What is this about?

Let me give you an example of a use case which will show you the problem.

The goal is to: Have access to the Recordings folder located on h:, and the Videos folder located on e: inside My Videos.

HDD's

• HDD e: Store
  On this HDD I have the following folders:
  • Videos
    • TV-Series
    • Trailers
    • Movies
    • ect.
  • Music
  • Pictures
• HDD h: TVE3
  Then I have a HDD which is used by TV-Server, to store the recorded files and the timeshiftbuffer files.
  On that HDD I have the following folders:
  • Recordings
  • Timeshiftbuffer

MediaPortal Configuration:

So now I want to have everything from e:\Videos shown inside MyVideos and also have access to my recordings folder on d:\recordings.

To do that, I would have add the following shares in "Movies"

• e:/Movies (default share)
• h:/recordings

MediaPortal - My Videos

Now this means that when I enter My Videos in MediaPortal, I automatically see the files and folders from e:/Movies.

That's fine, but what if I now want to watch a show I recorded?

Then I have to:

1. go one level up in My Movies
2. select the share I created for h:/recordings
3. look for the recording and play it.

That's not so cool.....

How to make it easier

With the NTFS feature shared here we can do something cool.

We can create junctions, or, on Vista or higher, symbolic links - the difference between them is that junctions can link to local folders only, whereas symbolic links can also target network (SMB) locations. You can think of them as a more powerful shortcut - because it will act as if the folder you created the "shortcut" to were really present in the folder you create the junction/symbolic link in.

1. install the LinkShellExtension Tool
2. go to h:
3. right click the recordings folder and select the "Pick Link Source" option
4. then go to e:/Movies
5. right click in anywhere in that folder and select Drop as -> Junction (or, on Vista or higher, as 'Symbolic Link')
6. now you can see the recordings folder in e:/Movies
7. Inside MediaPortal Configuration -> Videos -> shares you only have to add e:/Movies as share to have access to your videos and the recordings in one place.

The data is still located on h:/recordings, but if you enter e:/Movies you see that "shortcut" which appears just as if the folder would be there.

So you could create one folder and place the "junctions" to all the locations where you store your media.

Then you add this as a share to MediaPortal instead of adding many shares and making browsing painful.