as media server instead of serviio. Also under Serviio, there is a bunch of other categories that shows up where Kodi doesn't. Also under serviio, the actors category has thumbnails for each actor whereas Kodi doesn't. Which is why I prefer Serviio. So I think it's in fact the other way around - that media servers determine what category shows up, not media player as you suggested.

OK, good information to know. But the player does still decide what it will show, so your player obviously shows more fields than any I've tried. My players don't show actor names (unless embedded in the synopsis) or the Director, and both are known fields in the Serviio metadata. Looking at the Presentation fields available in the console, there are fields for Genres, User Rating, Ratings, Duration, Actors, Directors, Producers and release years. I can't say if there are additional metadata fields that are stored. I haven't looked inside the DB table structure in years.

You didn't need to repost your original question, so I've removed it. If Zip has anything he can offer here, he'll chime in. You can post a request for a new feature (as I expect this to be) both here in the forum (viewforum.php?f=3) and also on Serviio's Bitbucket tracking site (https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/issues). I believe Zip prefers them to be added in Bitbucket.