6.1.4 Metadata Properties Parsing

[lovingHDTV]

Originally Posted by pjwerdna

Why do need a converter?

Lots of people on this forum have been using my files for months, if not years.
Why do SageTV developers feel we need yet another format?

Wonder if this is worth raising as a bug!

And this gives us the ability to fix broken/incomplete info in the wiz.bin file.

[JREkiwi]

Following a bit of experimentation FYI.

Title field gets stored as ShowEpisode. This is good as this is how the v6 imported videos display and sort.

The Roles listed are real tags. It's not using PeopleLists and RoleLists
ie:
Actor=Bill Smith, Jack Jones
Director=Peter Jackson
I've tried both , and ; as delimiters and both work

John

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Opus4

You would probably need some sort of .my -> .property conversion utility to help use your existing data.

To update this comment...

Rather than convert the .my files, someone should send info to SageTV about the .my file format and the tags it uses. (I think it is just a text file, right?)

Support can then be added to treat the .my file as the imported media's property file and/or allow the same tag names to be used in the .properties file.

- Andy

[stanger89]

While we're commenting on metadata, can I make a feature request:

Please, please can we have a way to associate/store the actual role (character) and the actors? eg:
Lead Actor/Keaneu Reaves/Neo

One thing I find when watching movies (especially animated ones) is that I'll sit there and go "I know that actor" or "I know that voice, but where from". DVD Profiler lets you go to a movie, see the Actors and their characters, and then when you click the actors name it gives you a list of other DVDs you have with that Actor in it, and other roles they're in, eg:

Watching a movie, there's this character "Smith", and I know I've seen him somewhere before, but where? Fire up DVD Profiler, go to "The Matrix", oh it's Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, click, "Ah, I see he's Lord Elrond in 'The Lord of the Rings'"

That's something I've really wanted to see in Sage for a long time, and Sage is so close to providing that functionality, we can already search/filter by actor, but the ability to associate Actor with Character has thrown a wrench into the idea.

[Opus4]

Submit it... I'm also always looking up a show on IMDB to figure out who some characters are & where I've seen them before. But, I don't use an outside data source, so for me it would require the EPG data to include actor<=>character associations.

- Andy

[JREkiwi]

I've posted a test version of what was RW .my Files, now RW metadata over here.

- Automatic creation of .my and or .properties files for current recordings.
- Manual creation of .my and or .properties files for any or all, current, past of future airing.
- Display more than default wiz.bin show information in imported videos
- Saves IMDB data to wiz.bin, .properties files, .my files

John

[Opus4]

First, I omitted the video role property names, then I listed them with a mistake... I forgot to mention that for the property names with spaces, you have to escape the space with a backslash, so it is Lead\ Actor, not Lead Actor. I realized that when I went to finally create some test files and remembered that spaces in property names need that slash... and then I tested 2 versions to make sure this time! Now, let's see what I still forgot.

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

The Roles listed are real tags. It's not using PeopleLists and RoleLists
ie:
Actor=Bill Smith, Jack Jones
Director=Peter Jackson

I'm curious what you meant by 'real tags' vs. 'PeopleLists and RoleLists'.

- Andy

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I'm curious what you meant by 'real tags' vs. 'PeopleLists and RoleLists'.

Just that, they are individual tags. When using AddShow you need PeopleLists and corresponding RoleLists.

John

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Opus4

... I forgot to mention that for the property names with spaces, you have to escape the space with a backslash, so it is Lead\ Actor, not Lead Actor.

Updated the RW Metadata import download with the changes to tags with spaces.

John

[nyplayer]

Is there any reason why the metadata is so limited. It has no original airdate no epgid is this by design or the limitations of getting the metadata? Using Nielm's plugin generated xml files have so much more information.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Is there any reason why the metadata is so limited. It has no original airdate no epgid is this by design or the limitations of getting the metadata? Using Nielm's plugin generated xml files have so much more information.

I would think that original airdate and external ID would be obvious additions as they are both included in the AddShow api, although I can see why they may have been omitted.

They would seem to be irrelevant to imported videos, however, as we all know people are screaming out for a way to "backup" their show data, for that occasion when there recordings are intentionally or unintentionally moved from recordings to imported videos.

It would possibly make sense to include the data available through AddAiring (ShowExternalID, StationID, StartTime, Duration, ParentalRating, HDTV, Stereo, ClosedCaptioning, SAP, Subtitled, PremierFinale) to provide a more complete "backup" solution.

John

[dvd_maniac]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Since this metadata support has come at the end of the v6.1 beta, other searching & display options for this info in the default STV will have to wait until a later version. Something tells me there will be customizations before then...

You can search for the 2 lines starting with the following text:

VideoSearchList = SearchSelectedFields

You can change which fields are searched by the SearchSelectedFields and SearchSelectedFieldsRegex API calls.

- Andy

Not quite sure what this means, would I have to place VideoSearchList = SearchSelectedFields followed by the text I want to search for in the search field?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Not quite sure what this means, would I have to place VideoSearchList = SearchSelectedFields followed by the text I want to search for in the search field?

No, he's describing where in the standard STV the search code is implemented in case you want to customize the implementation. Some knowledge of Studio coding would be required for this.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Not quite sure what this means, would I have to place VideoSearchList = SearchSelectedFields followed by the text I want to search for in the search field?

Hi dvd_maniac, He's talking about the search in the default STV. SageMC does it differently.

I have a small import over here that allows you to specify which fields you want you searches to search in. It really only works when you One Touch searching is disabled (I think that's the default) as there is a lot of other magic that happens when one touch searching is enabled.

I've used it to search on descriptions and actors in imported videos.

John

[dvd_maniac]

Thanx again JREkiwi,

That works perfectly. I just wish that I waited to do .my files for my entire collection (about 5500 videos), I do not mind redoing the Movies because IMDB is easy, but episodes are going to be a little harder, Hope someone can either create a .my converter, a properties file parser for tv.com or a way to import .my files to the wiz.bin...

Sage really is the best piece of software thanx to this community.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Hope someone can either create a .my converter, a properties file parser for tv.com or a way to import .my files to the wiz.bin...

I wouldn't rush out and manually change your 5500 to properties files. It's not too difficult to do a .my to properties converter, but it's probably best to wait for the whole properties thing to get nailed down before we start doing conversions.

John