Central FanArt Folder Improvments

[jaminben]

While we're at it could we also grab Season Banner Wide. I've noticed that not all shows have these but if we could use some of them why not

[stuckless]

For the initial API implementation, I want it to be compatible with the existing fanart support in SageMC. So i've implemented a GetBackground() as per documentation, but are Banners supported at all? and if so, what's the file format for a banner (and other supported artifacts)?

Also, is there any point in implementing a GetPoster, since the Poster is currently the thumbnail in Sage?

Thanks

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

For the initial API implementation, I want it to be compatible with the existing fanart support in SageMC. So i've implemented a GetBackground() as per documentation, but are Banners supported at all? and if so, what's the file format for a banner (and other supported artifacts)?

Also, is there any point in implementing a GetPoster, since the Poster is currently the thumbnail in Sage?

As far as I'm aware their is no support for banners, season banners etc and file format is just .jpg. EP will proberly know more. I wouldn't bother with the poster as its not needed and is the same as folder.jpg.

[stuckless]

So, Initially I was thinking that I'd build the first release as compatible with SageMC, but do you think that we should just build the API to match the proposed central folder support and just use that as a starting point, including support for Banners, etc. It would mean that SageMC would have to be changed to use the new Api.

ie, I have a build now that works (in theory) as per the SageMC model, but it only has a single API call, GetBackground(), since that's all SageMC supports. It currently does the logic of determining which background to return based on media type, central location, etc. (There's a lot more logic in there than I originally thought)

[jaminben]

My understanding is it doesn't matter too much where the fanart is stored as this can be specified by a SageMC dev in the code just as long as when we call GetBackground() it knows how to search for the background. So for now I'd stick with whats working in SageMC and use the central background folder system. I don't really understand how you can tell the API where this Central Folder is, but for testing purposes I could incorporate your new API call into my grouped TV series import or the Movie Info Screen import to see how things work out rather than roll it out across the whole of the SageMC platform.

It would also be handy if when we called the background using say GetShowTitle(Airing) your API could also clean the title for unwanted characters. An example of this would be Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. This isn't such a big deal as I can do this within Studio but thought it might be better done outside of Sage/Studio.

[stuckless]

My understanding is it doesn't matter too much where the fanart is stored as this can be specified by a SageMC dev in the code just as long as when we call GetBackground() it knows how to search for the background. So for now I'd stick with whats working in SageMC and use the central background folder system. I don't really understand how you can tell the API where this Central Folder is...

I have it pulling the central fanart folder from the sagemc configuration.

It would also be handy if when we called the background using say GetShowTitle(Airing) your API could also clean the title for unwanted characters.

Yeah... that what I was thinking as well. The current code accepts a MediaFile|Airing|Show and it will call getTitle() and clean those titles within the API... Again my focus is to create a single line API call that can go from STV object to an image path. All decisions, cleaning, etc, are handing in the API.

I may have something that I can release today depending on how things go.... I'd consider the first couple of releases to be "beta" so that we can work out the kinks

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Again my focus is to create a single line API call that can go from STV object to an image path. All decisions, cleaning, etc, are handing in the API.

Sounds good

Originally Posted by stuckless

I may have something that I can release today depending on how things go.... I'd consider the first couple of releases to be "beta" so that we can work out the kinks

Sweet, I look forward to seeing it in action

[evilpenguin]

Sounds great, I think matching the current functionality is perfect for the initial release. I'm sure Mike would be more than happy to delete those 100+ lines of Studio code and replace it with one function call

RE: Poster vs. Folder.jpg - I figure if we're going to do this, lets do it right. Folder.jpg doesn't really mean anything and could either refer to a poster or a thumbnail. I vote we move away from Sage's naming conventions and just call the images what they are: background, banner, poster. We can let Sage worry about the individual video thumbnails as they've already got a good system for it and that'd be a lot of extra stuff to keep track of.

Do you want to get your code up on your google code page and I'll make a copy and start adding the extra features I'm talking about.

[evilpenguin]

While we're discussing this, lets chat about the improvements Sage is working on for metadata as this impacts all of us.

Here's what I got from Sage (Keep in mind they're trying to get this in, but there's no guarantee's its possible. So don't get your hopes up quite yet.)...

This is using the MediaFileMetadataParser interface, right? If so, there's a
2 part solution which should probably be fairly easy for us to add.

First thing is there'd be a new property which lists the 'extra' metadata
fields which should be retained in a Map from whatever is extracted during
the parsing phase. (it does store them all; but then only uses some of them
to create the actual Airing/Show/MediaFile objects that correspond) Normally
it then cleans out the Map to reduce memory usage; but this new property
would indicate to leave certain ones in there. And those would no longer be
redundant or unused; which is why the clearing is done in the first place.
(so it wouldn't retain Title for example, since that's stored elsewhere)

Second thing is we'll add 2 new API calls, GetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile
mf, String name) and SetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile mf, String name, String
value) which would then allow extraction of any of these extra properties
and also setting them through the API as well. Maybe even a
GetMediaFileMetadataNames(MediaFile mf) to get a list of all the additional
ones used by a MediaFile.

Which boils down to 2-3 new API calls...

GetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile mf, String name)
GetMediaFileMetadataNames(MediaFile mf)
SetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile mf, String name, String value)

(Sage said that there might be an issue getting SetMediaFileMetadata() working, but they seem to think the other two are pretty doable.)

And a new property

custom_metadata_properties=

So for what i'm working on for jaminben, I'd be making .properties files that look like this...

Title=Scrubs S05E22 - My Dj Vu, My Dj Vu
Actor=Zach Braff;Donald Faison;Sarah Chalke;Christa Miller;Aloma Wright;Robert Maschio;Sam Lloyd;Neil Flynn;Ken Jenkins;Judy Reyes;John C. McGinley;
Guest=Greg Wittman;Randall Winston;Carole Goldman;John David Conti;Matt Bush;Yvonne Arias;Keith Allan;Joe Rose;Jay Kenneth Johnson;
Director=Linda Mendoza;
Writer=Mike Schwartz;
Description=J.D. feels that the same things happen over and over again at the hospital. Dr. Cox returns to work, but Elliot believes that he has lost his usual confidence. Elliot calls Dr. Cox on his behavior. Carla gets fed up with Turk, because he still can do a lot of stuff, but she can't since she is now pregnant.
Rating=TV-PG
SeasonNumber=5
EpisodeNumber=22
SeriesTitle=Scrubs
EpisodeTitle=My Dj Vu, My Dj Vu
OriginalAirDate=1/01/2001
StarRating=7

So on the studio side to use these new metadata values we'd need to modify custom_metadata_properties like this to let it know what extra metadata properties we want it to keep track of...

custom_metadata_properties=SeasonNumber;EpisodeNumber;SeriesTitle;EpisodeTitle;OriginalAirDate;StarRating

And then we could access the values from within the API like this...

GetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile|Airing|Show, "SeasonNumber")

Which you could wrap in if (... != "") to check for existence.

[stuckless]

ep, i will put the code into a google code project, but I'm currently doing some testing with ben at the moment. Once we get the initial version stabilized, then i'll release the code, jar, and javadoc. So far we are aobut 50% there

I think that once the initial release it out there, we should finalize a "central" fanart folder structure that accounts for all the things that we need/want. Once that is done, i can quickly add that implementation into the API, so that the api will begin to use the new folder structure. It sounds like to me, that we haven't quite finialized the central folder structure yet.

As for the naming conventions... I agree.

Maybe if the testing with Ben and myself goes well this weekend... We can have something ready by monday??

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Maybe if the testing with Ben and myself goes well this weekend... We can have something ready by monday??

Sounds good. Besides, I'm just using Sage development today as an excuse to not clean my apartment so I guess I can wait

[stuckless]

ep, the new Metadata calls that Sage is puttin in, seems very good, and muchly needed. Thanks for posting that.

I think that from your post, you are suggesting that we standardize on the field names for metadata, such as using "SeasonNumber", "EpisodeNumber", etc... which I think is a good idea.

Did Sage give an indication if the new api calls were in 6.5 or what release it would be in?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by stuckless

ep, the new Metadata calls that Sage is puttin in, seems very good, and muchly needed. Thanks for posting that.

I think that from your post, you are suggesting that we standardize on the field names for metadata, such as using "SeasonNumber", "EpisodeNumber", etc... which I think is a good idea.

Did Sage give an indication if the new api calls were in 6.5 or what release it would be in?

It all really depends on how difficult it is to add them. They said if it was easy it could make it into the next beta, but if it ends up being harder then they'd have push it back further. Either way, its on they're radar which is a good thing.

[jaminben]

All sounds very exciting Especially the custom_metadata_properties

Going back to the naming of images, I assume your going to include a season & image numbering system to allow for multiple images with various seasons? These could then be sorted with either stuckless's java code or from within studio using the new sage api's.

Something like:

Lost background1.jpg
Lost background2.jpg

Lost S01 poster1.jpg
Lost S01 poster2.jpg
Lost S03 poster4.jpg

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by jaminben

Going back to the naming of images, I assume your going to include a season & image numbering system to allow for multiple images with various seasons? These could then be sorted with either stuckless's java code or from within studio using the new sage api's.

From an ease of development standpoint I think we should use folders so we can parse paths without regular expressions.

Basically, he's my proposal...

Base Folders:

CentralFolder\TV
CentralFolder\Movies
CentralFolder\Music

Television:

TV\SeriesTitle\seriesInfo.data (Text file containing base series information Description, Genre, etc)
TV\SeriesTitle\Backgrounds\(All Base Backgrounds Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Posters\(All Base Posters Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Banners\(All Base Banners Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Actors\(All Base Actor Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Backgrounds\(All Season Specific Backgrounds Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Posters\(All Season Specific Posters Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Banners\(All Season Specific Banners Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Actors\(All Season Specific Actor Images)

Movies:

Movies\MovieTitle\Backgrounds\(All Background Images)
Movies\MovieTitle\Posters\(All Poster Images)
Movies\MovieTitle\Banners\(All Banner Images)
Movies\MovieTitle\Actors\(All Actor Images)

Music: ??? - I don't really have any music so I don't have a clue how to organize this

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

TV\SeriesTitle\seriesInfo.data (Text file containing base series information Description, Genre, etc)
TV\SeriesTitle\Backgrounds\(All Base Backgrounds Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Posters\(All Base Posters Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Banners\(All Base Banners Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Actors\(All Base Actor Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Backgrounds\(All Season Specific Backgrounds Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Posters\(All Season Specific Posters Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Banners\(All Season Specific Banners Images)
TV\SeriesTitle\Season #\Actors\(All Season Specific Actor Images)

Thats how I would prefer to see it organized, but I'll go with the flow.

[stuckless]

A question about TV shows that are no longer in the SageTV recordings. ie, let's say you record some shows, but then later you rename them and simply put them in your video library as "TVSHOW/Title - S01E03.avi". They are no longer TV recordings as far as far sage is concerned, so would their Fanart be in TV or Movies? If TV, how would you know the difference between a TV video and a Movie video (scrape filename??)

I think today, SageMC would still treat them as movie vidoes (even though they are TV shows) and their fanart would be in Movies.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

A question about TV shows that are no longer in the SageTV recordings. ie, let's say you record some shows, but then later you rename them and simply put them in your video library as "TVSHOW/Title - S01E03.avi". They are no longer TV recordings as far as far sage is concerned, so would their Fanart be in TV or Movies? If TV, how would you know the difference between a TV video and a Movie video (scrape filename??)

I think today, SageMC would still treat them as movie vidoes (even though they are TV shows) and their fanart would be in Movies.

Using EP's tool they wouldn't, you can scrape the file and it will place it back into the tv recordings list even though the file is located outside the recording drive. It will also use the old images as it would think its a TV recording again.Then if we create a new grouped TV screen which can filter seasons you could have a new screen which is dedicated to TV shows.

I was looking at something like this, Series Wide Banners Layout is what I liked best or even Series List Posters Layout.

[wayner]

Guys - one other issue to keep in mind (if you haven't already) is movies that you record from TV. It seems that if you record a movie and the Fanart for the movie is in Mediabackgrounds\Movies then that Fanart will not be used as SageMC is looking for it in Mediabackgrounds\TV - at least that was the case a few weeks ago.

[evilpenguin]

SageTV knows which TV recordings are Movies, that's why you can sort by them in the schedule, so I don't think that would be a problem.