Request to improve SageMC/Dvd profiler integration

[derelicte1]

Hello,

First I need to congratulate those who have created SageMC. IMO, it turns a powerful but not very appealing looking app into a great, easy to navigate system.

Some background on my problem:

I've been playing with Sage and SageMC over the last week to see if would be possible to replace the MCE2005 system in our house with a Sage based system. The primary reason I have stuck with mce as long as I have is because of My Movies (it seems I'm not alone in the regard).

By itself, sage doesn't come close to my movies for managing dvd collections. However, with sagemc it comes pretty close. The biggest stumbling block I had with sagemc and dvd profiler is naming the dvd's directory correctly so that sagemc automatically maps it to a title in dvd profiler.

Giving the movie's directory the same name as the dvd title is all well and good for "Miami Vice", but is sucks when the dvd is called "Baby Einstein - Baby Wordsworth - First Words - Around the House". In my system, I have this directory named "baby_wordsworth".

My suggestion:

My suggestion is to add a tag to each movie in dvd profiler that sagemc can use to match up a directory name if it can't find a match. This tag would be exported into the xml file by dvd profiler. In this example, I'd enter "baby_wordsworth" in dvd profiler so that sagemc can map the movie correctly.

Is something like this even possible? I'm not all that familiar with dvd profiler, so I don't know if it allows adding optional tag like this. This seems like it should be fairly easy to add and would greatly increase sagemc's ease of us.

Is there a better (and/or already implemented) solution to this problem without naming directories with ridiculously long names so that sagemc can automatically identify them?

Thanks for your time!

Derek

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by derelicte1

Giving the movie's directory the same name as the dvd title is all well and good for "Miami Vice", but is sucks when the dvd is called "Baby Einstein - Baby Wordsworth - First Words - Around the House". In my system, I have this directory named "baby_wordsworth".

So how does MyMovies handle that?

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by derelicte1

Is there a better (and/or already implemented) solution to this problem without naming directories with ridiculously long names so that sagemc can automatically identify them?

Derek, I had a quick look, and it looks like I can address this problem...

Dirk

[derelicte1]

Originally Posted by stanger89

So how does MyMovies handle that?

When you add a movie to the my movies database, you need to select the directory the movie is located in. There is no automatic movie/location association.

[stanger89]

Ah, I see, I think SageMC has something sort of the reverse, you can browse to a folder, and then lookup the info for it separately.

[stanger89]

FWIW, I mentioned this on the AVS thread but thought I should bring it up here.

I've been trying to figure out a better way to associate media files in Sage with DVD Profiler entries, there have been a number of things I've not been 100% satisfied with the way it is.

Anyway, I had a brainstorm this afternoon, Sage uses an ID tacked onto the filename to help manage files, the MV#######. So what if we were to add the ability to do that in DVDPro2Sage (or the importer)? Allow the user to "override" the name matching by specifying a DVD Profiler ID at the end of the folder/file name. For example:

Today we have a folder named:
Top Gun

However there can be issues with this, for example there are two versions of Top Gun in DVD Profiler, the original and the "Special Collectors Edition". Right now DVDPro2Sage just finds the first match. However I propose:
Top Gun-MV9736056384

This would resolve, unambiguously to the DVD Profiler entry with ID "97630-56384"

Thoughts?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, I mentioned this on the AVS thread but thought I should bring it up here.

I've been trying to figure out a better way to associate media files in Sage with DVD Profiler entries, there have been a number of things I've not been 100% satisfied with the way it is.

Anyway, I had a brainstorm this afternoon, Sage uses an ID tacked onto the filename to help manage files, the MV#######. So what if we were to add the ability to do that in DVDPro2Sage (or the importer)? Allow the user to "override" the name matching by specifying a DVD Profiler ID at the end of the folder/file name. For example:

Today we have a folder named:
Top Gun

However there can be issues with this, for example there are two versions of Top Gun in DVD Profiler, the original and the "Special Collectors Edition". Right now DVDPro2Sage just finds the first match. However I propose:
Top Gun-MV9736056384

This would resolve, unambiguously to the DVD Profiler entry with ID "97630-56384"

Thoughts?

That's a great thought. So the title we see in Sage would still be the <Title> field (Top Gun) from DVD Profiler?To add to that I also propose that Sage use the DVD Profiler field <SortTitle> to use to sort the titles in the view. Advantage? This way you won't have a bunch of DVDs all together that start with the word "The". PITA sometimes to find a DVD. It's THE Bourne Supremacy. Look in the T's-not the B's.


Gerry

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by stanger89

This would resolve, unambiguously to the DVD Profiler entry with ID "97630-56384"

Thoughts?

Good idea, but I don't see any way to edit the ID field within DVD Profiler. Or am I missing something ?

Dirk

[stanger89]

Not really, they lock that down pretty tight, forcing you to use UPC ideally or Disc ID (from the actual DVD) if there's no UPC. That's one of the reasons why it would/could be nice to use that, since every DVD in DVD Profiler has a unique Disc ID.

The only way to "edit" it, is to create a new entry in the database with a new ID (UPC/DiscID).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gplasky

That's a great thought. So the title we see in Sage would still be the <Title> field (Top Gun) from DVD Profiler?

That's the catch, until you import the metadata, you'd see <title>-MV<DiscID>, since Sage only uses the folder name by default. But yes, after importing you'd see the DVD Profiler title in Sage, special characters and all.

To add to that I also propose that Sage use the DVD Profiler field <SortTitle> to use to sort the titles in the view. Advantage? This way you won't have a bunch of DVDs all together that start with the word "The". PITA sometimes to find a DVD. It's THE Bourne Supremacy. Look in the T's-not the B's.

Yeah, that's been an annoyance of mine for quite some time. Though the best way to fix that would require a core change (either make the default sorting ignore words like "the" or "a", or to have a sort-title field added.

Just curious, do you know where SortTitle is defined in the DVDPro UI?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Just curious, do you know where SortTitle is defined in the DVDPro UI?

I'll get you that info tonight. I know it's exported right after the title field in the xml export.

Gerry

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I'll get you that info tonight. I know it's exported right after the title field in the xml export.

Gerry

I don't remember seeing an edit field for this in the UI, so I would think the SortTitle is handled internally

Dirk

[stanger89]

That's kind of what I was thinking.

[gplasky]

Shoot. I'll look anyways.

Gerry

[gplasky]

So I looked and you were both correct. There is not a editable field in the UI. But what I did find out that in the skin editor if you look at VIEW-SKINS that you can edit the DVD Profiler sking. If you go in there and click on the CONTENT tab you will find a scrolling list of DP HTML tags. One of them being SORTTITLE which puts this in the xml file that defines the Profiler skin:

<DP NAME="SORTTITLE">

Don't know if that can be usable but it's there. Along with a bunch of other tags.

Gerry

[stanger89]

Well the first step.

My DVD Profiler Importer for the default STV:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/downloa...do=file&id=158

Pretty simple, extract to the SageTV directory, import. And then when you go to the Imported Videos, you'll find a new button on the left (an "i") that will take you to the new a new menu that will allow you to import metadata for media files.

Go through the Setup first to configure where your XML is and where the DVD Profiler images are (and if you want it to copy them). If you copy the images it will probably take awhile, so be patient.

I'm thinking a progress bar might be nice....

[MacDaddy]

Apologies for crashing the thread in mid-stream, but this looks like a good place to pose this question.

I'm at the very beginning of the painful process of placing my DVD library on disk. I would like to leverage the wisdom of those who have gone before me in establishing the right file structure for the variety of DVD collections in my library.

First case in point - T2 Ultimate Edition. The DVDProfiler gives it a title of T2: Judgement Day: Ultimate Edition. Trying to use that as a directory name introduced illegal charaters. In addition, there is a flip side with Extras that needs to be added (for now, I've just tacked on a \Extras folder).

Do you know of a guide or have an example structure that would help a neophyte avoid a few pitfalls?

Thanks in advance for any help or advise.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

First case in point - T2 Ultimate Edition. The DVDProfiler gives it a title of T2: Judgement Day: Ultimate Edition. Trying to use that as a directory name introduced illegal charaters.

For illegal characters, just omit them from the directory name. The logic for looking them up in DVD Profiler automatically strips them from the names in DVD Profiler.

The following are valid characters (space is included):
a-z
A-Z
0-9
$()#_'`~@{}%! &-

In addition, there is a flip side with Extras that needs to be added (for now, I've just tacked on a \Extras folder).

I have not figured out a good way to deal with things like multidisc sets, where there are multiple discs for one DVD Profiler entry. I'd very much like to figure it out, not for Extras, but more for "multi-disc" collections that don't qualify as "box sets" (which have unique entries for each disc).

I'd also like to find a good way of handling box sets.

Do you know of a guide or have an example structure that would help a neophyte avoid a few pitfalls?

There's a guide on http://www.sage-community.org

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Well the first step.

My DVD Profiler Importer for the default STV:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/downloa...do=file&id=158

Pretty simple, extract to the SageTV directory, import. And then when you go to the Imported Videos, you'll find a new button on the left (an "i") that will take you to the new a new menu that will allow you to import metadata for media files.

Go through the Setup first to configure where your XML is and where the DVD Profiler images are (and if you want it to copy them). If you copy the images it will probably take awhile, so be patient.

I'm thinking a progress bar might be nice....

Stanger,

Is this broken in 6.1? I don't see an "i" in my imported video screen.

TIA

B

[stanger89]

Could, be, I haven't tried it yet.