[metate]

Are you using addons for watching video content? Meta is here to make your life a bit easier!

Meta is an addon that lists media from The Movie Database and TheTVDB. Upon media selection, Meta search through your local library, configured folders and configured addons and displays a selection dialog to allow the user select which source to use for media playback.

Meta uses concurrent execution to search all configured addons and folders simultaneously. Additionally, discovered sources are displayed as they are found and there is no need to wait for the process to complete before selecting a source.

Meta can improve your current Kodi usage pattern:

• Focus on media first Instead of searching for the same content through all of your addons until you find the correct addon to use, you simply find it in Meta and a list of all links from all configured addons will be displayed right in front of you.
  
• Library integration Some of your media may only be available through addons that do not support library integration. Using Meta you can add virtually any media to your Kodi library (pseudo library using strm generation).
  

By default Meta is shipped with no configured sources at all. However, your local library and other addons can be linked to Meta by writing small configuration files referred to as Meta-players. A Meta-player is a file with ".meta.json" file extension that specifies how to browse an external addon or a folder.

Existing Meta-players can easily be added to Meta from Meta's settings. Set in Players URL a link to a zip of all Meta-players to install, then select the Install form URL option and finally enable some of the installed Meta-players from Meta's settings. See a link to be used for official meta players in the download section below.

If no one created a Meta-player for a specific addon yet, you'll need to write it on your own. See Writing-a-Meta-player for a guide.

Respect copyright laws. Meta is completely legal and provides no links at all. It only re-arranges the content of your other, already installed, addons. Do not ask for help related to any addon that may provide illegal content.
Discussion is allowed only for addons listed in the official Kodi repository.


NEW:
@primaeval created:
* Advanced IMDb Title Search addon (uses Meta for playing and library integration)

@midraal added two cool features:
* Trakt integration (WIP)
* Live channels support


Download:
* Repository: https://github.com/metate/meta4kodi/raw/...-1.0.0.zip
* Meta-Players URL: https://api.github.com/repos/metate/offi...rs/zipball (short: http://tinyurl.com/jqcev34)
Open addon settings and set that URL in Players URL, then select the Install from URL and finally enable some of the installed Meta-players using 'Enable movie players' and 'Enable TV players'.
* Installation of the context-menu addon is optional (allows opening Meta selection dialog from your existing library through the context menu).

Changelog:
v1.1.4
- Store live searches (can move items or remove them from context menu)
- Another fix for trakt authentication


Bug reports:
Please submit bug reports on GitHub: https://github.com/metate/meta4kodi/issues

Screenshots:

[loki131]

Holy crap! This is exactly what I've wanted for years, I can't wait to try it out when I'm home tonight! 😀

[loki131]

Works really well! I can't wait to get some other players working (Flix2Kodi would be great!). So far the only glitch I've found is with adding content to the library, the fanart/posters/etc all work but all of the text (titles/descriptions) show up as unknown characters.



I'm also going to start playing around with the players, do I have to use Git or can I load locally for testing?


Thanks!

[metate]

Hi @loki131

So far the only glitch I've found is with adding content to the library, the fanart/posters/etc all work but all of the text (titles/descriptions) show up as unknown characters.

Thanks, version 1.0.1 fixed the wrong language on library. However, since you already have the library folder set up you will need to fix it manually by going to Files -> open context menu on Meta Movies/TV Shows -> Set content, then set it to None to clear the Meta library and later set it again to Movies/TV Shows.

I'm also going to start playing around with the players, do I have to use Git or can I load locally for testing?

You can manually add meta-player files in kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.video.meta/players.

Works really well! I can't wait to get some other players working (Flix2Kodi would be great!).

I succeeded to write meta-players for ~90% of the addons I tried and plan to improve Meta until we reach near 100%. The most problematic addons are those that require entering a search term using the keyboard and do not provide an entry point that receives the search term as a URL parameter. So far I only encountered 2 such addons, unfortunately flix2kodi is one of them. Flix2Kodi is currently broken for me but once it works I'll try to add support for it anyway. I'll soon add a meta-player for USTV VoD. If there are any other legal addons you want me to add please let me know.

[loki131]

Thanks, version 1.0.1 fixed the wrong language on library. However, since you already have the library folder set up you will need to fix it manually by going to Files -> open context menu on Meta Movies/TV Shows -> Set content, then set it to None to clear the Meta library and later set it again to Movies/TV Shows.

Library fix worked perfectly!

You can manually add meta-player files in kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.video.meta/players.

I actually already figured that out but I haven't had time to mess with the players much (also my coding skills are pretty weak!).

I succeeded to write meta-players for ~90% of the addons I tried and plan to improve Meta until we reach near 100%. The most problematic addons are those that require entering a search term using the keyboard and do not provide an entry point that receives the search term as a URL parameter. So far I only encountered 2 such addons, unfortunately flix2kodi is one of them. Flix2Kodi is currently broken for me but once it works I'll try to add support for it anyway. I'll soon add a meta-player for USTV VoD. If there are any other legal addons you want me to add please let me know.

Bummer about Flix2Kodi, I am looking forward to USTV VoD! As for other legal addons, I don't use it but I think there is an Amazon Prime Video addon floating around that people would probably appreciate.

[metate]

+ Meta 1.0.2 released (see changelog in OP).
+ USTV VoD added to official players.
+ Hallmark added to official players.
+ I submitted a Pull Request to flix2kodi and if the developer will merge it then I will release a meta-player for flix2kodi (tested and confirmed working here).

[loki131]

Wow that was fast!

USTV VoD works perfectly, much better than their baked library integration actually! I just tried it out and the USTV VoD addon leaves dead strm files your library so Meta is a much better solution. Honestly I think it would make a lot of sense if video addons just offload the library integration to Meta so they don't have to deal with it.

[dtsexpert]

Works great with Quasar but always plays 1st stream (already disable auto play in Quasar setting)
May we have the dialog popup for stream selection?

[loki131]

Just a heads up, Fox shows that are on USTV VoD don't pull up USTV VoD in the selector. However it does search the Fox section of USTV VoD, it made me manually select a couple of shows.

+1 for Quasar stream selection, maybe a second player?

[metate]

Thank you guys.

The Quasar meta-player now respects the autoplay setting. Adding separate players for auto-play and links is also possible (see my comment here https://github.com/metate/meta4kodi/issues/1 ).

After the next release I'll update the USTV VoD player. It will match Fox better and also search in the USTV VoD Favorites Shows section if it fails to find the show according to the network. I hoped to use the All Shows section instead but the USTV VoD addon has a bug with it (attempts to cache everything but fails at 15%).

EDIT: I don't have permissions to reply to PM messages so for now please only use this thread for feedback

[CrazyGamerTV]

I have been looking for an addon like this for a long time. So Thank you for making something like this.

However, I can't get anything to work but the tv search.... I get an error in movie search and nothing shows up for movie or tv genres, top rated and so on.....

What am I doing wrong?

Is there anyway I could sign in with my trakt.tv account so I could use my calendar, Trakt on deck, and movie / tv show list?

[metate]

@CrazyGamerTV

However, I can't get anything to work but the tv search

Please attach kodi.log. It works fine here so without a log there is not much I can do.
Edit: so I clean cache and now I see the problem as well. There is a problem with TMDB genres, we will need to wait for a fix by TMDB. Others already reported it in TMDB forum.

Is there anyway I could sign in with my trakt.tv account so I could use my calendar, Trakt on deck, and movie / tv show list?

My current focus is on making meta-players creation easier but after that sure, it makes sense to add trakt lists support.

[thewizard]

Im not the dev pal, iv got a couple of issues like yourself thats all

[bry]

@thewizard and @CrazyGamerTV - abide by forum rules please. posts containing logs with banned add-ons have been split and trashed.

[metate]

Meta-1.0.3 released

As I said TMDB has a bug with genres. However, until it's fixed I've added some code to bypass it.

Full changelog:
- Feaure: support keyboard steps
- Improvement: match "name, The" with "The name"
- Improvement: better info-labels matching (specify {season}x{episode} to match both)
- Change: name parameter for anime now uses absolute episode number
- Fix: bypass TMDB genres bug
- Fix: avoid display of failed playback message

Official meta-players:
- Improved USTV VoD
- Added flix2kodi (Note that it uses a new feature of Meta called keyboard steps. This feature is still not polished and on some skins you may notice the keyboard popping up and closing immediately).