2012-07-25, 12:02
I was finally able to solve the problems I encountered and finish this mod.
So, what does this mod do?
It provides a couple of interesting (I hope ) modifications to the wonderful Universal Scraper:
- Fixed a problem that didn't store score if tomatometer was 0%
In some cases, if tomatometer was 0%, the score wasn't correctly stored. Now it is (not sure, but it may show 0.1 in some cases)
- Added possibility to choose original title language
This has been added for both imdb and tmbd. Look for the option in tab general.
- Added audience tomatometer and average scores
New option for rating scraping from rotten tomatoes. Look for the option in rating, option "Use the score aggregated from".
- Added possibility of encoding of icons and audience percentage in votes
Possibility to use the votes field to store information about audience tomatometer/average, rotten/fresh/certified fresh icon and popcorn/spilled icon. See later for details. This option is only available if "Use the score aggregated from" is set to top critics or all critics. Option not set by default.
- Added possibility of google search for getting rotten tomatoes page
Great improvement (at least from my tests) in correct rotten tomatoes page retrieval by using google search instead of sometimes incorrect imdb id alias. Look for the option in rating tab, if rating source is set to rotten tomatoes. I've done some tests and it behaves superbly, it correctly solves known titles with a corrupt rotten tomatoes - imdb binding (i robot, the incredibles...). The only failure I've found so far is with "Introducing the Dwights", just because that movie is also known as Clubland and google provides as first result with the movie from 2000. For that case I found out that temporarily disabling google search in options, rescrape the single movie, and re-enabling google search does the trick.
FAQ:
What do you mean by "encoding of icons and audience percentage in votes"?
Let me start by explaining why would I think of such a crazy thing. I love rotten tomatoes ratings but, unfortunately, xbmc offers only 1 field for storing ratings. Now, critics sometimes don't really reflect how audience perceive a movie, and the other way around also applies. So I tried to think of a way to store both values in xbmc.
The number of votes is a special field that I don't consider very often, so I thought: "why not to try and store what you want in there?"
I searched the documentation a bit and, unfortunately, I've seen that it's not possible to use this field as is in a skin, but only together with rating. So I thought that, since some work was to be done on the skin part, I could store even more information in that field. For the time being I've come up with:
- audience score (either tomatometer or average, according to the selection in the options)
- a flag indicating if critics score is rotten, fresh or certified fresh
- a flag indicating if audience score is "spilled" or "popcorn"
This information is stored in the following string:
aAAAtTpP
where "a" is fixed (just to be able to recognize it's audience score), "AAA" is the audience score, "t" is fixed, "T" is 0 for rotten, 1 for fresh, 2 for certified fresh, "p" is fixed, "P" is 0 for spilled and 1 for popcorn
Obviously now it's up to skinners to use this information in a useful way. I tried to put them in a way that allows them to be handled, but I'm not an expert in skinning, so I'm open to options.
How does google search work?
It's pretty simple: it queries google for the title, the year and it appends "rottentomatoes.com", just to be sure to let google know we're looking something on rottentomatoes.com. Given the results page, it picks the first results that contains www.rottentomatoes.com/m/[movie here]. From what I've seen, it works pretty well. Of course, nothing is perfect, and I can't control google results, so we have to put some faith into google to get to the right rotten tomatoes page.
Example of skin using this encoding:
INSTALLATION:
I have to be honest, I don't really know how zip file installation works behind the scenes in xbmc so, please, DO NOT INSTALL THE ATTACHED ZIP FILE. Just extract the contents and add the 4 folders to you userdata/addons folder. The userdata folder may be in your XBMC installation folder if you run XBMC in portable mode. If you run it normally, you may still find it, but you must put the 4 folders in:
- Users\%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\addons for Windows Vista/7
- C:\Documents and Settings\%userprofile%\Application Data\XBMC\addons for Windows XP
Make a backup of the folders you're going to overwrite, so you can go back to how things were, should something go wrong =)
Now the link : https://dl.dropbox.com/s/48auu3wm7s4ajcw...6.zip?dl=1
CHANGELOG:
2.1.6:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.6)
2.1.5:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.5)
2.1.4:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.4)
- Updated imdb common library to 2.6.2
2.1.2:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.2)
- Updated tmdb common library to 2.9
1.9.4:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9.4)
- Updated imdb common library to 2.6.1
1.9.3:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9.3)
1.9:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9 - Interim versions 1.7, 1.8 and 1.8.1 are included in 1.9)
- Updated imdb and tmdb common libraries fixed as well
1.6.2:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.6.2)
1.6.1:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.6.1)
1.5:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.5.0) and TMDb core library
1.3:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.3.0)
- Changed version numbering so it matches Universal Scraper's
1.0:
- Initial release
NEW!!!
SKIN (only for Eden, I will start working on a version for Frodo as soon as Frodo bocomes final):
I've been working on a personal modification of the wonderful reFocus BIG in order to integrate Rotten Tomatoes scores at a visual level (see screenshot above for an example). I've finally reached a point where modifications are pretty much how I like them, so I thought I might share that as well.
Instructions:
- Go over to this thread and download the complete skin
- Install the skin
- Download my mod here
- Extract the files and copy them over to the skin folder (overwrite as requested). As usual, make a backup copy of the original files. In my package, I've included reworked sound effects so that they play at a normal level on my machine. This may not be the case on yours, so try them out if you want, and choose those which you feel more comfortable with.
- Launch XBMC, load reFocus BIG, customize the skin to your tastes
- To enable Rotten Tomatoes scores, go in skin settings --> View settings and enable "Show ratings like on Rotten Tomatoes"
- If you scraped your movies with the special encoding enabled (in order to scrape both critics and audience scores), enable "Show also audience using special encoding". This will give you 2 visible scores and the certified fresh icon (if the movie is certified fresh, that is)
Some info:
- Rotten Tomatoes scores are visible in all movie views, as well as in OSDs when playing movies. In all other views (TV series, music...) the usual star system is in place. I can't certify it will work 100% of times, but on my system it works like a charm
- Some views that can have mixed content like "now playing", will not show Rotten Tomatoes scores, even if they include movies. I haven't found a way to show the proper scores only on movies in this case
- When viewing search results, if Rotten Tomatoes scores are active, the score shown is the critics score, in percentage
- There are some other tweaks to the GUI compared to reFocus BIG, pretty much to align it to my tastes
- I don't take credit for the skin, just for the Rotten Tomatoes part. So if you like the skin, go over the proper thread and drop a thank you, or rate it =)
Drop a line if you use it or find a bug!
So, what does this mod do?
It provides a couple of interesting (I hope ) modifications to the wonderful Universal Scraper:
- Fixed a problem that didn't store score if tomatometer was 0%
In some cases, if tomatometer was 0%, the score wasn't correctly stored. Now it is (not sure, but it may show 0.1 in some cases)
- Added possibility to choose original title language
This has been added for both imdb and tmbd. Look for the option in tab general.
- Added audience tomatometer and average scores
New option for rating scraping from rotten tomatoes. Look for the option in rating, option "Use the score aggregated from".
- Added possibility of encoding of icons and audience percentage in votes
Possibility to use the votes field to store information about audience tomatometer/average, rotten/fresh/certified fresh icon and popcorn/spilled icon. See later for details. This option is only available if "Use the score aggregated from" is set to top critics or all critics. Option not set by default.
- Added possibility of google search for getting rotten tomatoes page
Great improvement (at least from my tests) in correct rotten tomatoes page retrieval by using google search instead of sometimes incorrect imdb id alias. Look for the option in rating tab, if rating source is set to rotten tomatoes. I've done some tests and it behaves superbly, it correctly solves known titles with a corrupt rotten tomatoes - imdb binding (i robot, the incredibles...). The only failure I've found so far is with "Introducing the Dwights", just because that movie is also known as Clubland and google provides as first result with the movie from 2000. For that case I found out that temporarily disabling google search in options, rescrape the single movie, and re-enabling google search does the trick.
FAQ:
What do you mean by "encoding of icons and audience percentage in votes"?
Let me start by explaining why would I think of such a crazy thing. I love rotten tomatoes ratings but, unfortunately, xbmc offers only 1 field for storing ratings. Now, critics sometimes don't really reflect how audience perceive a movie, and the other way around also applies. So I tried to think of a way to store both values in xbmc.
The number of votes is a special field that I don't consider very often, so I thought: "why not to try and store what you want in there?"
I searched the documentation a bit and, unfortunately, I've seen that it's not possible to use this field as is in a skin, but only together with rating. So I thought that, since some work was to be done on the skin part, I could store even more information in that field. For the time being I've come up with:
- audience score (either tomatometer or average, according to the selection in the options)
- a flag indicating if critics score is rotten, fresh or certified fresh
- a flag indicating if audience score is "spilled" or "popcorn"
This information is stored in the following string:
aAAAtTpP
where "a" is fixed (just to be able to recognize it's audience score), "AAA" is the audience score, "t" is fixed, "T" is 0 for rotten, 1 for fresh, 2 for certified fresh, "p" is fixed, "P" is 0 for spilled and 1 for popcorn
Obviously now it's up to skinners to use this information in a useful way. I tried to put them in a way that allows them to be handled, but I'm not an expert in skinning, so I'm open to options.
How does google search work?
It's pretty simple: it queries google for the title, the year and it appends "rottentomatoes.com", just to be sure to let google know we're looking something on rottentomatoes.com. Given the results page, it picks the first results that contains www.rottentomatoes.com/m/[movie here]. From what I've seen, it works pretty well. Of course, nothing is perfect, and I can't control google results, so we have to put some faith into google to get to the right rotten tomatoes page.
Example of skin using this encoding:
INSTALLATION:
I have to be honest, I don't really know how zip file installation works behind the scenes in xbmc so, please, DO NOT INSTALL THE ATTACHED ZIP FILE. Just extract the contents and add the 4 folders to you userdata/addons folder. The userdata folder may be in your XBMC installation folder if you run XBMC in portable mode. If you run it normally, you may still find it, but you must put the 4 folders in:
- Users\%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\addons for Windows Vista/7
- C:\Documents and Settings\%userprofile%\Application Data\XBMC\addons for Windows XP
Make a backup of the folders you're going to overwrite, so you can go back to how things were, should something go wrong =)
Now the link : https://dl.dropbox.com/s/48auu3wm7s4ajcw...6.zip?dl=1
CHANGELOG:
2.1.6:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.6)
2.1.5:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.5)
2.1.4:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.4)
- Updated imdb common library to 2.6.2
2.1.2:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 2.1.2)
- Updated tmdb common library to 2.9
1.9.4:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9.4)
- Updated imdb common library to 2.6.1
1.9.3:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9.3)
1.9:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.9 - Interim versions 1.7, 1.8 and 1.8.1 are included in 1.9)
- Updated imdb and tmdb common libraries fixed as well
1.6.2:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.6.2)
1.6.1:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.6.1)
1.5:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.5.0) and TMDb core library
1.3:
- Updated files to reflect recent modifications in Universal Scraper (v 1.3.0)
- Changed version numbering so it matches Universal Scraper's
1.0:
- Initial release
NEW!!!
SKIN (only for Eden, I will start working on a version for Frodo as soon as Frodo bocomes final):
I've been working on a personal modification of the wonderful reFocus BIG in order to integrate Rotten Tomatoes scores at a visual level (see screenshot above for an example). I've finally reached a point where modifications are pretty much how I like them, so I thought I might share that as well.
Instructions:
- Go over to this thread and download the complete skin
- Install the skin
- Download my mod here
- Extract the files and copy them over to the skin folder (overwrite as requested). As usual, make a backup copy of the original files. In my package, I've included reworked sound effects so that they play at a normal level on my machine. This may not be the case on yours, so try them out if you want, and choose those which you feel more comfortable with.
- Launch XBMC, load reFocus BIG, customize the skin to your tastes
- To enable Rotten Tomatoes scores, go in skin settings --> View settings and enable "Show ratings like on Rotten Tomatoes"
- If you scraped your movies with the special encoding enabled (in order to scrape both critics and audience scores), enable "Show also audience using special encoding". This will give you 2 visible scores and the certified fresh icon (if the movie is certified fresh, that is)
Some info:
- Rotten Tomatoes scores are visible in all movie views, as well as in OSDs when playing movies. In all other views (TV series, music...) the usual star system is in place. I can't certify it will work 100% of times, but on my system it works like a charm
- Some views that can have mixed content like "now playing", will not show Rotten Tomatoes scores, even if they include movies. I haven't found a way to show the proper scores only on movies in this case
- When viewing search results, if Rotten Tomatoes scores are active, the score shown is the critics score, in percentage
- There are some other tweaks to the GUI compared to reFocus BIG, pretty much to align it to my tastes
- I don't take credit for the skin, just for the Rotten Tomatoes part. So if you like the skin, go over the proper thread and drop a thank you, or rate it =)
Drop a line if you use it or find a bug!