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I have Kodi on multiple devices and I only use it to play files from a hard-drive attached via USB to my router - a poor-man's NAS. I have multiple folders on the drive - Movies, Music, TV Shows etc - and more importantly, a considerable number of folders with specific video topics such as "Guitar Lessons", "Recording Studio", "Production" and so on. When adding these to Kodi, I keep that folder structure and my "Videos" entry on the Kodi homepage then has multiple folders. It's a very simple structure and easy enough to set up - I just add each of those "video" folders individually and set the contents to "Movie - local info only - exclude from library updates" (Annoyingly, there's no simple "Video" option when adding videos?). This works perfectly with the files on the NAS and also if using local folders on a PC or Laptop. Today, I installed Kodi on a new Humax Aura - an Android TV-based PVR - but it struggled with files over the LAN so I decided to add a USB hard-drive directly to the Aura. Kodi recognises the drive and I've been able to scan-in movies, albums and TV shows easily enough but I can find no way to add those video folders as I do from all other sources. For some reason or other, Kodi seems to regard folders on a USB device as being different to folders on any other device. Am I missing something here or is this just a developers' blind-spot - a failure to integrate USB content simply because the mounting of the device is handled differently. I've scoured the www and see variations on this question appearing but never a single, simple answer. If it helps, I ***CAN*** make the folders appear correctly if I add them as "Favourites", so it's clearly not a genuine "Can't be done - the technology doesn't exist" scenario. If folders can be added to "Favourites", there's clearly no reason why they can't be added to the "Video" folder, other than that the programmers missed a trick. (And if the developers read this - can you please add a "Video" option when adding files - surely the definition of "Video" in Kodi has to be that it's any video file that CAN'T be scrapped from a database - so add a default with that setting and exclusion from future scrape-updates - simple enough and will save users dozens of mouse-clicks).
Thanks in advance
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Answering my own question to possibly help anyone who finds this whilst searching for a similar problem. I found a work-around - hardly ideal but it works. I worked out that I can scan movies from the USB folder - not actually adding the folder but adding the films to the database (still a massive pain as you can't then remove the films without a lot of messing around) - but that doesn't work with videos that aren't "movies" within Kodi's definitions and it doesn't work with music. The bodge here is to add the folders to favourites and then add the favourited folders to your music or video's lists (this works using the Amber skin which is vastly more configurable than the default skin - I can't promise it will work with other skins). It works - and the folders remain even if you then un-favourite the USB folder. It's a bit long-winded but will have to do for now. I would still suggest that Kodi's developers would do better to stop making end-users jump through hoops - a source folder should just be a source folder to us, even if different sources are handled differently internally.
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I think you need to ask in the Android support subforum, as I think this is a setup issue unique to Kodi on Android.
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I should say, my point on adding "videos" is also "OS independent". Kodi has a specific section for videos and even goes so far as to prevent users from mixing "videos" with "movies" but it has no direct method of adding videos to the library. In Kodi terms, a "movie" is clearly any video file which is included on one of the movie databases - videos are distinct from movies purely and only in terms of not being any such database - so wouldn't it make sense to add "Video" as a default definition, alongside Movies and TV Shows, when adding folders - a "one click" option that sets defaults for Video as being "Local Information Only" and "Excluded from scans". I'm just thinking that Videos are not treated consistently throughout Kodi and this would create a more cohesive experience.
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Cheers Scott - thanks for the link. I can find various "solutions" but I still think it's a bad idea to make Kodi's internal handling of sources a matter for the end-user - users should just be able to add a source and have files added to their library regardless of how Kodi itself has to handle the devices. It needs one window showing all available sources - possibly with the option to exclude "unused" sources. Put it this way - when I attach a USB drive or I map a network drive to a laptop, Windows displays the actual content of those devices in precisely the same way as "local" files - the fact that different drivers and paths are used is invisible to the user unless they have uncommon uses for that data. As an application for people to access and view "entertainment files", Kodi is sometimes too techie for the job. It's not that we don't appreciate the amazing work done by the developers and the clever operation of the software - it's just that those elements should be invisible in daily use and adding files and sources really should be consistent in terms of the users' experience - drives, folders and files should be "the same" on the surface. I have to stress, I'm a big fan of Kodi and use it every day on multiple devices - but even a cursory glance through these forums shows that users are being confused and possibly put-off by not being able to simply see and use files across all sources in a single, consistent manner. It's the graceful swan - we don't want or need to know that his funny little legs are frantically waving around under the surface of that pond.
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Well, the design I guess goes way to ancient history of using XBOX as a player. In the design, "videos" are files which can be played with videoplayer. Certain details about (all) video files are retained in the video database. That includes streamed files.
Separately, the video database is extended to provide rich meta data on videos. The design segments videos into "movie" "tv show" "episode" and "music video". This is based on a differentiation on the kinds of meta data available (or desired) that is uniquely stored per type in the database.
From what I see on Windows (my primary platform) is that removable/optical media do get treated differently. I don't know the history but I expect it's because if you add a removable or optical media the expectation is that you want to use it. So the USB is auto-added as a video source, whereas for fixed source you have to browse or otherwise enter a path to source. That to me seems a convenience, not a hindrance for users but maybe that's just me. OOB, a "USB source" looks like any other video source. Content is "none" and you have folder/file navigation like all other sources.
Now, I do see in Estuary skin "USB Device" does not show up in the video menu as a Media Source. That might be something that could be changed.
But what you want is the ability to create a source from a folder on a USB device. I'm not sure I see the benefit of that? The content of folders can be set and scanned into the video library.
It does seem like music on USB works a little bit differently. Need to look into that more.
scott s.
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Some confusion here. When I say that Movies & TV Shows are video files that are entered onto a database, I'm talking about the external databases like TMDB and TVDB, not Kodi's internal databases of scanned content. That's the distinction that Kodi uses - what Kodi regards as "Video" is not "files in video format" but "video files which have not been catalogued by a recognised external site". Actually, that's not even true - Kodi doesn't seem to have ANY definition of "video" - it's just the stuff that HASN'T been defined. This causes problems - not least that "Videos" in kodi's definition of the word CAN'T be scanned into the video library - they are literally the moving image files that can't be scanned by kodi. All we can do with Video - unscannable, non-Movie video files - is add an entire folder and ONLY add that folder - we can't merge that folder into another folder. This is why I say that Kodi needs a proper, from-the-ground-up definition of "Videos" - they are currently treated as "anything that isn't in the other categories" rather than as a distinct type of content in their own right. And because of the disjointed way that Kodi users have to handle folders and files simply because of the particular storage location or medium, it's often just not possible to easily add "Videos" (that's Kodi's version of "Video" - see how confusing this all is when you have to mix "video" and "Video" - grrr). If I have a folder of "Videos" - i.e., videos that can't be scraped from TMDB etc, it's not possible to simply add them to an existing folder such as "Guitar Lessons" or "Piano rehearsals". I can create and use such a folder - but it must already exist on one specific device that Kodi will recognise (a current issue as I have a device that is only recognised by Kodi 19.0 - no other version of Kodi can use that device for some reason). Movies are easy - they just get added to one big "Movies" folder on Kodi - and the user has various options to filter or arrange them by date, actor, studio, genre etc - but non-Movie videos aren't like that. It's such a bizarre run-around - some sources can't be added to "Videos" at all - folders on USB devices have to be accessed by digging through the entire layout of the USB device, for example, and if I have, say, "Guitar lessons" in folders on two different devices such as NAS and a USB stick, I can't just have one "Guitar Lessons" folder on Kodi and use it view all "guitar lesson videos from multiple sources - it's schizophrenic and the way that we have to use different methods to even view the files simply because they are on different devices is off-putting. To me as a "consumer", I don't need to know that USB drives are accessed differently to NAS drives at a technical level - surely the "user" should just see files and folders and the "magic" should happen in the background. And this is most important with files that don't fit Kodi's narrow definitions of "Movie", "TV Show", "Music Video" and "Music". I have hundreds of "normal" music albums and Kodi handles them brilliantly - but I also have a huge library of my own recordings (I'm a musician) - performances, new songs, rehearsals, backing tracks, lessons and so on - which I don't want in the same library as my albums. Kodi doesn't cater for that because Music" actually means "Albums" and nothing else. Same with "Music Videos" - you can only use the Music Video folder with specific, scannable videos that have been named according to a precise formula - it's s very niche option anyway and is all but unusable because of this "it must be scanned" approach to sources and content. The main point has to be - wouldn't Kodi be far more useable if the techie operational-level stuff was shifted further into the background and this "seven methods for seven sources" way of adding files was removed? Create an actual definition of "Video" that allows NON-Movie files to be scanned and make all sources APPEAR the same to the user? It may be that there's ways to do some of the things I've cited here - using "tags" or editing metadata to force files to appear in a single folder - but does the average smart-device user really want to do all that - do they even have the option to do so? And what about a household with different people wanting to use the same files on their own devices with their own ideas of what "tags" would be needed on the same files? I suppose I'd sum it up as saying that Kodi has got more complex and less usable and it might be worth thinking about doing that the other way around - or at least, giving the end-user the experience of simplicity, starting with making file handling less convoluted and confused by giving it at least a veneer of being a single process - you tell Kodi which device has files and everything from that point on is done in exactly the same way regardless of any differences happening behind the scenes. (And I do say all that from the perspective of trying to be constructive - I'm no technophobe - have worked with computers since 1975 and have a house full of IT and "tech" and have been a real fan of Kodi for a few years now - pretty much since WMC was scrapped. I just find Kodi to be less user-friendly than it should be as the tech used for storage has evolved and I see the same sort of questions all over these forums over and over again - can't add files from such and such a device, can't access such and such but can see device, how do I add files from this device or network etc. I think it's great to have something that hobbyists can tinker with - but ultimately, this is a user interface for a "Media Centre" and I think that value is getting lost. I just bought an Android TV-based STB and can assure you - it's absolutely awful and totalling incapable of playing ANY local files without third-party apps and Kodi is - or should be - absolutely perfect for the job, but it's a pain in the proverbials to get kodi working because the STB has actual internal hard-drives plus emulated drives plus USB plus network sources and Kodi is making me jump through so many hoops to just add simple videos. I can get simpler access to everything via VLC on the same device - but it's got a horrid interface and lacks the gracefulness of Kodi (plus I'm a Kodi fan and WANT it to work) - but VLC just makes it simpler to find and view my files and I can see me and others drifting away from Kodi because it's becoming less and less useable as more and more hoops are added. It would be a crying shame to walk away from Kodi because it's just so ridiculously complicated to just add files - "seven methods for seven sources" means I'm now spending more time "setting it up" than using it and that's not good. To put it simply - there's no way I'd recommend Kodi to anyone who I wasn't 100% sure was pretty tech savvy because I know they'd be phoning me every night to ask "How do I....?").
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The same issue though - how many end-users of an application like Kodi want to spend time learning to use MySQL, or want to have a dedicated, permanently running PC hosting Plex or want to pay £300 for a NAS plus the cost of hard-drives. My point is not about synchronising across multiple installations of kodi - it's about the way that adding files from different types of storage devices is so disparate. Some folders are mounted, some are added, some are mounted but not visible, some can be added to the "Videos" folder on the homepage, some can only be accessed by crawling through the tree of the host device. I think Kodi really needs to move forward now because it's starting to fall way behind what people want. The days of having vast collections of low-res DVD rips and a load of CD rips are rapidly coming to an end - why keep a harddrive full of SD DVD rips of 40 year old "blockbusters" when you can stream the latest Avengers movies in 4K HDR with Atmos direct from Disney for a fiver a month. What people are using their devices for has changed dramatically and hoarding commercial content is no longer in fashion. Kodi hasn't really evolved much in that respect. It's developed - it handles newer video and audio formats and is available on more platforms - but you have to ask a serious questions, starting with the obvious one - who is now using kodi and why? Five years from now, how many people will even have those HDDs full of ripped movies? Probably the same number of people who still have shelves full of VHS tapes or DVD cases - dinosaurs, and not enough of them to keep a supporting product alive. So instead of being a media player for ripped discs, isn't it time for Kodi to prioritise user-created content - we all have extremely capable video and still cameras in our phones, automatically backed-up in the cloud. Isn't it time to de-prioritise the ripped CD and movies sections in favour of one-button access to the likes of Netflix and Spotify - Kodi as a collating app for other APPs? And isn't it time to make it as simple as humanly possible for users to access their own content - the very content that isn't currently scannable by Kodi and can't be added to a library? Prime example - let's imagine a couple go on holiday- they both take photos and show videos. Rather than have one show his stuff and then the other show theirs, why not let them SHARE directly to a single virtual folder. And why not allow them to mix photos and videos in that one folder - why force them to navigate around an interface simply because that's how it was done 15+ years ago. We - users - no longer think in terms of "sections" for content. Youtube is a video service that we use to listen to music as well as watch movies or read recipes - the same goes for other streaming services. Podcasts blur the lines - radio shows are videoed and broadcast - "live" TV can be rewound or played from the beginning long after it actually started. The priority now has to be user-content and streamed content - with access to and players for "legacy" content being retained but shifted into the background. And the starting point has to be a rethink on how user-content is added and collated. We need to be able to "throw" and "share" content without trawling through server settings and arcane options - we need to be able to send files to Kodi via Bluetooth or the other common "share" functions - and we don't need to have to now how it works to do it. We need to be able access the likes of iplayer and youtube without first having to learn about how to use repositories (which always sounded too much like suppositories for my liking) - if they aren't added by default, maybe to keep kodi "international", at least change the WAY they are added - maybe present them as "apps" in an "appstore" rather than listing them in text menus hidden in submenus with useless names like "program add-ons" (honestly - take a step back and try to imagine seeing that without your years of kodi use - it tells you precisely nothing and is so confusing - how can any add-on for a program NOT be a "program" add-on?) The risk is that kodi could very quickly now become a niche application for an ageing and disappearing minority. If that's okay with the developers that's absolutely fine - I'm just suggesting that if they want Kodi to still be in demand five years from now, they really need to look at what matters most - and I'd say that they need to move away from focussing on libraries of CD/DVD rips and make it more about quickly and cleaning adding user content and accessing online services - cloud storage access needs to be on the home page by default, for example - same goes for the major music and video streaming services. A "media centre" for 2022 needs to bring those elements together in the same way that a 1990's "media centre" did for recorded TV and ripped optical discs.
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Well, that is something of a "holy grail" you are looking for, and many free / open source and commercial teams trying to get there. Given the dev resources available to Kodi, I don't think you are going to see what you want actually achieved, except maybe incrementally over time.
scott s.
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Not sure why - I did type the posts with paragraphs?
). The point I made remains - wouldn't it make more sense for end-users to see all source folders as "folders" and not have this distinction based on nothing more than the technology used on the device housing that folder? Shouldn't that sort of differentiation be hidden from the user who is then given a simpler and more cohesive experience? I understand that the sources are handled differently inside Kodi - I'm saying that the end-user shouldn't need to know anything about that - they should just be able to point to files and have a consistent method of adding and using those files. This isn't a criticism - I'm trying to be constructive and say that as user, I shouldn't need to know about special routines for adding files from USB - I should just see that there's a folder of videos and be able to add them to the library or watch them directly - the same way regardless of the source. Kodi's handling of that - the path it goes down to present those files to the "customer" - should be invisible to that user. Doesn't that make sense - to remove any "techies only" barriers from the application?
