How do I add a folder for my DVD drive?

[mattngsx]

Ok I searched and couldn't find anything.
I'm using BTV 4.4, and I was wondering can you add a folder for the DVD drive?

I have my setup as so. 3 Folders, 1 listed for the recorded show, another for converted TV, and another for converted Movies (both AVI divx). This setup makes it easy for my wife and I to navigate the media we have.

Now after I burn my AVI files (for the sake of the topic my AVi Movies), about 6 movies a DVD. Is there a way to watch the movies off the Disk rather then having to copy them back to one of my folders, designated for BTV?

I tried adding my DVD drive to the Video folder option but I get an error. Any help are ideas?

[ClamsTheCat]

I don't think that you can do this. The OS knows that it can not directly write to the drive like a Hard Drive so it does not allow adding it as a folder. I tried it with the same results as you. So I did the sane thing: I bought 3 more HDD

[mattngsx]

Well that just sucks! There has to be away to get this to work? Can't you just edit one of the XML files so it checks the DVD drive for media content? I use a usb drive for BTV, and when I disconnected the drive from my PC, BTV still kept my settings for the drive in BTV even though it wasn't connected, but of course I couldn't access anything.

People can create Plug INs for BTV right? Sorry I'm a newb to BTV, can someone point me in the direction to get info on making plugins for this program?

Thxs

[merrypig]

just as a crude hack, what happens if you share you dvd drive , map a drive letter to it, and then point a btv video folder at the drive letter?

I wonder if btv's smart enough to figure out what's behind it

The other option, could be to actually stop btv, edit the video folders list in the xml files, and add an entry for the disk drive. Restart btv and as long as it never checks (ie don't go to the video folder webadmin page?) you might get away with it.

The problem we had in the past was that btv would try to check the drive when nothing was in it and timeout, then drop the folder in the list. That also applied to network drives - but I think btv got more friendly in handling network mappings - so maybe that'll also stop the dvd vanishing too?

As far as plugin's... you can make 3rd party apps that use BTV data (library contents, schedule recordings etc) but you can't make anything that interacts with the gui directly.

[mattngsx]

Alright I got it to work, and have not had any issues. Im thinking there is another way of doing this, but well this is what worked so far.

Here's how I did it. To get the trick to work you need 2 HD's (You can probably do it with 1 HD), and of course a DvD/CD drive.

What I did was shut down BTV, and Change my Drive letters around in Computer Managerment (XP).
My BTV drive is E:, and my DVD drive is D:
I changed my DVD drive to what ever driver letter you want (I used M, doesn't F'N matter as log as its not a Drive letter in use).

Next I changed my (HD) E: drive to D: (The drive letter my DVD was previous using before I changed it). Rebooted (probably not needed)

Then I loaded back up BTV, wouldn't work properly (live TV, my VIdeos, etc...). I expected this to happen. I then brought up BTV Advanced settings (http://localhost:8129/Settings.aspx) and went to Video folders and created new folder with just D:\ , an enabled use sub folders. I then let it scan the drive until it was complete. Exit BTV.

Now go back to Computer Management, and return your Drive letters back to what they where before you attempted this! Reboot (once again, probably not needed).

BTV came back up, and worked properly again, my Video folder, TV FOLDER, and Recorded Folder where back, along with Cha Ching D:\. I have tested many many DVD's so far and havn't had any issues has recognized my DVD's and Sub folders, only things is it doesn't refresh right away, it will add content to the folder immediatly when you insert a disk, but you could still have Video files listed that havn't gone away yet (Prevous disk). If I run BTV for a while it update my dvd drive content, but could get annoying if your popping in disks alot. Otherwise you can restart BTV, and it refreshs immediatly.

I hope this helps anyone else who has wanted to do this. I also do not take responseability if you F@ck anything up.

[not_Shorty]

I'm a little confused as to why you had to go through all that monkey business just to add a folder. I can add a folder for E:\ no problem. Just went into the folder management page and added E:\ and it worked just fine. Now, the only thing I didn't do was sit there waiting to see whether or not it would update the contents, or how long it would take to do so if it did. I always wondered why they never added specific support for reading DVDs/CDs containing video files. Wonder how many times they've been asked about that.