Utility: Batch Metadata Importer 3.x

[stuckless]

@matt91, just a fyi... if there is an existing .properties for a given media item, then the scan will not happen and the plugin will simply load and pass those properties to sage. That was what happened in our first log post.

As for the timing... when bmt is run as a plugin you are at the merce of the sagetv media scanner. bmt is simply invoked once per media file that sage determines is a new file, or an updated file.

[stuckless]

Just a note about the Move category stuff.... I'm not sure that I'll do anything differently at the moment. I Currently use the IsTV, IsDVD, etc apis and unless there is a simple surefire way to do someting like IsMovie, then I really don't want to introduce lookup tables, category scanning, etc.

[Comitizer]

Do you mean that you won't be adding category mapping? Is there going to be an easy way to get the categories to line up?

Or do you mean that you won't be supporting looking up movies in the TV interface and TV in the videos interface?

[stuckless]

No, i'll add in the category mapping at some point... what i mean is that I don't want to scrape a bunch of category names to determine if a recording is a movie or not.

[iolaus]

Quick Question:

Does the Batch Metadata Importer REQUIRE the latest SageTV beta? I ask because I tried installing with the SageTV 6.5.9.204 and SageMC 6.3.9 and under Settings->SageMC->Main->Global UI Options->Display->Fan Art Backgrounds I get an option box without any text (ie Enable/Disable are missing).

Thanks.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by iolaus

Quick Question:

Does the Batch Metadata Importer REQUIRE the latest SageTV beta? I ask because I tried installing with the SageTV 6.5.9.204 and SageMC 6.3.9 and under Settings->SageMC->Main->Global UI Options->Display->Fan Art Backgrounds I get an option box without any text (ie Enable/Disable are missing).

Thanks.

From the release notes thread:

Release: 2.3

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Download

Requirements: SageTV 6.5.14 beta

Gerry

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by iolaus

Quick Question:

Does the Batch Metadata Importer REQUIRE the latest SageTV beta? I ask because I tried installing with the SageTV 6.5.9.204 and SageMC 6.3.9 and under Settings->SageMC->Main->Global UI Options->Display->Fan Art Backgrounds I get an option box without any text (ie Enable/Disable are missing).

Thanks.

To take full advantage of the fanart, then you'll also want to be running the latest SageMC beta as well.

BTW, SageMC->Main->Global UI is not a BMT menu, it's part of the core SageMC. If yo install the BMT STV plugin in SageMC, then you will get a new menu under SageMC->Extras, and you'll be a new Metadata/Fanart option in the video options for a media file / epg item.

[MacDaddy]

Sean - great utility!!! I have been using the early version and I'm truly amazed at how far both the CLI and plugin variations have evolved. Significantly easier to use and the experience on the Sage side is greatly improved.

I think I may have found a glitch. Not sure if it is in the BMT plugin code or may be in SageMC screen handling. Thought I would post here first for confirmation before trying on the SageMC thread.

I'm using Sage 6.5.14.210, SageMC 6.3.9, Phoenix 1.24 currently. In My Menu> Settings> SageMC> Extras> BMT Options, when I select the Fanart Central Folder option the screen loses all of the style from prior screens. There is no background to the window, the text appears in default and is not organized on the screen.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

I'm using Sage 6.5.14.210, SageMC 6.3.9, Phoenix 1.24 currently. In My Menu> Settings> SageMC> Extras> BMT Options, when I select the Fanart Central Folder option the screen loses all of the style from prior screens. There is no background to the window, the text appears in default and is not organized on the screen.

I saw that too, but haven't checked since version 2.1. You can also specify the fanart folder in SageMC -> Global UI -> Display -> Fanart Options

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

Sean - great utility!!! I have been using the early version and I'm truly amazed at how far both the CLI and plugin variations have evolved. Significantly easier to use and the experience on the Sage side is greatly improved.

I think I may have found a glitch. Not sure if it is in the BMT plugin code or may be in SageMC screen handling. Thought I would post here first for confirmation before trying on the SageMC thread.

I'm using Sage 6.5.14.210, SageMC 6.3.9, Phoenix 1.24 currently. In My Menu> Settings> SageMC> Extras> BMT Options, when I select the Fanart Central Folder option the screen loses all of the style from prior screens. There is no background to the window, the text appears in default and is not organized on the screen.

I actually noticed this for the first time as well, just the other day. In the next build, I'll be removing the fanart options from extras menu, since SageMC has then organized it's it's fanart menu, so there's no need to have in there twice.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Just a note about the Move category stuff.... I'm not sure that I'll do anything differently at the moment. I Currently use the IsTV, IsDVD, etc apis and unless there is a simple surefire way to do someting like IsMovie, then I really don't want to introduce lookup tables, category scanning, etc.

Boy I hope you change your mind about that one. It's really pretty easy to check the category and see if it is "Movie" or =the Sage Property for Alternate Movie Category. This is the way I currently do it in the Fan Art import for default STV.

For me 95% of my movies are recorded from HBO, Cinemax, etc. I don't rip too many DVDs, so this would be a real problem. If it looks in the TV folder for a movie that was recorded off of TV, then you can't have different fan art for movies and tv shows with the same title.

I was planning on implementing the Phoenix APIs, but I may have to hold off a little while longer...

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

It's really pretty easy to check the category and see if it is "Movie" or =the Sage Property for Alternate Movie Category.

I don't know enough about how categories / alternate categories to implement this. So until I do some research, or someone like yourself posts the exact logic, then it's going to have to wait. For example, statements like, "check the category" and "Sage Property for Alternate movie category" are fine, but they do nothing to actually help me. If you want to post the exact logic, ie, the exact property names, values, function calls, etc, then i'll look at adding it in... If not, then eventually, I'll get some time to research it and put it in later.

Also keep in mind that adding it bmt is tricky because when the application is running in a command line mode, then it won't have access to the Sage Category, etc.

[toricred]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

Sean - great utility!!! I have been using the early version and I'm truly amazed at how far both the CLI and plugin variations have evolved. Significantly easier to use and the experience on the Sage side is greatly improved.

I think I may have found a glitch. Not sure if it is in the BMT plugin code or may be in SageMC screen handling. Thought I would post here first for confirmation before trying on the SageMC thread.

I'm using Sage 6.5.14.210, SageMC 6.3.9, Phoenix 1.24 currently. In My Menu> Settings> SageMC> Extras> BMT Options, when I select the Fanart Central Folder option the screen loses all of the style from prior screens. There is no background to the window, the text appears in default and is not organized on the screen.

That's the same thing I've seen for the last couple of versions.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I don't know enough about how categories / alternate categories to implement this. So until I do some research, or someone like yourself posts the exact logic, then it's going to have to wait. For example, statements like, "check the category" and "Sage Property for Alternate movie category" are fine, but they do nothing to actually help me. If you want to post the exact logic, ie, the exact property names, values, function calls, etc, then i'll look at adding it in... If not, then eventually, I'll get some time to research it and put it in later.

Also keep in mind that adding it bmt is tricky because when the application is running in a command line mode, then it won't have access to the Sage Category, etc.

OK here is a screenshot of the studio code...
The function call is just GetShowCategory(Airing). This returns a string, which I compare to "Movie", if they match it's a movie, otherwise it isn't.

There is also a Sage Property that shows up in the Customize menu of the default Sage TV, called Alternate Movie Category Name. It defaults to "Film". In the Sage.properties file it looks like:
alternate_movie_category=Film

I do not currently check this property, but I believe its purpose is to allow for program data that uses something other than "Movie" for the category name. I had planned to implement this in a future release just in case anyone needed it.

[Nick_W]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I do not currently check this property, but I believe its purpose is to allow for program data that uses something other than "Movie" for the category name. I had planned to implement this in a future release just in case anyone needed it.

Hi,

I don't use the default STV, but just wanted to let you know that lots of Brits use that, as we call them films!

Regards,

Nick.

[stuckless]

Thanks Tiki, I've added an enhancement req with the information your provided.

[Nick_W]

Hi Sean,

This is working great for me. I have one small issue and that's to do with specials (from TV series).

The Office (UK) is one example. Naming of the actual season episodes is fine, but the specials didn't have an episode number. You can see details here:

http://thetvdb.com/?tab=seasonall&id=78107&lid=7

Do you have any idea how I might name them?

TIA,

Nick.

[stuckless]

Nick, I can't confirm this, but might work....

TheOffice-ChristmasSpecialPart1-000000-0.avi

The reason this MAY work is that the naming format will match a sage recording, which is by default a tv show, and when the sage recording format is used, then tv episode lookups are done using the title, ie, ChristmasSpecialPart1 and not the Season and Episode info.

To thest this, you can try to run a quick "offline" test such as...

java -jar MetadataTool.jar --offline --tv --metadataOnly c:\temp\TheOffice-ChristmasSpecialPart1-000000-0.avi

This will create 2 files in your C:\Temp area, TheOffice-ChristmasSpecialPart1-000000-0.avi and TheOffice-ChristmasSpecialPart1-000000-0.avi.properties. Then look in the properties to see if it found the correct data. If so, then it works... if not, then i'm not sure there's any way to fix it, unless i add a specific case.

[reggie14]

I'm a little confused by the installation instructions. The first step is to install the beta of SageTV, and it says to do that with these steps:

• Stop service and close SageTV
• Backup Needed Files (sage.properties, wiz.bin, sagemc_menu.xml)
• Install
• Copy wiz.bin & sagemc_menu.xml back
• ONLY add back in custom properties from backup file to sage.properties

I've never done it this way. In particular, I've never touched the sage.properties file after upgrading SageTV. I've always kept a backup of the whole SageTV directory, just in case, but I've never actually had to do anything with it. And, it doesn't seem like the upgrade should touch the wiz.bin or the sagemc_menu.xml files. Are these just uber-conservative steps, or are they actually necessary?

Also, this will be the first time that I'm upgrading SageMC after I've done quite a bit of tweaking to the configuration settings. Does upgrading SageMC basically undo all that, putting me back in the default SageMC configuration, or is there a way to save and restore some/all of that stuff?

[sflamm]

The instructions are written for completeness. Different folks have setup/customized SageTV differently.

Upgrade does not touch the sage.properties, wiz.bin, sagemc_menu.xml files (as far as I know).

However, if you somehow lose those files you'd probably be unhappy - so backing up is the right step to take. Backing up the whole SageTV directory is just fine (and maybe easier for you in practice - though unnecessary)

If you dont care about your recordings (LOL) then ignore the wiz.bin

If you have not customized the sagemc menus then you can ignore that one.

If you have not customized properties (done by directly editing the sage.properties) file then you can ignore that step.

There is no easy way to restore your custom settings that I know of ... anyone else have a trick for this?