Utility: mediaScraper - metadata made easy!

[venkman781]

After checking the tvdb.com forums, the general feeling on documentary shows (e.g. PBS Frontline) that have been long running is to name them with the 4-digit year as the season number and then each show has an episode number, such as "2008x01".

I've tried using the /4digitTV modifier in the mediascraper.defaults and tried a few things with folder/file name conventions, but I was wondering if anyone had an idea for a workaround for this.

Some things I have tried:

Frontline (PBS) 2008x01 - The Medicated Child.mpg with /4digitTV on
Frontline (PBS) 2008 - The Medicated Child.mpg with /4digitTV off

I'm probably clutching at straws, as I'm not sure mediascraper can work around this naming format that tvdb has adopted.

Randomly, someone over there has duplicated the season listing and also done it numerically, so I have a temporary fix. I've inquired about fixing the entries to go to a SSxEE convention, but the moderators prefer the year format (which is reasonable IMO).


Any thoughts?

[rmccoy]

Hey guys, so I've been messing around with MediaScraper for the past week or so, and after also playing with Batch Metadata Importer, I think I want to use it for capturing metadata and fanart, it just handles movies a lot better from my experience.

However, I really love the function MediaScraper has of moving tv shows into the recorded tv shows section. I'm currently automating this process using DirMon2 (but having a problem where it is continually processing the same files over and over again... any suggestions on that are appreciated as well.) Is there any way I can have MediaScraper do this without generating .properties files? or delete them after performing this operation? These create a problem because Batch Metadata Importer skips over files if they already have .properties files with them.

Any suggestions or recommendations on a more elegant solution would be greatly appreciated!

[rmccoy]

Is there any way to tell MediaScraper to ONLY run on TV shows, and not movies?

[wayner]

I use SageJobQueue to run only for movies - here is my code

//MediaScrape for Movies
if [IsTV=="true" && Category =*"Movie"]
{
MEDIASCRAPE
}

MEDIASCRAPE
{
:CPU NORMAL
"c:/Program Files/SageTV/SageTV/mediaScraper.exe \"%c%\""
}

Change the Category line to not Movies and it should work. In other words change =* to !*

[rmccoy]

I'm really loving the import to TV Recordings function, it seems to be working flawlessly! I'm automating the executing of the file using DirMon2... and having a bit of a problem with it. If you guys can recommend a better thread for me to ask this question on, then I'd be more than happy to go there.

My problem is that DirMon2 keeps queuing up all of the files that exist in the folder it is monitoring... not just new files. I only want DirMon2 to run when the folder changes. I suppose I have my triggers set incorrectly... How should my triggers be set if I want DirMon2 to run whenever a new files is added, but not run that file over and over again? Thanks!

[evilpenguin]

I recommend having mediaScraper leave a .properties file next to the ones its already processed and then having dirmon only process files that don't have a .properties file. Thats how I do it.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I recommend having mediaScraper leave a .properties file next to the ones its already processed and then having dirmon only process files that don't have a .properties file. That's how I do it.

Hey EP. Even if I don't have /genPropertyFile in my defaults.txt mediaScraper seems to create one. And, it seems that mediaScraper doesn't run completely if it finds an existing properties file.

I use SJQ to call two different instances of mediaScraper. One for all media types to get their Fanart and one for only imported videos to /AddToSageDB. For the first one I don't want to create a properties file and for the second one I do. However, the Fanart run creates one even without the parameter applied.

[rmccoy]

I've tried that, and for some reason, it keeps running on files, even if they have an associated .properties file with them... all I should have to do is list "properties" in one of the "Must Not Exist" fields, right?

In an unrelated note... is there a way for mediaScraper to run and NOT leave behind a .properties file? I removed the option "genPropertyFile" in my mediascraper.defaults.txt, but mediaScraper is still generating them when I run it to addToSageDB and organizeFiles... any way to have it delete the .properties file after or something like that? Or not create it in the first place?

[wayner]

For TV Series I am not getting FanArt displayed properly for Media that I Scrape since upgrading to Beta 13 - I believe this is related to the Central FanArt folder. Note I am using SageMC and I am NOT importing the TV shows to the SageDB.

Example:
I have all of the Battlestar Galactica shows in my Video Library. The file names are like the following \\server\Videos\TV Shows\Battlestar Galactica\Battlestar.Galactica (2003).S01E01.33.mkv

MediaScraper does download FanArt into the Central Fanart folder (in my case \\server\Software\Sage\MediaBackgrounds\TV\Battlestar Galactica (2003)\Backgrounds ...There are also different folders for different Seasons.

I see episode info so the .my file is being read. But no FanArt - why is this? Is this due to:

The folder name where the files are stored is Battlestar Galactica not Battlestar Galactica (2003)?
Because the FanArt can't be found because the folder name in my Central Fanart folder is not the exact filename of the video file - i.e. I have to have a separate folder for each episode name as in \\server\Software\Sage\MediaBackgrounds\TV\Battlestar.Galactica (2003).S01E01.33 and then bave the Backgrounds, Banners, etc. folders off of that?

Or do I have to import to the SageDB to get FanArt to work properly?

[wayner]

Bump...

Can anyone help with the issue mentioned in the above post.

[evilpenguin]

Are you also creating .properties files?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Are you also creating .properties files?

No, at least /genpropertyfile is not set in the mediascraper.defaults.txt file, but I am generating my files as I thought that is what you were supposed to do if you are running SageMC.

[PiX64]

Hey EP, Amazing tool and i love it. Made my life a whole lot easier. 3 quick questions for you:

1) Can i store the .properties files next to the fanart for example "\\Server\Fanart\Movies\Movie\Background" 'all properties files would be listed in \\server\fanart\Movies'? Or do i need ot have them next to the actual video folder so "server\movie\' where server\movie name\video_ts is the location of the movie.

2) Is there a way to change the location of the .working files when mediascraper is processing? (i have everything on my nas an purposely setup the permissions to only allow read/execute)

3) Is there a way to automatically change the location the where the .properties is stored? similiar to the fanart?

thanks and again AWESOME tool

[rmac321]

A couple people have suggested a fresh list of available switches. I have this in a file named MediaScraperSwitches.txt in my MediaScraper Folder along side the MediaScraper.defaults.txt making it easy to copy and paste switches as needed.

If anyone sees any missing, please post a followup. EP, when you get a chance, could you look over this summary to see which switches may be out of date and should be removed?

Sorry about the double spacing, but it makes it easier for me to pick out individual switches. I'm putting this as code rather than as an attachment so it is easier for all to comment on:

Defaults:

/genPropertyFile 
/downloadAllFanArt 
/baseFolder "Videos" 
/defaultProfile inputFile  
/findFileRegEx "avi|mpg|mkv|mp4|mpeg|VIDEO_TS|ts|ogm|divx|mpts|dvr-ms"


available switches:

/defaultProfile inputFile  

/findFileRegEx "avi|mpg|mkv|mp4|mpeg|VIDEO_TS|ts|ogm|divx|mpts|dvr-ms"  - tells scraper what file types to use

/saveLog  - save a copy of the log

/throttle 10  -  the amount of seconds the tool waits between queries to the server (so it doesn't flood it to much).

/genPropertyFile - Generate a .properties file.

/genMyFile - Generate a .my file, contains extra data for SageMC

/genInfoFile - Generate a .info file. These don't do anything useful, they are just a dump of all of the available metadata, some of which, doesn't fit into the .my or .properties files.

/downloadFanArt - Download fanart/thumbnails/banners if available.

/downloadAllFanArt  - [how is this different than downloadFanArt?

/baseFolder "C:\Example\Folder Name" - If you keep all your TV organized in a common base folder you can specify it here to help with scraping accuracy

/organizeFiles - If the mediaScraper is able to find metadata for your file it can also rename your file to match. (Will not work with VIDEO_TS folders)

/tvSE - This will have mediaScraper use the TV naming format S02E01 rather than 2x01. This will apply to both organizing and metadata files. 

more season/episode switches:
are these still valid?:
	/organizeTVSeasonXepisode: Scrubs 2x01 - My Overkill.avi
	/organizeTVSeasonEpisode: Scrubs S2E01 - My Overkill.avi
	/organizeTVEpisode: Scrubs E01 - My Overkill.avi

/organizeBaseFolder "D:\Videos" - If you specify a base folder when you have /organizeFiles set this will move the videos into a folder structure as well.

/4digitTV - Allow TV shows that don't use a separator between the season/episode (S07E22 -> 722) to be 4 digits long (S11E22 -> 1122). By default this is disabled to prevent a conflict with movies that have the year in the file name (2008 season/episode vs 2008 year).

/updateInfo - Normally mediaScraper will ignore videos that already have existing properties files. You can set this to have it run anyway.

/useOriginalName - Use this if you want to use your original file name in the .properties files rather than the official name scraped from the show info.

/genXMLFile - Generate an XML file that can be imported in to SageTV web server

/userName "User" - User name for logging onto a SageTV web server

/password "Password" - Password for logging onto a SageTV web server


/sageTVServer "192.168.0.101" 
/port 1234

old method of server:port?:  /sageTVServer "localhost:8080"

/addToSageDB - When used with /genXMLFile and web server settings will automatically add a show to Sage's DB using the web servers XML import function. You can use this to have your imported TV show up with your recorded TV.

/centralFanartPath "G:\Videos\Fanart"  -  If you put this into your default.txt then all fanart will be downloaded into a central folder.

/maxImagesToDownload #  -   It defaults to 1 so it doesn't try and download everything.

?  Is there a /centralWorkFolder switch?


folder.override:
If you have a show/movie that my scraper just can't handle for one reason or another, all you need to do is create a text file next to it named folder.override or whateverTheFileNameIs.override that just contains the exact show title to search for in theTVDB or IMDB and i'll use that instead of trying to guess it from the file name. One folder.override will work for everything in that folder and you can also place a folder.override it in the parent directory if you want it to apply to all folders above it.

mediascraper.skip  -  If a folder has a mediascraper.skip file in it then it and its sub directories won't be scanned. Useful if you have folders full of random clips and home movies mixed in with your TV/Movies.

[rmac321]

EP,

Any chance there is already a switch that I missed or you could add a new switch that could be used to batch set a specific metadata field?

from thread http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...441#post363441 :

Originally Posted by stuckless

Typically, when TV that is in the Video library is NOT working, it's because you have not configured the custom metadata fields that is required by bmt,mediaScraper, and Pheonix. For fanart to work, it will check the MediaType field for a given media item and use that as the basis for looking up fanart. Non Sage Recording that DON'T have the MediaType field set correctly will have a hard time finding fanart, because the tool will have identified it has being a TV show, so the Fanart will go to the TV area, but phoenix will not see it as a TV show, and only look in the Movies area.

[wayner]

To clarify on the above post - I have all of the Battlestar Galactica (BSG) episodes in my video library. I have used Mediascraper on some of the files but the Fanart is not showing up. Is that because the Fanart for BSG is in the TV section but Sage is treating these as Video files? If so how do I fix this? Can I change the MediaType to TV and will that now allow Fanart to work? Or should I move the Fanart from the TV section to the Movies section? But how will that treat the Season specific Fanart?

Or should I use the /addtoSageDB switch? If I use that switch will the episodes still show up in Video Library? Or does Sage ignore TV files that it knows about when display Video Library files? And if I do this will my Fanart work?

[rmac321]

Originally Posted by wayner

To clarify on the above post - I have all of the Battlestar Galactica (BSG) episodes in my video library. I have used Mediascraper on some of the files but the Fanart is not showing up. Is that because the Fanart for BSG is in the TV section but Sage is treating these as Video files? If so how do I fix this? Can I change the MediaType to TV and will that now allow Fanart to work? Or should I move the Fanart from the TV section to the Movies section? But how will that treat the Season specific Fanart?

Or should I use the /addtoSageDB switch? If I use that switch will the episodes still show up in Video Library? Or does Sage ignore TV files that it knows about when display Video Library files? And if I do this will my Fanart work?

wayner,

I copied my Babylon 5 FanArt directory from TV to Movies and it still didn't show up.

On my system, MediaScraper is already setting MediaType to TV for these files, so that doesn't seem to help. I just tried changing a couple to Movie, but that didn't seem to work either.

Check out this thread as well. stuckless is trying to help us sort this out too: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ad.php?t=42387

[freedml]

mediascraper seems to be getting stuck here. can someone tell me why:

- Remaining Commands (3): (/get ******AiringInfoXML /user "%%userName%%" /pa
ssword "%%password%%" /realm "SageTV Web Interface")
+ Command : /get ******AiringInfoXML /user "Sage" /password "******" /real
m "SageTV Web Interface"
- Adding Credientials: Sage@localhost:8080(SageTV Web Interface)
- Adding Credientials: Sage@localhost:8080(SageTV Web Interface)
+ Requesting WebAddress: http://localhost:8080/******/DetailedInfo?AiringI
d=1309749&xml=yes
- Attempt #1 - Attempt #2 - Attempt #3 - Attempt #4
- Attempt #5 Failure: 500 Internal server error
+ Sleeping for 10 seconds as to not throttle website

[freedml]

Maybe a password problem? Webserver installs with a default 4 character password, but mediascraper seems to assume a 6 character password.

[rmac321]

EP,

Should MediaScraper (1.13) be producing a MediaTitle field for TV shows and putting it in the .properties file? It turns out that the problem I'm having with SageMC is due to SageMC expecting to see the MediaTitle to load FanArt for TV shows in the media import directory.

see: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...7&postcount=18
and: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...2&postcount=19

Thanks!