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jopie · 2012-04-09, 10:25

Hi,

I am a new user of XBMC and ran into lots of little problems. The one that has me stumped most is the apparent inability of XBMC to recognise a single tv show. The single documentaries I am trying to add do not appear in tvdb but some of them are listed in the IMDB. I tried giving them an appropriate name and even used ViMediaManager to create nfo files with the data for the show in it. I gave the nfo file the same name as that of the show and also updated the library, yet XBMC still ignores it. The show is now listed under TV Shows but when I click on it it is empty. Any suggestions?

PS. Is there any way I can scrape both TVDB and IMDB for tv shows?
PSS. Are there any better ways of adding/changing the metadata in XBMC than using ViMM?

**Chris!** · (This post was last modified: 2012-04-09, 13:13 by Chris!.)

I don't recall there being an IMDB tv show scraper.

Quote:PSS. Are there any better ways of adding/changing the metadata in XBMC than using ViMM?

Add it to thetvdb so others can benefit from you entering info. If it falls in the rules of thetvdb

Quote:I gave the nfo file the same name as that of the show

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Imp...y#TV_Shows
(read the first line)

jopie · 2012-04-09, 13:28

(2012-04-09, 13:12)pseudo7 Wrote: I don't recall there being an IMDB tv show scraper.

Quote:PSS. Are there any better ways of adding/changing the metadata in XBMC than using ViMM?
Add it to thetvdb so others can benefit from you entering info. If it falls in the rules of thetvdb

Quote:I gave the nfo file the same name as that of the show
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Imp...y#TV_Shows
(read the first line)

What I meant with the ref to IMDB is that individual tv documentaries are sometimes listed there and not on tvdb.

As to the Wiki, I had read the first line (and all the rest too, several times) but unless I am being thick the Wiki does not refer at all to tv programs that aren't part of series. The way I understand their ref to "tvshow.nfo" is that it refers to the name of a show with multiple episodes, as indeed the second line of the Wiki suggests: "The nfo xml file may contain a valid <episodeguideurl> to allow online updates."

I'll be happy to share my efforts with others, once I understand what is required.

**Chris!** · (This post was last modified: 2012-04-09, 14:25 by Chris!.)

I don't think it would matter if the documentary Is a series or not. If it wasn't part of a series it could just be 1 episode long. a similar result would be achieved.

Lion documentary
--tvshow.nfo
--season 1
----lion documentary - s01e01.mkv
----lion documentary - s01e01.nfo

them in your preferences if you have it set to flatten tv shows you won't have to navigate through the season 1 part it would just take you to the only episode of the show.

I think this would be the way of achieving what you want

jopie · 2012-04-09, 14:59

(2012-04-09, 14:23)pseudo7 Wrote: I don't think it would matter if the documentary Is a series or not. If it wasn't part of a series it could just be 1 episode long. a similar result would be achieved.

Lion documentary
--tvshow.nfo
--season 1
----lion documentary - s01e01.mkv
----lion documentary - s01e01.nfo

them in your preferences if you have it set to flatten tv shows you won't have to navigate through the season 1 part it would just take you to the only episode of the show.

I think this would be the way of achieving what you want

Thanks pseudo7 I'll give it a try and will report back.

karandras24 · 2012-04-09, 16:23

(2012-04-09, 13:28)jopie Wrote: The way I understand their ref to "tvshow.nfo" is that it refers to the name of a show with multiple episodes, as indeed the second line of the Wiki suggests: "The nfo xml file may contain a valid <episodeguideurl> to allow online updates."

The file has to be called "tvshow.nfo" NOT the name of the show, i think you are getting confused on this point.

jopie · 2012-04-12, 09:22

(2012-04-09, 16:23)karandras24 Wrote:
(2012-04-09, 13:28)jopie Wrote: The way I understand their ref to "tvshow.nfo" is that it refers to the name of a show with multiple episodes, as indeed the second line of the Wiki suggests: "The nfo xml file may contain a valid <episodeguideurl> to allow online updates."

The file has to be called "tvshow.nfo" NOT the name of the show, i think you are getting confused on this point.

Well, I tried it using the name of the show as the folder name, with season 1 immediately below and the actual show in the season 1 folder accompanied by a tvshow.nfo file. It made no difference. The tv show banner and such are all shown but when I enter the folder it appears to be empty.

jopie · 2012-04-20, 23:13

Thanks for your help, I think I am at least getting familiar with the basics and have now successfully managed to add quite a few single shows, but now I am stumped by another problem directly related to this shows. Every time I do an "Update Library" the single shows have their one episode increased by one, so that these shows now show a multitude of episodes when in actual fact there is only one.

I tried several ways to tackle this but so far nothing works. One thing I tried was to use "Change Content" "Exclude path from library updates" but this appears to make no difference at all.

What should I be doing to stop this adding? Is it a bug?

scudlee · 2012-04-21, 01:22

It's possible that the shows you're trying to add are actually in the tvdb. Standalone documentaries tend to get grouped by the channel they aired on, e.g. PBS Documentaries, or BBC Documentaries, with each "season" being a year. So if you know when and where it aired, you can probably add them into your library without messing around with .nfo files, just by naming the files and folders appropriately.

jopie · 2012-04-21, 10:08

I always search the TVDB first but are you saying they might not be listed by title? If so, that kind of defeats the purpose of the TVDB, doesn't it? Anyway, I normally have the date so I shall give your suggestion a shot.

jopie · 2012-04-22, 20:43

What is wrong with me or XBMC? I added a whole bunch of new single shows using the templates provided with the Wiki. No sooner had I added them or they showed up in TV Shows very nicely. Today when I started XBMC they were all empty again, except for the 3 or 4 that kept on adding episodes every time XBMC did an update. Some have as many as 11 episodes now when there is only one show in the folder. They all have nfo's for the show and the individual episode, yet they get scanned and updated again and again even though they are not actually in TVDB. Has anyone ever had this? Is there no one out there who has ever tried saving a single show? Do none of these problems sound familiar?