[tvdb-scott]

http://thetvdb.com/wiki/index.php/API:User_Rating

I'd like to see people be able to rate their series and episodes in XBMC and have it post back to the site, if they have a proper accountid entered. Not sure how this would work in XBMC, since part of it is on the scraper end and part would be on the info screens, but I think it'd help get more accurate rating data on stuff. Obviously it only helps people using my site.

Additionally, I'll soon have a callback for watched/unwatched for each episode, so users will be able to go on the website and see which episodes in a series they still haven't seen. This will be opt-in for their account on our end, since some people might have "Big Brother" issues with it.

Perhaps these things could be implemented behind the scenes, so they don't require user interaction? So if they have an accountid set and rate an episode, it'll get posted back to the site? Perhaps with a toggle in the video settings to disable it if desired?

[agathorn]

Well XBMC already has a watched/unwatched flag so I don't need to query anyone to know what i've seen

The rating is cool, though it would take some work to get working.

[tvdb-scott]

The watched/unwatched will allow people to keep track of which episodes they have and which ones they've actually watched. This will allow us to do some really dynamic reporting, like suggesting related series, generating "watched" times, and automatically generating the user's favorites list (actually "my series" instead of "favorites"). It will also allow us to automatically generate the most popular series report and show the average number of episodes people have watched for each series. We can have a report that tells users which episodes they're missing for each series. We can generate user badges for signatures that display their watched times per week/month, that rank compared to other users we're tracking, and their top 5 watched series. Finally, it allows people to take their watched status for each episode with them between multiple HTPC systems (even between XBMC and Media Portal, for example). Lots of possibilities. All opt-in, of course.

[agathorn]

The watched/unwatched will allow people to keep track of which episodes they have and which ones they've actually watched. This will allow us to do some really dynamic reporting, like suggesting related series, generating "watched" times, and automatically generating the user's favorites list (actually "my series" instead of "favorites"). It will also allow us to automatically generate the most popular series report and show the average number of episodes people have watched for each series. We can have a report that tells users which episodes they're missing for each series. We can generate user badges for signatures that display their watched times per week/month, that rank compared to other users we're tracking, and their top 5 watched series. Finally, it allows people to take their watched status for each episode with them between multiple HTPC systems (even between XBMC and Media Portal, for example). Lots of possibilities. All opt-in, of course.

Ahh! Now that you've expounded i'm intrigued. Darnit all, you're doing it to me again Scott! I forsee a lot more work on XBMC coming back my way

I'm going to have to sit back and think about how all this would work from the XBMC side of things.

[agathorn]

Have you started working on the API at all for this?

Just thinking off the top of my head here..

Preferably it would be something simple to post back, like simply sending:
http://www.thetvdb.com/api/update_accoun...episode_id
or
http://www.thetvdb.com/api/update_accoun...rating=3.5

[tvdb-scott]

Haven't started, but it will be something very close to this:
User_Episodes.php?accountid=<accountid>&id=<id>&status=<status>

AccountID is their unique account identifier. This is a unique number that makes it so we're not passing around username/password stuff. ID will be an episode ID. Status will be optional, and can have a value of watched or unwatched. If status isn't passed, the site will simply return the watched/unwatched status for that user/episode combination.

So using it is pretty straightforward. When you discover the user has an episode, you call the following URL. This can be done in the scraper itself.

Code:

User_Episode.php?accountid=<accountid>&id=<id>&status=unwatched

Then when the "watched" code in XBMC gets hit (either by the person manually flagging a record or by them watching the video), you'd call this:

Code:

User_Episode.php?accountid=<accountid>&id=<id>&status=watched

Easy.

[Rand Al Thor]

This sounds very intriguing. Can't wait to see what the finished product looks like

[Gamester17]

If a developer is interested in this I am wondering if the future possibility for it could be added in a unified way to XBMC so that it could not only be used for TheTVDB and not only for TV-Shows but for Movies as well. Even if TheTVDB.com is the only site offering an open API for it today, maybe IMDb.com or Movie-XML.com will offer a simlar API for movies tomorrow (and other sites that we have scrapers for, for both TV-Shows and Movies).

I'm just saying that it would be great if the same 'rating' code could be reused in different placed in XBMC / my 2 cents

[EDIT]: PS! The developer might want to look how LastFM (formally known as AudioScrobbler) rating-system and submissions is implemented into XBMC
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=LastFM

[spiff]

anyone wanting to pick this up should contact me as i have been pondering how to implement this and might have some ideas. i dont think the scrobbler stuff fits into a general framework though as submits there include more than just an url posting unless i'm mistaken

[agathorn]

anyone wanting to pick this up should contact me as i have been pondering how to implement this and might have some ideas. i dont think the scrobbler stuff fits into a general framework though as submits there include more than just an url posting unless i'm mistaken

spiff i'm really looking at doing this in the upcoming weeks. I'll see if I can hit you up in IRC come my next "weeked" which for me is tues/wed/thur