Utility: Batch Metadata Importer 3.x

[talbot3]

Stuckless, I can get the backgrounds to work for my movies files if I name them themovie_background.jpg and place it in the same directory as the file. So your program would need to download the background and name it themovie_backgroundnd.jpg and place it in the same folder as themovie.mvk, themovie.jpg, and themovie.mkv.properties.
This would be an awesome addition if its possible.

[stuckless]

S M E, I think that some people use folders because it looks "neater" when you browse the filesystem. I only use folders for DVDs, personally. As for the tool, since it is a batch processor, you can quickly run a set of tests against some movies, first with the imdb provider, and then with themoviesdb.com provider. Since the processor uses the movie filename as a key to search on, you may have some issues if your names have dates appeneded to them. (ie, you may get a lot less exact hits)

talbot3, thanks for the info. Of course, for me to do this, I'd also have to install SageMC, then figure out backgrounds, so it's not a high priority feature for me

[electronics4lif]

When I pass the --listProviders command after updating to 1.11, themoviedb.com is not listed as an installed provider. Was this not included in the download? Do I need to load it a different way?

Thank you.

[mrdrbdt]

Is there documentation somewhere on how to write a provider? After looking at the data pulled from imdb and the moviedb, I think I'd like to pull the categories from imdb, since they match up with the fancy fonts in sagemc, and the descriptions and covers from imdb, since they are more complete and higher res, respectively.

In the short term, is there a way to only update thumbnails? Using forcethumbnails seems to not do anything, they all just get skipped.

[stuckless]

When I pass the --listProviders command after updating to 1.11, themoviedb.com is not listed as an installed provider.

make sure that when you "upgrade", that you clean out the previous install first. This project uses versioned jar files (ie, jarname-version.jar) and if multiple versions of the same jar file exists in the same directory, then java will load all of them, BUT, there is no guarantee that it will actually use the version you want.

At the very least, you need to delete all jars in the jars directory before your install over top. Or, to be safer, extract to another location, and them move your metadata.properties (if you have one) into the new extracted area.

I may look into providing a simple installer, if I find that too many people are having issues with installing the tools over top of a previous install.

I seem to be having problems with the default imdb provider.

IMDB changed their site, but I fixed it as of 1.11, if it's still broken, then see my comment about installation.

Is there documentation somewhere on how to write a provider?

See the wiki. Then check out the source code, and start with providing an implementation for IMediaMetadataProvider. (See the current implementations for additional information)

In the short term, is there a way to only update thumbnails? Using forcethumbnails seems to not do anything, they all just get skipped.

--forceThumbnail is only useful in conjunction with --update or --force. But i'll look into it.

[mrdrbdt]

Originally Posted by stuckless

IMDB changed their site, but I fixed it as of 1.11, if it's still broken, then see my comment about installation.

Yeah, I'm a fool... I started writing that post late last night and then I fell asleep before posting. When I woke up today, I just hit the "post" button and went and got coffee.

Originally Posted by stuckless

See the wiki. Then check out the source code, and start with providing an implementation for IMediaMetadataProvider. (See the current implementations for additional information)

I'll have to take a look. I've never written java, so this should be interesting!

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Gerry, I agree it wouldn't be too much effort, and I'm currently looking into providing additional cover art functionality and providers, so mabe at some point i'll look into backgrounds.

It sounds, from your comment, that backgrounds only work for movies that are in a folder. It's too bad it couldn't also work for movies that are not in individual folders. I typically don't create a new folder each movie. (but maybe I'm just misunderstanding how backgrounds work)

You can output the FanArt to a central directory (eg: /var/media/fanart/video) and name it the title of the movie. As long as we're making requests: I would like to add that I would like to be able to run this twice, once to import DVD Profiler data and once to query for just FanArt.

B

[mrdrbdt]

themoviedb.com categories are frustrating...

I tested this against 7 movies with # of genres set to 2, I got 12 different genres... It seems like they arbitrarily make up the movie categories with no regard to keeping the numbers of available categories reasonable.

Two funny examples
A View to a Kill is listed as a "Chick Flick"..
About Schmidt is listed as "Drama Film/Social Drama Film"

I do like the extend descriptions and large cover art, though. I guess I'm just extra motivated now to figure out how to make a hybrid provider.

the batchimporter is still an awesome tool!

[stuckless]

You can output the FanArt to a central directory (eg: /var/media/fanart/video) and name it the title of the movie. As long as we're making requests: I would like to add that I would like to be able to run this twice, once to import DVD Profiler data and once to query for just FanArt.

Yeah, it's looking like there may end up being 2 tools; one for metadata and one for cover-art/backgrounds. But, doing a command line tool for coverart and backgrounds, may be limited, since you won't actually be able to choose and select an image from a command shell This means that if I provide a coverart command line tool, then it would have to chose the coverart and background image for you, without you seeing the actual images.

I assume you are using SageMC if you are using Fan Art, since it's my understanding that Fan Art isn't supported in the stock stv??

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by mrdrbdt

themoviedb.com categories are frustrating...

I tested this against 7 movies with # of genres set to 2, I got 12 different genres... It seems like they arbitrarily make up the movie categories with no regard to keeping the numbers of available categories reasonable.

Two funny examples
A View to a Kill is listed as a "Chick Flick"..
About Schmidt is listed as "Drama Film/Social Drama Film"

I do like the extend descriptions and large cover art, though. I guess I'm just extra motivated now to figure out how to make a hybrid provider.

the batchimporter is still an awesome tool!

If I get a chance tonight, i'll create a simple hybrid IMDB/TheMovieDB provider. The nice thing about the themoviedb API is that is actually supports looking up content based on an IMDB id, so it would be pretty easy for me to create a composite provider that would use IMDB for searching and getting back the base details, but, use themoviedb.com to get the thumbnail url and description.

if I get a couple of hours tonight, then I'll look into that.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Yeah, it's looking like there may end up being 2 tools; one for metadata and one for cover-art/backgrounds. But, doing a command line tool for coverart and backgrounds, may be limited, since you won't actually be able to choose and select an image from a command shell This means that if I provide a coverart command line tool, then it would have to chose the coverart and background image for you, without you seeing the actual images.

I assume you are using SageMC if you are using Fan Art, since it's my understanding that Fan Art isn't supported in the stock stv??

Yeah, I switched over just for the feature. I am okay with accepting the first image and manually replacing it if I don't like it. The issue for me is trying to match up the downloaded filenames for whatever name SageMC is looking for. I tried once, and it seems as the aforementioned space character issue is causing problems. I figure the easiest way to take care of it is for the tool I use to generate properties files is also the tool which names the FanArt.

Thanks for taking a look at it.

B

[stuckless]

I tried once, and it seems as the aforementioned space character issue is causing problems

Yeah, that should be fixed as of 1.10.... but I'm still unsure how a space at the end of the title is causing problems for fanart. I would have thought that the fanart would have been keyed of the filename and not the title.

[mrdrbdt]

Originally Posted by stuckless

If I get a chance tonight, i'll create a simple hybrid IMDB/TheMovieDB provider. The nice thing about the themoviedb API is that is actually supports looking up content based on an IMDB id, so it would be pretty easy for me to create a composite provider that would use IMDB for searching and getting back the base details, but, use themoviedb.com to get the thumbnail url and description.

if I get a couple of hours tonight, then I'll look into that.

That would be sweeeeet!!

[ke6guj]

+1. That does sound sweet.

[stuckless]

Release 1.12 includes 2 things.

First, I fixed the issue where --forceThumbnail would not overwrite the thumbnail.

Second, I added a Composite Provider. A Composite Provider is a provider that made of 2 other providers, that you configure. This is an advanced feature that does not require programming, but you not use this unless you understand what you are doing. You will need to read the wiki to understand what configuration you need in order to configure your own Composite Provider.

And, most importantly, Composite Providers only work with providers that can support IMDB id information. This is basically all existing providers, except, the DVD Profiler ones. (Sorry DVD Profiler folks )

I've configured a sample provider, to show how it would be done. My sample provider basically uses the imdb provider to search, but then it pulls all detailed information from themoviedb.com, except for Genres. It pulls the Genre information from the imdb provider. Read the wiki.

You should NOT use the sample provider, since it is ONLY created in the event that NO other Composite Providers exist. As soon as you create your own, then it will disappear.

Good luck!

[stuckless]

I have written, but not released, a SageTV MediaFileMetadataParser plugin implementation, that uses the Metadata Tools to automatically fetch thumbnails and metadata information when new vidoes are added to the video library.

I'm currently testing it on my own system. It seems to be working, and if I feel it's working fine over the next couple of weeks, then I'll release it.

I'm just curious what people think about doing automatic metadata lookups when movies are added. I like it personally, or else I wouldn't have written it

[mrdrbdt]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Second, I added a Composite Provider. A Composite Provider is a provider that made of 2 other providers, that you configure. This is an advanced feature that does not require programming, but you not use this unless you understand what you are doing. You will need to read the wiki to understand what configuration you need in order to configure your own Composite Provider.

That...is....AWESOME

So much for going to sleep tonight! I'm gonna go try it out right now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again for adding this in!

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I'm just curious what people think about doing automatic metadata lookups when movies are added. I like it personally, or else I wouldn't have written it

What do people think? Too bad you're a guy or else you'd have a marriage proposal on the way! lol

-PGPfan

[bcjenkins]

Sean,

Does the new release include FanArt?

B

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Does the new release include FanArt?
B

You are way too optimistic No, unfortunately, I need to better understand the "rules" around how to name and store fanart before i can create that feature. And, I'll need to install SageMC on at least my dev client, so that I can test if it works. And honestly, I haven't looked into it yet.