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The Q4 "Come, Follow Me" curriculum video libraries for USB Video Manager are now available.

I just want to express my gratitude for this project. It sure makes my job easier!

The Q1 2017 "Come, Follow Me" curriculum video libraries for USB Video Manager are now available. An additional level of hierarchy organizes the videos by lesson title within each month.

We have been working on a project to support ALL videos (in all categories) in the media library using an automated method to generate the library files. Automation allows virtually continuous updates. Early versions of this are found by scrolling to the bottom of the library list in USB Video Manager. To automate the process, we needed to make sure each video had a unique and consistent identifier. (There are duplicate ids and titles in the media library, and the same video in different languages compounds the issue.) A side effect of this will cause videos previously downloaded to re-download one more time for the new libraries generated in an automated fashion. You will see this effect in the Q1 2017 “Come, Follow Me” library. There are ways to avoid this with a little shuffling on your computer – send me a private message if you want the details.

I'm looking forward to the automated ALL Videos updates. I think we would use the export to directory as suggested by mattcragun. He wrote: "You can essentially just export your files to USB using "USB Video Manger", but just select the directory where your media files are hosted...". We have a Plex server and Western Digital TV Media Player hosting videos. Fortunately, there are a few Plex users in our ward that can advise me on it's setup and maintenance. We just need an easy automated way for the files to be downloaded and updated in a timely way and as well as well organized. Am I right that this method does duplicate the needed disk space? Is there a way to avoid doubling the disk space? It would be nice if it had the option to export as softlinks rather than copying the files. I new to all this and exploring all options.

alisonfelt wrote:Am I right that this method does duplicate the needed disk space? Is there a way to avoid doubling the disk space? It would be nice if it had the option to export as softlinks rather than copying the files.

USB Video Manager manages files with a 2 step process. Step 1: Select a library and download the videos to your computer. Step 2: Export the videos to a USB Flash (or for that matter, any disk drive).

There are roughly 5500 unique English videos in the Media Library if you ignore different resolutions of the same video. However, videos are duplicated under different categories and result in about 8500 videos if you traverse all categories in the Media Library on lds.org. For example, the video "Elder and Sister Bednar- Gift of Discernment" can be found in the "Face to Face" area, and found again in a March "Come, Follow Me" Sunday School lesson, and a third time under "Holy Ghost" in the Topics category. If you were to download the Full media library, Step 1 would download the video once. Step 2 would export the video 3 times. USB Video Manager does not support creating links. It does require some extra space.

alisonfelt wrote:We just need an easy automated way for the files to be downloaded and updated in a timely way and as well as well organized. Am I right that this method does duplicate the needed disk space? Is there a way to avoid doubling the disk space? It would be nice if it had the option to export as softlinks rather than copying the files. I new to all this and exploring all options.

If your exploring all options let me add another to your list. A few years back I had the need to support foreign languages and subtitles, which are not supported by the USB video manager described in this thread. I came up with a custom Roku channel and a different export step that does not duplicate videos for each appearance in the media library. As I am probably still the only user it's not the most beautiful of processes but it gets the job done. You can read up about it at https://github.com/paulwhiting/GospelLi ... /README.md.

I would be astonished is something similar could not be done for your TV/Plex setup.

I am excited about the Full Library download, but I have tried a few times this morning, and the program keeps crashing? I have even tried just downloading a portion. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a new version?

Is the download for 2016 October Conference somewhere?

Sorry about all the questions.

bhorsley wrote:the program keeps crashing? I have even tried just downloading a portion. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a new version?

The full library and many of the subsets are _very_ large and can crash USB Video Manager today. This is still work in progress. Stay tuned...

bhorsley wrote:Is the download for 2016 October Conference somewhere?

I just added October 2016 General Conference as a download library in USB Video Manager. It took less than a minute to generate. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

I love the USB Video Manager but it no longer exports for me. I am using Windows 10 and when I try to do an export I always get an error that it is unable to copy a *.jpg file. The file it has a problem with is always different. After I get the error the export stops. It seems to setup the folder structure and fails before any videos are copied to that folder structure. I've tried different computers but get the same result. I am using the 20140102 version which I think is the latest.

What am I doing wrong?

Not sure if it matters but I'm using a library from http://paulwhiting.github.io/GospelLibr ... ry_rss.xml

stephengrigg wrote:I am using Windows 10 and when I try to do an export I always get an error that it is unable to copy a *.jpg file. The file it has a problem with is always different.

As a test, you might want to disable any anti-virus. I've see AV cause a file to "disappear" while it's being scanned.