[outleradam]

reference: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=5...post500654

A user of mythicalLibrarian has requested that I add a feature to allow sports and unidentified shows into the library.

As far as I know, it's not possible, or I do not know how to do this.

I was thinking that it might be possible to name shows as the following using the literal 'ExxSxx' label.

SpongeBob Square Pants.ExxSxx (1/1/2010 11:30:00).mpg and accompany them with a NFO file. This could be automatically imported into the library as SpongeBob under unknown season and information could be filled into the database from the NFO. Episode label could be time and date.

News could be filed under series unknown.

I hope this idea can help out and contribute to the unified PVR front end.

[barney_1]

I've been thinking about this over the last day or so. I had planned to write a sister-script for Mythical Librarian that would run if it failed to match an episode. Because the show title, episode title, and original air date can be passed in the user job this should be simple. The only place you would run into trouble would be for shows that either don't have an original air date, have a generic one, or share the same air date.

Anyway, for now I plan to do this: If a show cannot be matched to valid online database info I'll create a directory and move the file based on show and episode titles. In that directory I'll create a tvshow.nfo file, let's say the show title is: "aaa_show".

Code:

<tvshow>
    <title>aaa_show<title>
    <episodeguide></episodeguide>
</tvshow>

Then I'll move the file with the air-date appended to it. Let's say 2010-02-03 is the air date with episode title "This Episode Title":

Code:

aaa_show.S2010E0203 (This Episode Title).mpg

The I'll create an NFO for that episode called: "aaa_show.S2010E0203 (This Episode Title).nfo":

Code:

<episodedetails>
    <title>This Episode Title</title>
    <season>2010</season>
    <episode>0203</episode>
    <aired>2010-02-03</aired>
</episodedetails>

This will at least get the show INTO the library. The user can then manually edit the NFO files to properly place this if they care to.

[iscraigh]

Before I try this I wanted to clarify something. If I run this script it will move/rename my recordings and they would no longer be accessible from mythtv. I use the mythtv frontend on some machines because xbmc/vdpau does not play some stuff very well that myth plays great.

Thanks for clarifying.

If this is the case would not having it make symlinks be more versitile? This would allow access from both programs.

Craig

[outleradam]

^^ No, run in MOVE mode. MythTV will still have full access to the files to delete them and XBMC can read the files.

I've got the code ready, the problem is that it's not inserting anything into the library.

[barney_1]

Why do you need to insert the data into the library? If you code it to create NFO files it'll get added the next time XBMC runs a scan. For most, that should be the next time XBMC is started.

[outleradam]

NFO files will not work for generic shows.

[am4c130d]

Barney_1's idea worked for me. I hacked up a tvshow.nfo and then an episode.nfo. The bit that caught me out was the file name for the episode had to adhere to the standard format - but no biggie.

Slightly strange seeing the 2010th season, and 124th episode (leading zero of month was suppressed).

Interestingly multiple games in one day is supported, i.e. you can have multiple shows with the same season and episode . I should add, I used the MythTV subtitle for the episode name both in the file and the nfo file.

Heres what I have - my directory/file naming structure
Heineken Cup Rugby
- Heineken Cup Rugby.S2010E0124 (Sale vs Stade Toulousain).mpg
- Heineken Cup Rugby.S2010E0124 (Sale vs Stade Toulousain).nfo
- tvshow.nfo

tvshow.nfo

Code:

<tvshow>
        <title>Heineken Cup Rugby</title>
        <episode>0</episode>
        <plot>European club rugby's premier tournament</plot>
        <genre>Sport</genre>
        <premiered>1996</premiered>
        <studio></studio>
</tvshow>

Heineken Cup Rugby.S2010E0124 (Sale vs Stade Toulousain).nfo

Code:

<episodedetails>
        <title>Sales Sharks vs. Stade Toulousain</title>
    <plot>Stade Toulousain visit Edgely Park in the last pool round of the Heineken Cup</plot>
    <season>2010</season>
    <episode>0124</episode>
        <aired>2010-01-24</aired>
</episodedetails>

Plot and genre didn't work at the show level, but plot does for the episode. The second show I added was a cheat, I just linked to the first show, copied the nfo and gave them a unique game name.

Strangely I did this as a phased approach, and when I scanned the dir a second time, the first game was added a second time - even though the name didn't change. When I played each of them, the resume point was the same for both.

This works for me - meets all my goals. Now I need to learn to write scripts...

[outleradam]

^^ That may work for sports, but we still need a universal "key" to insert unidentifiable shows into xbmc. SpongeBob Square Pants is the main example. There are 3 episodes which are designated as SH on NIK daily. These shows are currently worthless to the XBMC library. Titles which are unidentifed, are still valid library entries, when information about the actors, studio, Title description, and other Title related information is availble to XBMC.

We need a season "unidentified". This could easily be handled with a literal "Sxx" and a interpretation by the XBMC Library. Episode should be a unscraped arbitrary episode number and can be handled by based upon either recording date, or serial number, or even a proprietary assigned episode number like ExxS01.

Documentaries, news, series, all are currently ignored by the XBMC library system. These shows could be entered into the library using SxxE## with xx being interperated as "unidentifed" and it would not effect anything in the XBMC library. SxxExx could be a serialized "unidentified" with XBMC assigning a proprietary serial number to the Episode. Sxx Date could be filed under "unidentified" with recording date as episode number. Although this would be the preferred method, it may not be possible with the current Episode data type filed in the database.

Season and Episode number is such a minor and trivial part of television shows. Really it's just a way that we think of television shows and somewhat of a marketing method to display how sucessful a show is based upon seasons. While it is an effective method of organizing SOME Television shows, it is not the only way to do so, and it is exclusive to shows which are considered mass media.

[am4c130d]

These are somewhat unrelated problems, and thus there may be two or three solutions needed. Problem 1. Sports. Problem 2. Unidentified show episodes Problem 3. One offs/News/Specials etc.

Sports will always require an NFO as TheTVDB will not host sports programs - and most sports programs are adequately identified in the EPG, so these can be addressed as earlier in the thread.

SH shows, by contrast are probably on TheTVDB. It seems with a tvshow.nfo you can add an episode pointer, and thus no episode needs an NFO - if you can identify the episode. I wonder whether this works for one offs and specials - that are on The TVDB? If its a regular show, and you can't identify the episode, then the episode needs an NFO to appear in the library. If you can't identify the episode - without watching it, then what does it matter what season and episode number it gets, as long as that is not a real season/episode and thus be mis-identified?

I would propose, where it's a Sports or SH show that a solution that takes the original airdate, or the date shown as the episode and season would avoid conflicts with real shows and would get populated. If there is no sub-title (episode name), then stick the channel ID, start recording time and date in as the episode name for the file, and in the NFO. This would cover unknowns, News and specials. Once the show has been watched, if you want to keep it, look it up, edit the title and delete the NFO. Short of screenscraping the episode to get the episode name, if the EPG doesn't give you the information, and you can't deduce it from the original airdate and show name - you've got no solution and jiggering with XBMC won't provide any more information.

It's a hack, but it would work - and it looks like two solutions to three problems.

[outleradam]

That does not provide a soloution which works with currently acceptable standards, nor does it provide a key which would identify the show as something which is desired to be in the library.

Adding a SxxExx in on all shows seems like the best approach. This would say to XBMC, "hey, this is a special content recording. it must be filed under the show title and unidentified regardless of any other scraping data". Subtitle can be all after SxxExx.

IE.. Title.SxxExx(1/1/2009 Subtitle).mpg
Fox News.SxxExx(1/1/2009).mpg
Fox News.SxxExx(1/1/2009)-2.mpg
NFL Football.SxxExx(1/1/2009 broncos versus 9er's).mpg
Documentary on Tin-Foil.SxxExx(1/1/2009 Tin-Foil intricacies).mpg
SpongeBob Square Pants.SxxExx(1/1/2009).mpg


As long as SxxExx is recognized as unclassifiable and the recording date/subtitles shows up in XBMC, that's really all that needs to happen. This way recording date and subtitle is included in the "episode name", and the show gets associated with it's parent scrap-able show if possible. It does not have to be SxxExx, but some sort of key is what is required for this.

[am4c130d]

So I tested file names with SxxExx. I tried just the file name as SxxExx and leaving the nfo with dates for season and episode - this showed up as season and episode from the nfo. I then made the values null, the entry didn't appear in the library, same when I made both xx in the nfo. So, it seems that there must be a season and episode value in one of the two that is somewhat valid.

I next tried setting file name to S0E0, and null values in the nfo. This worked, no episode information, only the name of the episode from the nfo. It also added a Season -1, which seems to be much the same at * seasons.

So arguably, set the Season to as valid a year as you can, and set episode to 0, appears to meet the objectives.

You need an nfo with an episode title in it - but that's relatively easy.

[outleradam]

Wow, that seems like a great soloution. Did it work with an already scraped show? Like if you have SpongeBob Square Pants, you put in SpongeBob Square Pants.S0E0(title).ext with an accompanied NFO file and it works? When I tried, it did not work. It tried to scrape the show as a special from thetvdb and nothing showed up.

[outleradam]

While it does get things into the library, i may as well put in season number 1337. It just seems that having a certain number for the season mean "unknown" would work so much better. Season 0 is reserved as "special". Season -1 is reserved as "all seasons" Maybe we could get Season -2 as "Unknown" .

[outleradam]

I'd really like to hear from a dev on this subject.

[outleradam]

it did not occour right away, but some combination of S0E0 SE S0E S-2E0 S-0E-0 or something corrupted the database. I wish there was a serious soloution for this problem.