Adding movie info to recorded shows

[IPFighter]

Is it possible to add movie or show "tag" information to files accessed through SageTV? Let me be clear about my precise situation.

I have previously recorded a number of shows or TV program on a DISH PVR and have now extracted them to my networked computer system running SageTV, converted them to mpeg files and can access them for playback. Thus, these do not contain the show information SageTV grabs when it records shows. Nevertheless, for playback of these shows, things work great. I have even been able to add a graphic to each file that shows up in the SageTV imported video files. BUT, it would be optimum to be able to add a description, either by inserted text or a graphic, that contained movie or TV show information that was visible when one selected the show for playback from the SageTV menu, e.g., show rating, length, year, rating and perhaps actors or short description. Is there a way to do this in SageTV?

A friend showed me Meedio, and while I'm not planning on switching, it was cool that it appeared to have a plugin that would download both a movie graphic and description info from the web and populate the Meedio interface.

So my question is (1) does there exist a similar automated way to populate the information and, if not, (2) if there is a way to manually enter the information in SageTV for each show.

Thanks in advance.

[dvd_maniac]

I've read a little about the my files and how some stv's create them when compressing. Can we just create a my file for every video we want to have info for? Also how did you add a graphic?

[dvd_maniac]

ok, that was easy.

I created a .my file in the same directory as one of my compressed movies that had no info and it just showed up.

Video file = End of Days.avi
Saved picture off internet and named End of Days.jpg, put it in same folder
Created a file called End of Days.my and attached the following:

title=End Of Days::Seizure Day
overview=Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Jericho Cane, a burned-out ex-cop with the world on his shoulders -- literally! Satan has taken over the body of a Wall Street banker (Gabriel Byrne) and has one goal in mind: mating with an innocent woman (Robin Tunney) before the end of the millennium (thus setting off Armageddon). Can Arnold save her -- and the world -- in time?
released=Jul 1, 2004 9:00:00 PM

These are the properties you need to populate
title=
overview=
released=

and this is my result:

[Cayars]

Yep, but you can't do this in the OriginalV2 stv. This functionality is STV related.

Carlo

[IPFighter]

Thanks for the input thus far. I liked what I read from dvd_maniac (except I was wondering if I can add more fields, e.g., "rating ="), but then was confused after cayars' post. Do I need to do something to the .stv before I can try what dvd_maniac proposed?

Speaking of .stv, sorry to still be a novice at this, but I do not get what a .stv is and how to use it. I sense that it is like a skin, allowing one to change some of the SageTV user interface. Is this correct? If so, can you point me to how to use these? There are some features where it would be really nice to customize the SageTV interface. For example, I find the folder options when I search my movie archive a bit cumbersome. Can that be changed?

Thanks

[dvd_maniac]

IPFighter

I didn't know what STV's really did until recently.
I wanted to put my entire dvd collection onto hard drive. I have over 1000 movies so unless I wanted to spend $10,000+ on a NAS, I had to think about compression. I have been converting video for years now and have tried several codecs. IMHO, none compare to the quality/ease of use as Nero's Recode MP4. However, Sage does not play them natively so Cayars STV(The best one IMHO) offers me a way to accomplish it. So STV's just don't change the menu, they can actually enhance the functionality. The above is just one small example of it. I can now place all my dvd's on my 1TB raid-o system with room to spare.

except I was wondering if I can add more fields, e.g., "rating ="),

I tried this but it didn't take it. Just seems to be the default. Maybe Cayars can help?

My work around for this is simple. Just add more info after you put in the release date and it will show up
EX:
release=July 4th, 2004 Rating= 9.0 Comment= "PLace comments here"

It works for me

[stanger89]

Yes, STVs are roughly skins, but they they can do much more than just change the look.

Regarding metadata files, you should look at mlbdude's SageMC STV, it supports DVD Profiler XML metadata, which has a VERY rich set of fields you can use.