MSHEETDIR migration guide

[apwood]

Although I've had MSHEETDIR set up and working for years, I recently started trying to improve how things are set up generally on my WDTV Live.

I have 2 hard drives (one on each USB port) with .MSHEETDIR on one of them containing all my moviesheets. My hard drives are powered on at all times, even when the WDTV is switched off. I understand this is because using early mount, the option in the WEC to power off USB does not work? I'd like to save energy and wear / tear where possible by powering down.

1. Is there any way to use MSHEETDIR without early mounts so the USB can be powered down - and if so how can that be done and what are the pros and cons?

2. Is it possible to eject the USB hard drive manually before switching off the WDTV so it can power down? If so, am I correct that to do so would then need a reboot before the moviesheets would display again?

3. Is it possible to eject as part of a power off script, but that would still then need a reboot as per (2)? If so, could a (potential) workaround (avoiding the need to reboot) be to use a power on script to re-mount the hard drive just like it was before it was powered down. Any advice to point me in the right direction for this?

Using MSHEETDIR clearly stops the need to run linksheets again so my moviesheets are immediately available. When browsing my movies, I have 7 thumbnails horizontally across the bottom of the screen with full screen moviesheets (from MSHEETDIR) as backgrounds, of course the thumbnails are jpgs present in the folders containing the movies.

I had thought that using MSHEETDIR would allow moviesheets to be display almost instantly, but I find that using the left or right arrow button to move to the next movie file and display its moviesheet often takes between 1 and 2 seconds - which feels very slow. All my moviesheets are 1280x720, 24bit and 72dpi, size less than 500kb (mostly less than 150Kb). All my thumbnails are 120x180, 24bit and 72dpi, size less than 8kb. I don't have any moviesheets in folders other than .MSHEETDIR. I've created various mountpoints so as to make the two USB hard drives appear in a single folder list.

4. Is a delay of 1 or 2 seconds (at least 0.5 seconds) when pressing the arrow button to move to the next movie file / moviesheet normal - is that the fastest WDTV Live can display full screen moviesheets?

5. Any suggestions how to speed this up?

[apwood]

Can no one help / confirm?

[recliq]

1) No
2) Yes / Yes
3) No
4) No idea, I'm using Extsheet plugin...
5) No idea

To circumvent the power down problem the solution would be NOT to use MSHEETDIR and let linksheets create the links on boot.

[KAD]

1. yes/no/maybe ?, NETAPP is an option
I'd have to read up again to see if early mount is required
but then again, NETAPP in and of itself is sort of a type of early mount - so not sure if it has the same usb power requirements
MSHEETDIR & NETAPP only works with cifs

overall, I agree with recliq, best option to resolve power down/off issues
is to stop using MSHEETDIR and just use linksheets

yes, you'll have to wait a few minutes on each boot, but only a boot
linksheets are available immediately on resume from sleep

[recliq]

MSHEETDIR & NETAPP only works with cifs

I don't think this is correct... I always used NETAPP with NFS and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work with NFS.

[apwood]

Thanks for the replies.

I've never used or heard of NETAPP before.

If NETAPP does not require early mounts, then surely that would also resolve the problem - I'm not sure what documentation to read re how to use NETAPP (and to check if you need early mount with it to use MSHEETDIR). Can you one of you point me in the right direction please?

As to stopping using MSHEETDIR - is the only advantage of MSHEETDIR that it stops the need for linksheets to run at every reboot? (I thought it also allowed sheets to be displayed more quickly having read the first post in this thread.).

Do the linked sheets survive the WDTV being put in low power standby (so the USB drives can switch off)?

Would I just turn off MSHEETDIR in the WEC and would linksheets then automatically run at reboot?

What do I need to do to allow linksheets to find the sheets, is it enough to rename the sheets in my .MSHEETDIR folder by adding .jpg on the end, or do I have to put them back to where they were originally, in the folders with the original movies - amending the naming convention back to how it was before (ie with "_sheet" in the names)? ie What's the quickest way to go back to using linksheet without the MSHEETDIR functionality?

KAD - what do you think about the speed my moviesheets are displayed - is 1 or 2 seconds reasonable?
KAD and RECLIQ - how fast are fullscreen moviesheets displayed on your WDTVs (and do you use WDTV Live Gen 1)?

[apwood]

Thanks for the replies.

I've never used or heard of NETAPP before.

If NETAPP does not require early mounts, then surely that would also resolve the problem - I'm not sure what documentation to read re how to use NETAPP (and to check if you need early mount with it to use MSHEETDIR). Can you one of you point me in the right direction please?

As to stopping using MSHEETDIR - is the only advantage of MSHEETDIR that it stops the need for linksheets to run at every reboot? (I thought it also allowed sheets to be displayed more quickly having read the first post in this thread.).

Do the linked sheets survive the WDTV being put in low power standby (so the USB drives can switch off)?

Would I just turn off MSHEETDIR in the WEC and would linksheets then automatically run at reboot?

What do I need to do to allow linksheets to find the sheets, is it enough to rename the sheets in my .MSHEETDIR folder by adding .jpg on the end, or do I have to put them back to where they were originally, in the folders with the original movies - amending the naming convention back to how it was before (ie with "_sheet" in the names)? ie What's the quickest way to go back to using linksheet without the MSHEETDIR functionality?

KAD - what do you think about the speed my moviesheets are displayed - is 1 or 2 seconds reasonable?
KAD and RECLIQ - how fast are fullscreen moviesheets displayed on your WDTVs (and do you use WDTV Live Gen 1)?

[mad_ady]

This is the first time I've heard of WDTV Live Gen 1. Not to be confused with the Gen 1 we call this device the "Live". The newer live is called Gen 3.

With regard to sheet loading time, I use ExtSheets (on 1.02 + wdtvext) and it takes about 0.5s to load off a network share (via NFS).

[KAD]

only benefits of MSHEETDIR
no linksheet scanning
generally sheets are displayed slightly quicker than WDTVext plugin, there would be no speed difference compared to linksheets

@recliq
NETAPP & MSHEETDIR limitation is actuall due to AUFS
the AUFS union created by MSHEETDIR function does not work over AUFS
I posted some idea's about this a while back, but would likely require a recompile of aufs to fix
Aufs info http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=7539
so yeah, any other app.bin etc over NETAPP + NFS is fine

[recliq]

@KAD: Thnaks for reminding me, now that you mention it I remember the AUFS problem with NFS... Anyways it should be doable with unionfs, doesn't it?