[mcelliott]

Hi,

This might sound strange, so please bear with me. I'm a recent convert from MediaPortal, so a lot of my media is TV recordings. MediaPortal creates a .xml file for each recording, which contains information about the program.

If I want to back up the recording until I have time to watch it, then I like to have the metadata.

So, let's say I have a folder of video files, and each has a .xml file with it. These are not movies, so it wouldn't make any sense to have them in the movies database. They might not be in thetvdb either.

So, I don't want them to appear in either my movies or tv series lists. But, I would like to be able to see the metadata in the .xml file from the normal video views.

I'd be happy to post a sample .xml file if needed.

Best wishes,

Mark

[zag]

Why not add them to thetvdb?

[da-anda]

@mcelliott - if you're still using the MP TVserver as PVR backend all your recordings incl metadata should show up in the recordings section in Kodi as well. Besides of that you could probably convert the xml files to NFOs for Kodi to extract and show their metadata

[mcelliott]

@mcelliott - if you're still using the MP TVserver as PVR backend all your recordings incl metadata should show up in the recordings section in Kodi as well. Besides of that you could probably convert the xml files to NFOs for Kodi to extract and show their metadata

If I convert the xml files into NFOs, will the metadata show up in files view?

I really don't want to import these into the TV series or movies database. This would simply clutter those lists. Most of this is stuff that my daughter has recorded, so I want to keep it in her own folder.

Sorry to be a pain. It's just one thing that just works in MediaPortal, so now I've switched to Kodi, I miss it, and would like to find a way of achieving the same effect.

Mark

[mcelliott]

Why not add them to thetvdb?

A lot of the kids programs aren't in thetvdb, and to be honest for what the files are, I don't want to have to go through the hassle of working out which season/episode and naming the files accordingly. Because I have perfectly good metadata to hand, I'd like to find a way to use it.

I hope this isn't coming across as me feeling that MediaPortal is better. I wouldn't be here if I didn't think Kodi had advantages. But hopefully by presenting my usage case, maybe if others would find it useful, it could be catered for. It's all in the interest of getting Kodi as good (and easy to use) as possible.

Thanks,

Mark

[da-anda]

hey Mark,

it appears that what you want is unfortunately not possible atm and from a little chat on IRC there are atm no plans to add it - sorry. We first want to get the code in better shape before we add yet another special case handling. But feel free to post the structure of one of these XML files, maybe someone will find or add a way.

[mkortstiege]

One solution would be to add it to the video library and exclude the media path from the actual nodes. Please see http://kodi.wiki/view/Custom_video_nodes for more information.

[mkortstiege]

But feel free to post the structure of one of these XML files, maybe someone will find or add a way.

Right, let's see how that xml looks like.

[mcelliott]

Okay, here is an example of one of the xml files. It looks pretty much like a .nfo file
I'll have a look at the other suggestions now.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tags>
<tag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>TITLE</name>
<value>Boomerangball Game</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>COMMENT</name>
<value>Joey the Kangaroo and his friend must reconcile their mums so they can play Boomerangball. [S]</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>GENRE</name>
<value>childrens's/youth program (general)</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>CHANNEL_NAME</name>
<value>CBeebies</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>EPISODENAME</name>
<value>
</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>SERIESNUM</name>
<value>
</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>EPISODENUM</name>
<value>
</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>EPISODEPART</name>
<value>
</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>STARTTIME</name>
<value>2012-11-19 18:03</value>
</SimpleTag>
<SimpleTag>
<name>ENDTIME</name>
<value>2012-11-19 18:20</value>
</SimpleTag>
</tag>
</tags>

[mcelliott]

Okay, so I've had a look into this.

It looks as though the .xml files I have from MediaPortal are not standard .nfo files. Therefore I cannot simply rename them all to .nfo and use them. I would need to find a way to convert them first.

Overall, my situation might be a limited usage case, since not many people will need it. I guess one option would be to find the episode info in thetvdb as much as possible. Bit of a pain, but I don't know what else to do.

If someone with the relevant expertise was willing and able to write a script to generate .nfo files from my .xml files, that would be fantastic.

[mkortstiege]

Hm, I thought Mediaportal switched to our nfo format at some time. I bet there's a tool to convert xml to nfo.

[mkortstiege]

Check http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIA.../NFO_Files. From a brief look it sounds like it is able to convert.

[mcelliott]

Check http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIA.../NFO_Files. From a brief look it sounds like it is able to convert.

Thanks. That looks like it is worth checking.

Okay, so I renamed the folders/some files to get them into TV series format and imported them into the database. Metadata is showing nicely in folder view, and having the extra series in 'TV Series' is not a major issue. I am contributing some metadata to thetvdb, so this will help others. I guess ultimately this is the way forward.

Mark