I am trying to build a movie library and use it with VLC. As I have already my movies spread over different disks and directories I wanted to use "symbolic links" (alias) for the files, creating only the "movie name" directory, the VIDEO_TS directory and placing "movie.jpg" within "movie name" and the alias within VIDEO_TS.

(by the way, is it possible to show the image bigger ? It appears very small....)

For some reason VLC fails to open the video file (mkv) from the movie directory, although if I navigate to the directory using RB the file is correctly played (i.e. the alias is good enough for VLC to open it).

Thank you !

The following are the errors displayed by VLC (using 10.5.1, VLC 0.8.6d and RB 1.8.7):

------------ 
access_file: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
access_file: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
main: no suitable access module for `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
access_file: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
access_file: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
main: no suitable access module for `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv'

 
and then more details:

 
main debug: adding playlist item `VIDEO_TS' ( /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS ) 
main debug: creating new input thread 
main debug: waiting for thread completion 
main debug: thread 2957045760 (input) created at priority 37 (input/input.c:265) 
main debug: `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' gives access `' demux `' path `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' 
main debug: creating demux: access='' demux='' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' 
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 1 candidate 
dvdnav warning: cannot open dvdnav 
main debug: creating access '' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' 
main debug: looking for access2 module: 6 candidates 
vcd debug: trying .cue file: /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS.cue 
vcd debug: could not find .cue file 
main debug: using access2 module "access_directory" 
main debug: pre-buffering... 
access_directory debug: opening directory `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' 
access_directory debug: starting directory playback 
main debug: adding playlist item `Shrek.mkv' ( /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv ) 
main debug: received first data for our buffer 
main debug: pre-buffering done 1408981 bytes in 0s - 688323 kbytes/s 
main debug: creating demux: access='' demux='directory' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' 
main debug: looking for demux2 module: 1 candidate 
main debug: using demux2 module "access_directory" 
main debug: looking for a subtitle file in /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/ 
access_directory warning: unimplemented query in control 
main debug: `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS' successfully opened 
main debug: EOF reached 
macosx debug: input has changed, refreshing interface 
main debug: closing input 
main debug: removing module "access_directory" 
main debug: removing module "access_directory" 
main debug: thread 2957045760 joined (input/input.c:412) 
main debug: creating new input thread 
main debug: waiting for thread completion 
main debug: thread 2957045760 (input) created at priority 37 (input/input.c:265) 
main debug: `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' gives access `' demux `' path `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
main debug: creating demux: access='' demux='' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 1 candidate 
main debug: creating access '' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
main debug: looking for access2 module: 6 candidates 
vcd debug: trying .cue file: /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.cue 
vcd debug: could not find .cue file 
access_file debug: opening file `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
access_file error: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
cdda debug: trying .cue file: /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.cue 
cdda debug: could not find .cue file 
cdda warning: could not open /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv 
main debug: creating access '' path='/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
main debug: looking for access2 module: 6 candidates 
vcd debug: trying .cue file: /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.cue 
vcd debug: could not find .cue file 
access_file debug: opening file `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
access_file error: file /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv is empty, aborting 
cdda debug: trying .cue file: /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.cue 
cdda debug: could not find .cue file 
cdda warning: could not open /Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv 
main error: no suitable access module for `/Users/jaga/Movies/Shrek/VIDEO_TS/Shrek.mkv' 
macosx debug: input has stopped, refreshing interface 
main debug: thread 2957045760 joined (input/input.c:412) 
main: nothing to play

Last edited: 05.02.2008 12:26:08 

With the new free media centers like XBMC for OSX I believe this kind of things should be improved if Remote Buddy want to keep that part of users...

Thanks

1) Through the files section, Remote Buddy will resolve *Finder* 
symbolic links (which are just files) for you and send the real path 
to VLC.

2) Through the movie library, Remote Buddy will send the VIDEO_TS 
directory path to VLC. If you were using Finder symbolic links (again, 
which are just files) and VLC can't detect and handle them, then 
you'll of course get errors as VLC will try to parse a special Finder 
file as movie file and that's prone to not work.

Solution: 
Use real filesystem-level symbolic links, not Finder link files. On 
the shell:

ln -s pathFromFile pathToDestinationOfLink

f.ex.

ln -s /Volumes/SomeOtherVolume/Movies/MyMovie.avi /Users/theuser/ 
Movies/MyMovie/VIDEO_TS/MyMovie.avi

It's probably easier to maintain and less time intensive to build the 
correct file structure in the first place, though, rather than working 
with links.

If you want VLC to support Finder link files, please contact the VLC 
team, as I'm not involved with the VLC project.

Best regards, 
Felix Schwarz 

The need for using symbolic links is due to the very artificial structure for attaching cover art to video files (using VIDEO_TS directory, etc).

This structure is fine for DVD rips, but It would be much easier if RB could interprete a jpg file with the same name as the video file as its cover art. This way there would be no need to have the artificial folder structure and it would probably be more "user friedly"

Also, it would be nice if the cover art was bigger (at least for VLC...)

Thanks