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Re: Looking for program

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:18 pm
by StinkyImp
Hi Space,

Thank you for recommending WinMerge! That suggestion has made this utility super useful and SUPER FAST!

I like to purge items out of my library every few years for whatever reason. Not because of space, but because I really have no desire to watch them ever again and they're just clutter. Based on what I found when looking around my system, I perform this about every 3 to 4 years. It was monotonous and time consuming to export my library (using Media Center Master) into Excel and then go to my previous spreadsheet and perform various tedious operations. It would take a day (or more) and that's why I didn't clean up my library very often.

This utility using WinMerge brings this process down to mere seconds!

I opened one of the spreadsheets that I created in June 2016 (my last purge) and concatenated the information in the format used by this utility, copied and pasted it into a text document, and then ran the compare. Amazing!

The list on the left is my library in June 2016 and the right is a current snapshot. The highlighted items on the left were purged and the highlighted ones on the right have been added.

Image

Thanks again for your suggestion... You ROCK! :thumbup:

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 8:54 pm
by Space
You're welcome :)

One of the things I use it for is to periodically see if any channel deletions/additions were made to my FiOS lineup, it also tells me if the channel has transitioned from unsubscribed/subscribed and vice-versa (sometimes channels are added/deleted to my package, even though they are not "new" channels, such as BBC America being added at one point when it was originally only in a higher tier package). Verizon tends to not be very vocal about changes like this, so it's a good way to keep track of them.

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:30 pm
by StinkyImp
In retrospect I believe you're due the majority of the credit. The utility I built simply does everything you suggested in your first response to Rickt1962.
  1. Create a snapshot (your idea)
  2. Create another snapshot at a later date (your idea)
  3. Compare those two with WinMerge (your idea)
All I did was create a GUI with some buttons and stuff to perform those tasks programatically and then tied a little bow on it to keep everything in one place.

In short... You were the architect and I was the hammer. ;)

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:35 pm
by StinkyImp
This utility was originally thrown together to analyze movie libraries in the format:
  • X:\Movies\Movie name 1
  • X:\Movies\Movie name 2
  • X:\Movies\Movie name 3...
In the five months since I built it I've come to a realization... Two of the other BIG items in my collection are TV Shows and Music. The original version doesn't really work for these because while I may not add a new TV series or musical artist, I DO add seasons and albums. The original only looked at new TV shows or artists so it wan't really that useful.

The original also included other things that were just thrown in "for effect" (like videos and pictures) that I've never used so I removed them.

In conjunction I enhanced the "custom" function to keep track of previous custom snapshots. That way I wouldn't have to remember what I previously captured. ;)

I find that I use the custom for things like my downloads, software, pictures, home videos, or anything else that's in the format:

"X:\Primary Folder\Unique Description"

Main Screen.png
Interface

[Example comparisons and color settings]

One of the down sides to a utility like this is that it might take a month, or months, to actually test it.

If anyone wants to give it a try, let me know.

PS - I extend my warmest and most sincere "Thank You" to Rickt1962 and Space for guiding me to this rabbit hole!

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:41 pm
by Rickt1962
Was not able to down load it :(

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:34 am
by StinkyImp
That's because I just sent you a private message with the link.

It expires in 24 hours so if you don't download it before then, it will disappear.

Since you're using the "old" version, you can overwrite your copy of "Directory Compare.exe" with the one that's in the zip file.

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 1:12 pm
by Rickt1962
StinkyImp wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 12:34 am That's because I just sent you a private message with the link.

It expires in 24 hours so if you don't download it before then, it will disappear.

Since you're using the "old" version, you can overwrite your copy of "Directory Compare.exe" with the one that's in the zip file.
Thank you I got it finally !!! Thank you so much ! :clap:

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 5:15 pm
by StinkyImp
I'm curious about what other people use for this? Are we the only ones that have ever been interested in seeing the changes over time in our audio and video libraries?

I know I've thought about this dilemma for years and appreciate you giving me the incentive to create this.

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:03 pm
by Rickt1962
StinkyImp wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:50 pm
StinkyImp wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:31 pmI just PM'd you a new link. Please download it within the next 24 hours.
Hi Rickt1962!

I haven't heard back from you. Were you able to download this utility?

It's actually custom built for my specific setup so I'm curious if it worked on yours. If you successfully downloaded it, what has been your experience? Can you provide any suggestions for improvements or enhancements? Did it even work?

Thank you for any feedback you can provide!

PS - I've been using it since May 13th (when I made my first snapshot) and it has worked for me without fail so far. :angel:
Sorry for being slow to respond ! YES it worked ! End of the year I will bring my backup hard drives home from the vacation house to scan both systems to see any changes have happened. Can't wait to see whats going on. THANK YOU SO MUCH ! :)

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:04 pm
by Rickt1962
Rickt1962 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:03 pm
StinkyImp wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:50 pm
StinkyImp wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:31 pmI just PM'd you a new link. Please download it within the next 24 hours.
Hi Rickt1962!

I haven't heard back from you. Were you able to download this utility?

It's actually custom built for my specific setup so I'm curious if it worked on yours. If you successfully downloaded it, what has been your experience? Can you provide any suggestions for improvements or enhancements? Did it even work?

Thank you for any feedback you can provide!

PS - I've been using it since May 13th (when I made my first snapshot) and it has worked for me without fail so far. :angel:
Sorry for being slow to respond ! YES it worked ! End of the year I will bring my backup hard drives home from the vacation house to scan both systems to see any changes have happened. Can't wait to see whats going on. THANK YOU SO MUCH ! :) Up to 6500 movies and over 40,000 TV show episodes

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 2:31 pm
by StinkyImp
Rickt1962 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:04 pmUp to 6500 movies and over 40,000 TV show episodes
Wow! Now I'm really curious. In theory it should work fine for libraries of that size, it will just take a bit longer to process them. In my case I only have around 2,200 movies and less than 1,000 TV episodes. As I mentioned previously, this utility was designed around my specific library layout (which I believe follows the customary layout).

All my libraries are dedicated to physical HDDs connected directly to my HTPC...(Although I've mapped them on another computer on my network and the utility worked as intended).

E:\ Movies (8 TB)
F:\ TV Shows (4 TB)
G:\ Music (1 TB)

Based on the sizes of your libraries and some things you mentioned before, it sounds like you may have multiple "Movie" or "TV Show" drives or pointers. Is that correct?

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:28 pm
by Rickt1962
Yes each 8tb drive has Movies and TV show folder in the folders each has another folder labeled title and year of each movie 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 1:46 pm
by StinkyImp
Rickt1962 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:28 pm Yes each 8tb drive has Movies and TV show folder in the folders each has another folder labeled title and year of each movie 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
As long as you have a single "Movie" folder and a single "TV Show" folder, it should work fine. Please keep me updated on your results!

EDIT: Just ran it on my mapped drives for Movies, TV Shows, and Music and it worked great!

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:32 pm
by StinkyImp
Rickt1962 wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:03 pmEnd of the year I will bring my backup hard drives home from the vacation house to scan both systems to see any changes have happened. Can't wait to see whats going on. THANK YOU SO MUCH ! :)
Hi Rickt1962!

I've been running "LIbrary Time Machine" every Friday since October 2019 (well over a year). It's been working flawlessly for me... but I wrote it, so any shortfalls wouldn't really occur to me.

How's your experience been?

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:08 pm
by Rickt1962
Everything seems to be working GREAT ! Thank you !

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Fri May 28, 2021 6:34 pm
by StinkyImp
Hey Rickt1962!

Just an FYI for you and anyone else that might be using this. I've been running this every week for the past two years and just ran into my first bug. :o

It happened when I selected a custom category in the drop-down list and failed to select the "Custom" radio button. I still had the "TV Shows" radio button selected after creating a TV show snapshot. It ran for quite awhile but ran into a buffer overflow situation and shut down. Subsequent runs would shut down during the "Create Snapshot" phase with a buffer overflow error. :oops:

I'm not inclined to fix it since it's exceedingly rare. If this happens, here's the simple fix:
  • Open Library Time Machine.exe
  • Click on the "Open Utility Dir" button
  • Look for a file named "TempTV Shows.txt" or any file named "Temp[Radio button].txt
  • Delete it (or them).
  • Done! ;)
The chances of running into this bug are highly unlikely unless, like me, you don't follow the instructions... :crazy:

Re: Looking for program

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2021 10:04 pm
by StinkyImp