[joebrady]

billyad2000, I don't even know if you're accepting requests, but if not then I'll just have to find alternative way of doing it (batching might work.. hopefully)..


E.g.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective imdb has four genres on it's main page, to be specific it's:
Action | Comedy | Mystery | Thriller

These four are also what MC scrapes for and adds to the .nfo. (of course you know this already, it's your program.. but I'm getting to it)

I've never been a fan of Library mode in XBMC, because to me anything more than 2-3 genre tags are too much, I simply don't want Ace Ventura for instance to show up in Thriller or Mystery for that matter. But I love browsing with genres, as titles simply gets too cluttered with all the movies in one place.

So here's a request if I may. Would it be possible to give the end user an option in settings where you get to specify;
Number of genres to write to .nfo?

I set the number of genres to 3, update my scraped movies and voila! Ace Ventura: Pet Detective now only shows up in three genres when I browse in XBMC. Instead of the original four.

EDIT: Thank you btw for an very effective and easily used program, it's a breeze to scrape my collection of 400+ movies..

+1 for this request, I hate multiple genre's, I wish IMDB would just pick the most relevant, or maybe enable voting for it...

[retrieverfalcon]

Billy,

It looks like the latest fixes for the missing episode thumb search may have gone a little too far. The search now completes despite any 404's but it always finds a thumb - even when TVDB doesn't actually have one. In the case where none exists, the log reports "Path to thumbnail found on TVDB : http://images.thetvdb.com/banners/". Note that there is actually no episode specified in that URL. The result is that you always get the same incorrect thumb (it appeared to me to be one from NCIS but that might change depending on when the search is ran).

Can you fix this for the next release? I manually removed the invalid .tbn files but I don't know if there is anyway to automate a search for incorrect ones that MC has already downloaded - maybe some sort of global search that updates episode thumbs to the version currently on TVDB and optionally deletes the .tbn file for any episode where TVDB does not have a current file. That type of approach would also address times when TVDB is updated after you get the thumb with an improved/corrected thumb.

Thanks for all your great work - you are providing a tremendous service to all of us.

[eriksmith200]

It seems that in version 2.233 no season thumbs are downloaded (in the UI the season thumb for new seasons is the same as the tv show thumb, no seasonxx.tbn files show up in the file system). I also can't seem to find a way to set the season thumb manually.

[edit]
Hm seems to be a tvdb.com problem, season banners are displayed on the tvdb.com website, but no wide season banners.

Setting season thumb manually might still be an issue though?
[/edit]

[nflchampion]

Echoing what the previous poster said, is there any way you can add a feature to the next release to just have it grab the season thumbs (wide or poster)? For whatever reason, I've been unable to grab these even after deleting everything and completely reconstructing the database. A way to get individual season posters would complete my thumbnail set. Love the program and thanks a mil!

[billyad2000]

It seems that in version 2.233 no season thumbs are downloaded (in the UI the season thumb for new seasons is the same as the tv show thumb, no seasonxx.tbn files show up in the file system). I also can't seem to find a way to set the season thumb manually.

[edit]
Hm seems to be a tvdb.com problem, season banners are displayed on the tvdb.com website, but no wide season banners.

Setting season thumb manually might still be an issue though?
[/edit]

Echoing what the previous poster said, is there any way you can add a feature to the next release to just have it grab the season thumbs (wide or poster)? For whatever reason, I've been unable to grab these even after deleting everything and completely reconstructing the database. A way to get individual season posters would complete my thumbnail set. Love the program and thanks a mil!

I've just noticed that I haven't actually coded the season thumb scraper for when the tvshow.nfo is added, i'll do it now.

For the time being, the season thumbs can be easily browsed and added manually via the tvshow nfo editor using the poster browser.
A dropdown combobox allows selection of the thumb you wish to choose, Main, Seasons, Specials. etc
You can then select the source you wish to view thumbs from :
TVDb specific - View thumbs on TVDb for the specific selection, eg Season 1 will list only thumbs specific to season 1
TVDb All - Will list all thumbs on TVDb, no matter what the classification
IMDB - Shows all available images on IMDB, can be useful if a show has no image on TVDB
URL or Browse - Browse to a file on your PC, or enter a URL manually.

[reakwon]

I've just noticed that I haven't actually coded the season thumb scraper for when the tvshow.nfo is added, i'll do it now.

That's the only thing missing for being an absolute perfect program...
that and an re-scrape for all movies / tv shows (with or without covers/images/fanart)


Greetings Markus

[billyad2000]

That's the only thing missing for being an absolute perfect program...
that and an re-scrape for all movies / tv shows (with or without covers/images/fanart)


Greetings Markus

The automatic download of season thumbs is finished, I even added a new feature that will grab the season thumb in your preferred language if it is available. I have not set a difference between wide and poster type season thumbs because most tv shows on TVDb don't have wide season thumbs.

There are also several other long standing bugs that I think I have fixed such as the problem with system folders, and TV Show folders with invalid .nfo files.

I have few days off work now, and I have several goals I wish to achieve by the time I go back, next Wednesday.

The first is adding HD Media Tags to movies, the main code for this is complete and just needs intergrating into the main scraper. A little more work is required to add this capability to the movie editor.

Secondly, I have been toying with the idea of a update all wizard, this would have its own window and would replace the current movie options, search for missing posters/fanart, and update votes and rating.
The idea of this would be to allow a user to select in any combination, any ammount of tags supported and rescrape the selected fields in all movies. This will also include posters and fanart in a more limited sense, I will not be adding the ability to redownload posters and fanart that already exist, I don't see the point in this, they can be changed manually from the movie edit screen.

The main reason for this is that new features are being continuously added and at the moment the only way to take advantage of many of these is to either delete all the nfo files and start again, or to rescrape each nfo individually.

I also want to get a new version uploaded to the main Media Companion website, the last version available there is 2.135. I was happy to let this remain as a fairly stable release point, unfortunately the change in IMDB tags forces me into updating this, even if it is with a less tested, more buggy version (Hopefully not too buggy).

[mason]

I tried managing my tvshows with media companion, but im still struggeling it isn't workling like i thought.

I have all my shows on a Unraid NAS mounted via SMB.

Let's say i'll add a folder to mc

Z:\tvshows\According to Jim

the files sturcture is

According to Jim
----- Season 1
---------- According to Jim - 1x01 - Pilot.avi
.....
----- Season 8

for Season 2-8 i allready have scraped info and exported these via single files out of xbmc.

mc is building the database on the existing info ... season 1 doesn't show up. ill try a 'media search' but mc doesnt come up with anything?!

Default TVDB Scraper Language is :- English
Default TVDB Scraper API Language Code is :- en
Default TVDB Scraper Episode Order Is Set At :- default
Overwrite Thumbnails Is :- False

Starting Scan For New TV Epsiodes

Actors to Be Scraped From TVDB
No new episodes found


same for all other shows, only the allready exporetd episodes are shown. im using the latest version 2.233 ... but expierenced the behavior with other versions bevor (never got it working right)

any clue what i am doing wrong? thanks!

[omenborn]

It looks like the latest xbmc builds have changed the <episodeguideurl> tag in tvshow.nfo to be just <episodeguide> as per this thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=47621 .

I'm running the latest t3ch xbox build dated 09-04-04 and was having issues scanning in new tv episodes which did not have their own nfo file. I haven't had a chance to test changing the nfo tag for that series to <episodeguide>, but it would explain the problem I'm seeing right now.

[billyad2000]

It looks like the latest xbmc builds have changed the <episodeguideurl> tag in tvshow.nfo to be just <episodeguide> as per this thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=47621 .

I'm running the latest t3ch xbox build dated 09-04-04 and was having issues scanning in new tv episodes which did not have their own nfo file. I haven't had a chance to test changing the nfo tag for that series to <episodeguide>, but it would explain the problem I'm seeing right now.

The only problem with that is that some people will be using older versions of XBMC so fixing it for the present will break it for the past.

I hate these kind of changes, they seem to serve no purpose except to make life more complicated for 3rd party helper programs.

[billyad2000]

I tried managing my tvshows with media companion, but im still struggeling it isn't workling like i thought.

I have all my shows on a Unraid NAS mounted via SMB.

Let's say i'll add a folder to mc

Z:\tvshows\According to Jim

the files sturcture is

According to Jim
----- Season 1
---------- According to Jim - 1x01 - Pilot.avi
.....
----- Season 8

for Season 2-8 i allready have scraped info and exported these via single files out of xbmc.

mc is building the database on the existing info ... season 1 doesn't show up. ill try a 'media search' but mc doesnt come up with anything?!

Default TVDB Scraper Language is :- English
Default TVDB Scraper API Language Code is :- en
Default TVDB Scraper Episode Order Is Set At :- default
Overwrite Thumbnails Is :- False

Starting Scan For New TV Epsiodes

Actors to Be Scraped From TVDB
No new episodes found


same for all other shows, only the allready exporetd episodes are shown. im using the latest version 2.233 ... but expierenced the behavior with other versions bevor (never got it working right)

any clue what i am doing wrong? thanks!

It could be that the tvshow.nfo is missing or out of date, it should be located in the root tv folder eg:
Z:\tvshows\According to Jim\tvshow.nfo

I would suggest that you remove or rename the file and rebuild the tvdb (Drop Down Menu\Tools\Rebuild TV Data)
Then select According to Jim and then edit. This should take you through the add tv show wizard. Once this has been added then the shows should be located.

[mason]

thanks for the info billyad2000, it looks like the xmbc export is missing the <tvdbid> tag. didn't know you need that info for scraping....

[billyad2000]

thanks for the info billyad2000, it looks like the XBMC export is missing the <tvdbid> tag. didn't know you need that info for scraping....

It was an unfortunate neccessity. With movies the IMDB ID is exported by XBMC, with tv shows there is nothing to identify them except the title. This meant that a user could add several dozen tv shows, 100s of episodes and if the TVDb API returned the wrong show then that is a lot of erroneous data. I decided that it would be a much better option to have TVDB ID included in the tvshow.nfo file.

As a side thought, it would probably be useful to have the lack of TVDBID reported in the output log, to give the user an idea of what is wrong.

[reakwon]

I have not set a difference between wide and poster type season thumbs because most tv shows on TVDb don't have wide season thumbs.

...

I will not be adding the ability to redownload posters and fanart that already exist, I don't see the point in this, they can be changed manually from the movie edit screen.

how about a wide season thumb option just for the show folder ?
because i love it arranged like folder.jpg as a wide thumb and the seasons as a poster thumb

i re-arranged my tv show selection (nearly done .. hehe) and had to manually change every "root" thumb (meaning setting the wide banner as a folder.jpg) for each show.. worth the work, but what a work it was

btw: just tried to finish the last few shows, but can't seem being able to download any images from thetvdb.com (within MC.. no matter what version 2.135, 2.229 or 2.233)
did tvdb change anything in their api or is that service down at the moment ?

[fekker]

It was an unfortunate neccessity. With movies the IMDB ID is exported by XBMC, with tv shows there is nothing to identify them except the title. This meant that a user could add several dozen tv shows, 100s of episodes and if the TVDb API returned the wrong show then that is a lot of erroneous data. I decided that it would be a much better option to have TVDB ID included in the tvshow.nfo file.

As a side thought, it would probably be useful to have the lack of TVDBID reported in the output log, to give the user an idea of what is wrong.

vdrfan added tvdbid to svn r19367 .. http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/5675#comment:2

Thanks for the info on the threading exceptions in mip, you rock!