[eusi]

Hi guys,

I organize my videos like that:
Root-directory -> Quality -> YearRange -> Movies in a separate folder with artwork and nfo
(Goal: less than 500 movie-folders per directory-> assumption: smoother browsing/searching etc.)

For example:
|-Videos (root)
|----- HD
|---------2000-2005
|----------------------MyVacationMovie
|------------------------------------------MyVacationMovie-files (mkv, nfo, pngs)
|----------------------...
|---------2005-2009
|----------------------...
|-------...
|----- SD
|---------1900-1999
|...

My main questions:
1. When I move like (all the) 3000-4000 Movie-folders into the root folder (instead of subfolders Quality->YearRange->...), would this improve the performance of scanning?
2. Since the movies are stored on a "slow-med" NAS (TS-832X), could the smb-performance be bad when browsing/searching in this BIG root-folder (e.g. via Windows)?

My side question:
3. Is "scan recursively" really needed for the above structure? (I thought it worked also if it is "off", but I turned it "on" to be on the safe side... but I would assume if I switch it to off, the performance will be way better?)

Thanks
eusi

P.S. I am using Kodi (v18 and v19) via Windows (PC) and CoreElec (RPi/Odroid).

[eusi]

Does anyone have experience with that?

[Karellen]

@eusi

You originally state you want to keep less than 500 movies per source (which is a wise decision), but then you proceed to state you want to move all 3000-4000 movies into the root folder.

Can you clarify what you are trying to do and why?

[eusi]

@eusi

You originally state you want to keep less than 500 movies per source (which is a wise decision), but then you proceed to state you want to move all 3000-4000 movies into the root folder.

Can you clarify what you are trying to do and why?

Thanks for you reply!

Oh, that was a misunderstanding. Currently I do not keep 500 movies per source, I do keep up to 500 per "folder"! I still have only "one source" for the entire root folder (see structure above).

Let me re-adjust my main question: What is faster for scanning and accessing (via media library) and file-browsing (e.g. via video-file folder):

1) one source/root-folder with two directories HD and SD, and both contain ~5 year-range folders (e.g. "1900-1999") that contain ~400 movie-folders each (see structure above - benefit: not one large folder)

or

2) one source with one large root-directory of 4000 movie-folders (benefit: no deep/recursive scan needed)

And: Are there better ways to get best performance for scanning/accessing and file-browsing?

Thank you!

[Karellen]

Definitely No 1, with a minor adjustment.

It sounds like you have added Videos (root) as your Source, then the scanner needs to scan down quite a few levels to reach your video files. For TV Shows this is a problem and will confuse the scanner/scraper. For movies... I have never had reason to test, and don't recall any reported issues doing it that way.

If I were to set up your structure, my Sources would be 2000-2005, 2005-2009, 1900-1999. The folder that holds the movies.

Every time you enter a source in Files mode, Kodi needs to read every item in the Source, including movie folders, and all the files inside the folder, which can bring Kodi down to a crawl when there are a large number of items in a single source.

[eusi]

If I were to set up your structure, my Sources would be 2000-2005, 2005-2009, 1900-1999. The folder that holds the movies.

Thank you Karellen, I will do this adjustments...
 

Every time you enter a source in Files mode, Kodi needs to read every item in the Source, including movie folders, and all the files inside the folder, which can bring Kodi down to a crawl when there are a large number of items in a single source.

...especially because this explanation makes totally sense.

So the result is:
Videos (root-dir on file-sys)
|------------Quality ("SD" or "HD")
|-----------------------------YearRange (e.g. "1900-1999") <-- Kodi sources
|----------------------------------------------------------Movie-folder (with movie.mkv, nfo, pngs inside)

Even I need to create a lot of sources now (instead of only one: root), if this boosts the performance I will be happy :-)

[Karellen]

Even I need to create a lot of sources now (instead of only one: root), if this boosts the performance I will be happy :-)

In my main setup for movies and tv shows I have a total of 14 sources and I don't experience any sluggishness at all. The only delay is sometimes waiting for the HDD to wake up, after that all works quite nicely.