Guide: Setting up yaDIS 2.0 For the Dune

by Damian on February 4, 2011 · 52 comments

in Guides

I am always on the lookout to test new video jukeboxes for the various media players I have scattered across my house. Nearly six months ago (wow, has it been that long) I took a look at Zappiti, a video jukebox for the Dune players. I have been meaning to look at a newly released video jukebox for the Dunes called yaDIS 2.0, and given that several folks seem to be having trouble with running Zappiti on their PC I thought this would be the perfect time to look at closer. yaDIS 2.0 was created by developer Fred-L and is a follow up to original yaDIS jukebox.

My Setup:

  • WHS with all videos stored and streamed (Blu Rays, SD DVDs, and TV Shows) shared via samba (see my guide on setting up samba for WHS here)
  • Wired home network (Cate5e/Cat6)
  • Dune BD Prime and Dune Smart D1 connected via Cat5e to home network

Files To Download:

Installation:

1. Install yaDIS 2.0 and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (if applicable). I decided to install Zappiti on my Windows 7 x32 PC, but confirmed it worked on my Windows 7 x64 PC as well. This is one trick to the setup, as you can see from the screenshot below, the installation of yaDIS 2.0 is set in French.

Setting Up:

Before talking about setting up I just wanted to briefly discuss library organization:

  • Movies – individual movie files can be in one big folder or they can be in subfolders (Separate folder for each movie and my preferred method). The key is to make sure the filename of the movie and/or the foldername of the movie is named as accurately as possible to the actual movie name.  Words must be separated by spaces
  • TV Shows – each TV show must be in its own folder, with the folder being the exact name of the TV show. Within each TV Show folder you can have separate folders for each Season (folder name should be “Season 1″, “Season 2″, etc…) or just have all episodes in the main tv show folder. Each episode ideally should be named ShowName s## e## (where S = Season and E = Episode). I prefer to have a folder for each season, so an example of my setup would be: TV Shows -> Supernatural -> Season 1 -> Supernatural S01E01.mkv, Supernatural S01E02.mkv, etc…
  • Movies and TV Shows should be kept in separate folders. For example, I have a “TV Shows” folder and a “Movies” folder under my main “Videos” folder.

When first running yaDIS 2.0 the first step it to run the setup.

Under Setup you designate your Language, the Dune interface location (i.e. where you want to export the yaDIS jukebox to), and set up your library/view under the three tabs (Folders, Dune interface, and Remote control)

Similar to Zappiti you will need to set up a separate library location for Movies and TV Shows. One nice feature is that once you navigate to the media folder and select how you will be connecting in the Dune path (i.e. in my case smb) yaDIS will auto populate the correct Dune path (I only tested with smb)

Under the “Dune interface” tab there are several settings to choose from.  The first setting is to choose what template you want to use. Currently there are only two templates (Origins and Origins w/o Ratings). As yaDIS 2.0 grows hopefully we will see more templates added by the developer or the user community. Under “Options” selecting the “Use case for movies” will add the option to use disc cases that will overlay the movie cover. The “Include DVB-T menu”, “Include Tools menu” and “Setup” button as currently disabled, so I assume those are features that will be added at a later date. One feature I really like is the ability to add Genres to the main menu.

The next tab is “Remote Control”. Honestly I am not quite sure what this feature is for.

With everything set up you should now see a list of all media that yaDIS found. When yaDIS imports your media library however it does not start the process of scraping for all the metadata/artwork, so you must do that manually. You can either highlight one movie or multiple movies and click the “Process” button. One thing worth noting, yaDIS uses Cine-Passion to gather all metadata for movies, and  there is currently a quota of 300 scrapes in a 24 hour period.

After clicking “Process” a pop up will appear as yaDIS scrapes each movie. If a movie is not scraped properly you will see an error stating (for a case like this you will need to scrape the movie manually)

Once all the movies have been scraped you should now see all the metadata/artwork for each movie that got pulled in. There are 4 tabs that you can cycle through to manually edit the metadata/art. The first tab is the “Movie” tab which shows all the information related to the movie.

The second tab “Media” is where all the media info is stored. Also, if you selected the “Use case for movies” option in the settings you will see an option under this tab to choose what case you want to use. yaDIS will attempt to match the case with the file type, and then here you can change if you prefer a different case (for example for my BluRay mkvs yaDIS applied an mkv case, but I manually switched over to a Blu-ray case). One thing to note, if you decide to change your original “Use case for movies” settings you must reprocess your movies for the changes to take effect.


After the “Media” tab is the “Cover” tab. One annoyance I encountered is that since yaDIS uses Cine-Passion nearly 70% of the covers pulled in were non English covers (as you can see from the screenshot below). It appears that yaDIS simply adds the first cover that gets downloaded. My guess this is an issue with the Cine-Passion database and not yaDIS. It would be nice if Cine-Passion would assign a language to each cover and then yaDIS could filter out before downloading. I only brought in 50 of my 400 movies and it was tedious having to manually change a large majority of my covers. If you want to add your own cover, right click anywhere in the “Cover” tab area which should bring up an option to add from a local drive or from Google.

The final tab is “Fanart” which shows all fanart available use. As with covers you can also add your own fanart.

So what happens if either a movie gets identified incorrectly or doesn’t get identified at all?  With the movie in question selected click the “Change” button. A box will appear showing the current matches for the movie. If the one you want isn’t there you can try entering a manual search (either enter in the movie name or for better accuracy enter in the IMDB ID). For any changes made on any of these tabs make sure you hit the “Apply” button when complete.

The process is the same for TV shows. However, I encountered a few inconsistencies. When I try selecting all TV shows and clicking “Process” only the first few TV shows would scrape and then the process would stop. yaDIS uses TVDB for scraping and I don’t believe there is any sort of quota, so I imagine this is a big with yaDIS. The next thing I noticed is that for most TV shows the artwork was not being brought in properly. If you look at the screenshot below there is no backdrop and the banner actually appears to be a cover that has been smushed down (which is odd considering on the “Banner” and “Fanart” tab there are the correct images). One other issue is that from the UI there is no way to see/manage the individual episodes for each TV show (yaDIS does pull in info for each show). Hopefully this is a feature that is in the works as for me it is a critical feature.

Once everything is in order the last step is to click the “Export” button which will output the Dune jukebox to the Dune path that you specified in the Setup.

Using yaDIS 2.0

Once yaDIS has been exported all you need to do is navigate to the output folder on your Dune. The easiest way to do this is to set up a shortcut on the Dune main menu (you are required to have system storage to do so).

When you go into yaDIS you will be taken to the main menu as per below (note I replaced the original backdrop, which can be found in the template folder). Towards the bottom of the screen is the menu that you can scroll through there will be a link for Movies, TV Shows, and if added any user selected Genres. Hopefully users can come up with some alternative templates to really jazz up the main menu (I would love to have a main menu closer to the Pearl menu used in Media Browser)

Here is a screenshot of the movie wall.

Below is a screenshot of the TV wall (yaDIS uses a banner view).

Screenshot of a TV Show episode. Instead of seeing a list/view of all episodes in this template you would navigate through each episode individually from this screen

Final Thoughts:

Overall there is a lot  to like about yaDIS 2.0 and hats off to Fred-L on this complete re-write of yaDIS. There are some minor issues to deal with such as the lack of an episodic view in the GUI, TV show artwork not scraping properly, and a majority of the movies pulling in the wrong language cover. However, as yaDIS 2.0 matures and more of the community gets involved I expect many of the kinks to be worked out and the project to grow.

UPDATE – due to issues with Cine-Passion, the latest yaDIS 2.0.5 temporarily removed support for this. As a replacement (a much welcomed one) support for TheMovieDB has been added.


Article by

Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX470 and more importantly found Mediasmartserver.net, that my interest became an addiction. My goal, aside from world domination and to see the Mets/Broncos win another championship, is to set up the perfect digital home where all my media is available at the click of a button. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver.net you can find me over at my blog at http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com or follow me on twitter


{ 48 comments }

Dave February 4, 2011 at 10:46 am

Another great article, thanks Damian! Can you tell me how you got the space background to show up on your Dune main menu?

Damian February 4, 2011 at 10:56 am

Go into your yaDIS/template folder (mine is installed under C:Program Files). Go into the template folder that you are using and you will see a background.jpg file. This is the background yaDIS will use for the template. Simply replace this with your own background.jpg file and re export from yaDIS

M. Kircadag February 5, 2011 at 7:23 am

Great guide!!! Very usefull.

Is it possible to make a print out for this guide?

GPSOFT February 7, 2011 at 5:18 am

HI SIR…………..I AM FROM INDIA I AM USING HINDIFILM SORCE……

ONE MOST IMP THING TO TELL U …………

YADIS DATABASES IS (CINE-PASSION, OFDB, THETVDB.COM, MOVIEMETER)
I SUGGEST OME MORE DATABASE TO DOWNLOAD INFO & template FOR HINDIFILM (INDIANFILM) SO THEMOVIEDB.ORG AND IMDB IS SUPPORT ALL THING FOR HINDI-MOVIES IF POSSIBLE SUPPORT FOR THAT WEB-SITES OK……………..

Sadhana April 20, 2011 at 8:16 am

I have used Zappiti and it picks up Hindi movies pretty well.
However with the issue on TV shows folder not really being picked up-am thinking of using Yadis
Need to know before I switch over-
1, Do TV shows scrape well?
2. Will Hindi movies be recognside with Yadis?
Regards
SD

Damian April 21, 2011 at 4:35 am

I don’t view Hindi movies so I cannot comment on. However, I have never been too happy with TV show scraping with yaDIS. I haven’t tested again in over a month so I don’t know if the process has improved

GPSOFT February 7, 2011 at 1:09 pm

HI SIR…………..I AM FROM INDIA I AM USING HINDIFILM SORCE……

ONE MOST IMP THING TO TELL U …………
YADIS DATABASES IS (CINE-PASSION, OFDB, THETVDB.COM, MOVIEMETER)
I SUGGEST OME MORE DATABASE TO DOWNLOAD INFO & template FOR HINDIFILM (INDIANFILM) SO can u add (THEMOVIEDB.ORG AND IMDB) for use as sinopsis database? ……………..

THANKS……..SIR

Damian Perez February 9, 2011 at 6:57 am

I would recommend posting your request on MPCClub forum to see if Fred-L can implement

Bart van Klaveren February 12, 2011 at 2:13 am

Very good guide, thank you.

A tip: You can make screenshots with the Dune (so you don’t have to take pictures of your TV) by going to Setup > Miscellaneous > Advanced and set the eject button to make screenshots.

Damian February 12, 2011 at 5:16 am

Hi Bart,

For whatever reason I have never been successful with the screenshots, whenever I tried I would always get an error message. Maybe this is because I don’t have internal storage (only the system storage)?

Bart van Klaveren February 12, 2011 at 5:58 am

Correct. You do need internal storage, but that can also be a usb memory stick. It needs to be formatted from the Dune, though maybe nowadays that ntfs write is possible, a Windows formatted usb stick might also work.

nadya March 4, 2011 at 4:25 pm

is there any program similar to yaDIS but for macOSX?
please -_-”

Damian March 4, 2011 at 4:57 pm

This is the only one I know of:

http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26450

Denny March 21, 2011 at 3:41 am

Dear Damian,

Could you help me for setting yaDIS Jukebox for my Dune B1, because I’am very confuse and didn’t understand this program with command for “FAILED TO OPEN URL” if you don’t mind could you PM to my email, I’am really need your help.
Thank you for your help me and I’am waiting your support to me.
Warmed Regards
Denny A

Jim March 8, 2011 at 4:10 pm

Heads up on Yadis 2.04

It looks like the scraper that Yadis uses for movies is down, but the developer is close to releasing a rewrite with an alternative scraper.

Damian March 8, 2011 at 5:21 pm

That would be big if Fred finally added support for TMDB

Jim March 9, 2011 at 11:38 am

Looks like 2.05 just dropped.

I will give a report if there is anything to add to your guide.

Damian March 9, 2011 at 11:42 am

Just saw as well. Looks like the major change is TMDB support

Damian March 9, 2011 at 12:12 pm

I am running 2.0.5 now. Only change is that you need to rescrape your movies for TMDB (a message box actually pops up telling you this). Rescraped and all correct English covered were grabbed (as opposed to with Cine Passion where a large majority of covers pulled in were another language)

Jim March 10, 2011 at 6:42 am

I had an issue where the upgraded Yadis would not replace the cover image from the 2.04 version. Since I’m just starting out I just uninstalled 2.04, deleted all Yadis dirs, rebooted, installed 2.05 in a dir other than the default.

After this, the application is absolutely one of the best movie scrapers out there. I really like its simplicity and the developer really deserves praise. In fact, I wish it worked for MediaBrowser because I like it much more than Metabrowser. I’d echo your criticism about the lack of an episode view for TV scrapes, but it’s really moot because Yadis correctly tagged all of them.

The Dune was delivered last night also, so it should be a fun weekend.

Damian March 10, 2011 at 7:03 am

My big issue with yaDIS 2.0 is still TV Shows (aside from not being able to manually view/edit individual episodes in the GUI, and only being able to see one episode at a time on the Dune). For just about all of my TV Shows when first processed yaDIS does not grab a background image and for some reason it makes the poster the banner (so obviously is looks pretty bad). It is easy to fix manually but still shouldn’t have to focus on. Also, I don’t know if there is some sort of quota, but yaDIS only processes a few of my TV shows and then just stops. I think I will wait until some more user created templates come out and the TV show issues are fixed before I reconsider. I am still hopeful the Flash YAMJ skin can get ported over to the Dunes

Jim March 14, 2011 at 11:47 am

Damian,

I know that you have a completely different setup from mine, but I’m hopeful that you might have a tip. I have the same problem with Yadis and Zappiti that is beyond my Google foo.

I’m getting the dreaded “Failed to open URL” on both applications for SMB shares. The native Dune network browser works fine.

My initial setup:
Win7 64 Ultimate
3 Shares:
\\Win7\Videos
\\Win7\Movies1
\\Win7\Movies2

Whatever I do, I can’t get either application to open properly via respective interfaces (failed URL).

What I have done:
Changed the share name to all alphas
\\Win7\MoviesA, …\MoviesB

Created multiple levels:
\\Win7\Movies\MoviesA

Tried to blank out the absolute path in the config.
Tried all combinations of the absolute path:
smb://Win7/Movies
smb://MoviesA

Tried setting up a new share with symbolic links to the individual shares.

I then read where the Dune could only open one share at a time, so I thought maybe I could export (write) the configs to the Dune’s local storage (4GB USB flashdrive).

Before I make a change and have to rescan my entire library for the 10th time for each application, I thought I would ask you or a fellow reader a couple of questions:

First, do you have any idea what could be the issue?
Second, do you think moving the config to local (Dune) storage would help?
Third, what is the best way to move the config to the Dune storage?

Thanks again for your help.

Jim March 14, 2011 at 1:42 pm

It appears that this is possible and is based on a limitation of the HDI firmware:

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/14733-problem-connection-whs-via-smb-links/

I will report my progress.

Denny March 19, 2011 at 11:34 am

Dear Jim,
Please explain to me for setting smb, because I’am really confuse and did not understand for setting this part, I’ved already setting many time but the resulu is Failed to open URL (storage didn’t find). I hope you understand with my question abd canexplain to step by step for the best and true setting for make Jukebox for dune with yaDIS program.
Thank you for your attention and cooporation.
Denny

Jim March 14, 2011 at 9:43 pm

Success at last.

I have launched Yadis and Zapitti on multiple shares from the same server using an SD card with the configs copied to them.

A quick rundown if anyone else has this issue:

The Dune Smart series with the current FW does not support multiple mounts to the same server. So Yadis and Zapitti will balk if you have something like:

\\Titan\Movies
\\Titan\Videos

The native Dune SMB browser works because ut unmounts one share before moving to the next one even if it’s located on the same server. As a consequence, you must have the config exported to the same share where the media lives if you use a pure network setup.

However with multiple shares to the same server, you can use local storage for the location of the config. After following the steps above, you must copy the export to a second USB or SD card and use this for the index. Keep in mind that you can’t use the original (and necessary) system storage flash drive that is detailed above. Dune supports FAT32 so you can copy straight from Windows to the card.

After these steps, the memory card will show up on the home screen and you can make a shortcut to it. This does have a major drawback because you must update the SD/flashdrive manually.

Thanks again for the guide and I hope this will help someone facing a similar situation.

Damian March 15, 2011 at 5:28 am

Hey Jim,

Thanks for sharing, that is interesting. I only have one share (\\MyServer\Videos) so I guess that explains why I never ran into that issue.

Why do you have to manually update the SD/Flashdrive, can’t you see it over the network when it is connected to the Dune?

Jim March 15, 2011 at 6:39 am

Ha. I did not think to look for the card via SMB, but you are correct. It does show up while browsing. I will attempt to add something and update via the respective applications and let you know how it goes.

I’m really liking the Dune now and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an overall better bang for buck than my HTPC.

Damian March 15, 2011 at 11:50 am

Cool, look forward to hearing back to see how everything is working

Jim March 16, 2011 at 8:54 am

It works fantastic up to a point, but there is a technical limitation for this scenario. I originally thought that there was an issue with SMB on the Dune, but it turns out that the file table is getting full using FAT32. Yadis creates an enormous amount of files (~40,000 for my 400 movies and 20 TV series) with long file names. Looks like I will have to move to a different file system.

Do you have any experience with EXT2 or NTFS with the SD reader with the Dune? I think I read somewhere that there is support for NTFS reads, but I would assume that support is better for EXT2. NTFS would be more convenient since I’m mostly a Windows home.

Damian March 16, 2011 at 9:12 am

Yeah, I believe NTFS support was added as well. I would honestly go with that approach over EXT2

Jim March 17, 2011 at 8:01 am

Thanks for the NTFS tip. It’s mostly working (isn’t that the natural state of these things). Both Yadis and Zapatti are properly seeing 5 shares from the same server using an 8GB SDCard on NTFS.

There is an issue with Yadis (or maybe it’s the Dune itself) getting an “Access Denied” error that is deep in the Yadis file structure (../01/00/..) on certain titles.

I have several SD cards and I’m going to try an EXT2 format to see if there is any difference in speed.

Except for the opening screen’s selection of Movies or TV, I think I prefer the Yadis’ click path over Zapitti by a narrow margin. I esp like the TV episode click path that is all on a single screen.

Jim March 17, 2011 at 6:45 pm

I’m fully operational now!

Somehow I had overlooked some permissions on files and once those were adjusted, all is working as expected. NTFS support is impressive and I’m going to leave it alone for a while.

Overall, I have put in ~12 hours of setup for the Dune, Yadis, & Zapitti before it has equaled the performance of my HTPC and had a decent skin. This is a much lower time investment for a result that the WAF like much better than than a keyboard and MCE remote.

This guide and your tips dramatically reduced my amount of frustration. Thanks again!

Damian March 18, 2011 at 6:58 am

Great to hear Jim. Ultimately WAF plays a big part for many of us, so in many ways it comes down to player that simple, stable, and easy to use

Emre March 30, 2011 at 5:28 am

Hi Damian ,i want to ask yo a few questions.’m getting URL error from the movies in a specific HDD. For whatever reason, there are sometimes errors popping-up, and sometimes it works just fine. I never interfered with any option, nor did I change any option.

Sample:
media_url=smb://192.168.2.20/MyBook-1-/Bluray./The.Secret.in.Their.Eyes.2009.1080p.BluRay.x264.DTS-WiKi/The.Secret.in.Their.Eyes.2009.1080p.BluRay.x264.DTS-WiKi.mkv

Damian March 31, 2011 at 8:45 am

Emre,

Sorry, just getting caught up on comments. Are you still running into the same issues? WIth my setup everything is stored on my WHS so I don’t have to manage separate hard drives.

Superpong April 11, 2011 at 1:01 am

Hello,

Could you please explain a bit more?

“The easiest way to do this is to set up a shortcut on the Dune main menu (you are required to have system storage to do so).”

How can we use the system storage to create a shotcut on Dune’s main menu? Any URLs I can learn? Thank you!!!

Damian April 12, 2011 at 7:51 am

Here is a quick note I had put together in the Zappiti guide on system storage:

You are going to want to add a Zappiti shortcut to your Dune Main Menu to easily access the Zappiti jukebox (to create a shortcut you must be using Dune firmware 100706_1032_beta). To do this you will need to have system storage set up on your Dune. The easiest way to do this is to attach a USB Thumb drive to your Dune (keep in mind the thumb drive must remain connected to the Dune, so make sure you use a thumb drive that you will not need elsewhere). Download the System Storage Utilities from here (http://store.duneplayer.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=2) and copy over to a shared folder that you can access on the Dune. With the USB thumb drive connected to the Dune, navigate to the System Storage Utilities files via the Dune and execute the “dune_service_init_system_storage.dsf” file. Once done you should now have system storage set up.

To create the shortcut, navigate to the folder where you exported your Zappiti jukebox to from the Dune in the file browser, press MENU, choose “Add to main screen” in the popup menu. You should now have Zappiti as a shortcut on your Main Menu.

tom nichols April 11, 2011 at 6:24 pm

thank you very much for this guide as i`m not really a tech geek it was very well explained, however if i may incovenance you, i would like to set up dune hd1 with several external hdd using yadis with all my movies in one index with access to all movie files using a usb hub or whatever, i don`t want to go the network rout, any suggestions and guidence would be very much appreciated.
thank you very much
tom

Damian April 12, 2011 at 7:55 am

Tom,

I honestly have no experience with external drives, so I wouldn’t want to give you incorrect advice. Best bet would be to ask over on the yaDIS MPCClub thread:

http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=151

Cheers
Damian

Carlos Lima September 10, 2011 at 6:54 pm

Olá amigos,
Este tópico ficou inoperante desde abril passado?
Gostaria de saber se há algum problema e se não haverá mais suporte ao yaDIS?
Saudações desde Brasil.

wael February 9, 2012 at 11:09 am

hi Damian ,

i have Dune Max and i tried to do the same your guide i but i still cant do it.i have the last firmware and i tried to execute the “dune_service_init_system_storage.dsf” file.but its giving me error.

Damian February 21, 2012 at 8:48 am

Were you able to get this sorted out? I think with the latest firmware you can do the initiate system storage all from the service menu

Christopher February 25, 2012 at 8:42 am

Hello Damian, just bought my Smart D1 and trying out the multitude of software. I am confused at the moment about where exactly I should export the yaDIS jukebox to ? Could you possibly help ?

Damian March 5, 2012 at 1:28 pm

You export it to wherever you want to have your jukebox files stored. Where are your media files stored currently?

Christopher March 9, 2012 at 3:21 am

Hello Damian, great thanks. My media files are currently on a USB Disk connected to the Dune and on a Qnap Nas. I hope to change that soon and have my media files on the internal HDD.

Carlos March 3, 2012 at 4:17 am

Thanks a lot Damian for this excellent review. I have bought a D1, despite it is 2 years old and will be receiving it on Monday

Just one question: I have installed YaDis 2.2, and in this release I do not see in the “Media” tab any options for CASE, I see only Video and AUdio options

Any idea?

Thanks

Damian March 5, 2012 at 1:18 pm

Hmmm… maybe the feature was removed as I believed there have been quite a few updates to yaDIS since I wrote this guide.

Mr Eric March 28, 2012 at 8:27 am

that’s certainly because you only show posters and not cases…
Go to setup/interface, just a bit below the template in “options” tick “use cases for movies”. You should have then the case option in the media tab ;)
PS : don’t forget to re-process your movies to apply changes…

Comments are closed, visit the forums to continue the discussion.

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