Thats what I did, I set it all up for library mode with all the imdb info for each movie. Everything works great everytime i open xbmc but if I open it when my external drive isn’t mounted (thats the source for all my videos) it won’t show any videos or files at all in any mode. Its completely empty. If i open it again when my external drive is mounted then everything shows up again so it leads me to believe that it only shows videos that it has access to upon loading. Maybe I just have something wrong in the settings or something. Either way I would still like to have 1 folder with aliases or reference files to all my videos so that I can have one folder that shows me every video i have. That’ll also allow me to move around the actual video file to different folders without breaking any links to the file.

What you want can already be easily done.

The library mode will show you all the files not matter which drive/dvd they are on even if the drives are not connected and will show a file not found error if you try to play them. To use the library mode you need to scan them in via imdb or some other supported lookup site. Check the xbmc wiki for more info…

oh, and to clarify why I’d like alias support in XBMC….. basically I’d like to have an alias in one folder for every single video that I have from all my external drives and 100 or so discs so that I can have one folder or “source” that shows me every video I have in my collection. I’d like to be able to click on this file in xbmc and it play the video if the disc is mounted or say “file not found” if its not (so that I could then just grab that particular disc and insert it). Right now if I link all my different hard drives to XBMC it’ll show me the video files only if the drive is connected. If its not it won’t show me the files at all (essentially not showing me my entire video collection). Right now from what I can tell all you can do is make a dummy file that can show u the movie info but if u click on it it won’t play anything or do anything. Is this a feature that you think you might implement? If there is a better way to do what I’d like can someone enlighten me? I’m new to this whole HTPC thing so I’m still learning as I go along (and I haven’t played with xbmc enough to know about all of its features and abilities). Thanks again for this wonderful port

One thing I noticed is that the menu button on the apple remote (essentially used to go back in the menu heirachy) doesn’t always work. And the also, the only video that I couldn’t get to play at all from the 80 that I tried was the movie “300.” Its a 720p MKV with DTS audio (all my others with the same specs played fine so I don’t know why it doesn’t wanna play).

Keep up the fantastic work!

@steve jobs: Thanks! I think this may be a CABAC crash, which makes me queazy to think about because I’m really, really loath to take the patch out.

@Graeme Dollar: Barkley is part Ridgeback and part Bullmastiff, or at least that’s the theory.

@LinuxStill & tv: My time is split between coding and releasing, and getting my changes back in the source tree. I’ve been bad about the latter, and it’s my top priority before making any more changes or fixes, because I’d like other people to be able to contribute! The fact that people have had to patch and repatch the trunk source (which I have working in my sandbox) is inexcusable, and I’m very sorry about it. I am now checking in my changes as time permits.

@DeanM: You’ve probably already seen it by now, but I’ve explained in the forums what I did.

@osxbmc_user: Very insightful comments.

@Ezrem: Sorry, I’m not sure. I know that accessing a computer running OSXBMC with remote desktop and such can be a bit dicey, but I don’t know if this is related to Vine Server.

@gebur: You guys crack me up with your infinite combinations I feel like such a simpleton playing MKVs from a SMB share. You’re all like “I want to be able to play zipped RAR files over FTP but the zip files are encrypted with ROT13″. In all seriousness, this should work (better?) once we have VFS support in, which is my next big task along with Python.

@Reuben Bryant: Thanks very much! It’s always sad to get rid of an XBOX, but once I get MAME working on the Mini, I don’t think you’ll miss it much.

@Phullup: Improvement network buffering/caching is on my list of things to do, along with fixing bugs in ff/rew.

@Chris Lafonte: Thanks! I know subs are working for lots of people, at least some formats. I’d recommend posting to the forum and detailing exactly the kind of subs you’re trying to play.

Peace out.

I’ve found it impossible to fast forward 720p video with out XBMC losing audio once you start to watch again.

Having said that, thanks for all your brilliant work on getting XBMC working in OSX – it made me buy a Mac mini!