Phoenix API

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Not sure on that... I think the new versions of the Phoenix API return season specific fanart if they are available, so if SageMC is simply calling the phoenix API, it SHOULD work to get season art... really only one way to find out. Put in the newest Phoenix jar file, and give it a shot.

It works sometimes. Sometimes it always returns season 1 (phoenix api)

[aflat]

The web browser is handy, sorry I didn't know about this earlier. It appears to think that it should go to the movie fanart folder, which makes sense, it is in my videos folder. BMT puts all the fanart into the TV central location, since I'm using thetvdb.org provider, this again makes sense. What I don't understand is how to make SageMC and/or pheonix point to the TV fanart location when doing the fanart lookup.

[aflat]

I posted this is it's own thread, but it looks like it may be a phoenix issue.

I'm having issues getting fanart for TV shows to work correctly.

SageMC 6.3.9b -12
Phoenix 1.44
Sage 6.6.2.218
BMT 3.1

So everything is fairly up to date. I don't have the automatic plugin enabled, but I do scan using BMT manually. I'm using central fanart. As an example, I have

f:\fanart\TV\Dollhouse\Backgrounds
                      \Banners
                      \Posters
                      \Season 2\Posters

And my videos have a folder

f:\videos\TVshows\Dollhouse\Dollhouse-s02e01-Title.mpg
                           \Dollhouse-s02e01-Title.mpg.properties

In the properties the MediaType=TV, MediaTitle=Dollhouse, so I think it should look in the TV directory for fanart. When I look at the BMT website, the MediaType is not set, even though it is in the properties file. Also, the fanart->default fanart Dirs points to the Movies folder in the central fanart location, not the TV central fanart location as I expected. I can change the Media Type via the webpage, but nothing changes, it still looks in Movies.

All of this works great for movies, and I love it all, thanks everyone for all your hard work.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by aflat

I can change the Media Type via the webpage, but nothing changes, it still looks in Movies.

All of this works great for movies, and I love it all, thanks everyone for all your hard work.

So, when you update the mediatype using the bmt webui, does it keep the TV setting or does it just reset back to being unset. Fanart using MediaType and the MediaTitle are it's key indicators for where to find fanart. If either of those are not set in the wiz.bin then the results are unpredictable. If the webui is not peristing the TV setting, then that's another issue, and it will result in mixed fanart results.

As a last resort, you could try and set the following property from the web ui...
Configuration -> Metadata Tools -> Fanart -> Parse Display Title for TV Series Name.

With that property set, it will attempt to find the tv info from parsing the filename instead of relying on the MediaType and MediaTitle. YMMV.

[aflat]

It retains the setting when I change it in the webpage. Once I set the MediaType and the Show Title(which is also blank) in the web page then everything works, all fanart is loaded correctly.

Oddly enough, MediaType and MediaTitle are set in the .properties file(manual scan using BMT command line), the webpage re-writes it with the exact same info, except it removes values, which are blank in the webpage, due to it not reading the properties it seems.

[aflat]

Oddly enough, once I rebooted the machine, everything seemed to fix itself up. It everything is read in correctly now, and fanart is displayed. Not sure why the reboot fixed it, but I'll take it, it looks fantastic!

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I have completely misunderstood how genre fanart works I assumed that genre fanart would have been a one size thing, where you would ask for the genre fanart for "Action" and it would return some Action genre images.

But from what you are saying, then there should 3 GetXXXGenre calls, one for poster, background and banner.

So the API would be...

GetFanartPosterGenre(mediaFile, genre)
GetFanartBackgroundGenre(mediaFile, genre)
GetFanartBannerGenre(mediaFile, genre)

And the folder structure would be

FANART_FOLDER/Genres/Posters/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/Genres/Backgrounds/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/Genres/Panners/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/Movies/Genres/Posters/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/Movies/Genres/Backgrounds/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/Movies/Genres/Panners/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/TV/Genres/Posters/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/TV/Genres/Backgrounds/(image files)
FANART_FOLDER/TV/Genres/Panners/(image files)

Glad I can help out. The genre stuff was added because I was hoping to entice you to start using the new apis

Are there currently any plans to implement the full Genre support as described above (With separate subfolders for Background, Banners, and Posters similar to how TV and Movies work)?

[Tiki]

Is there any way to look for fanart for a media object ina specific place?

For example, if I have a TV Show and a Movie with the same title but different fan art, my STV can tell which one it needs. It would be easy for me to call "getMovieBackground(mediafile)" or "getTVBackground(mediafile)"

I looked through the Phoenix APIs Java Docs, but couldn't find any calls like this. I only see the generic getFanartBackground() and similar calls, which means it is up to Phoenix to figure it out. Is there something I am missing?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Is there any way to look for fanart for a media object ina specific place?

For example, if I have a TV Show and a Movie with the same title but different fan art, my STV can tell which one it needs. It would be easy for me to call "getMovieBackground(mediafile)" or "getTVBackground(mediafile)"

I looked through the Phoenix APIs Java Docs, but couldn't find any calls like this. I only see the generic getFanartBackground() and similar calls, which means it is up to Phoenix to figure it out. Is there something I am missing?

I believe phoenix uses the IsTV function of sage api to determine which folder to look in but I could be wrong.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I believe phoenix uses the IsTV function of sage api to determine which folder to look in but I could be wrong.

That's what I thought, and if that's the case it won't work right for recorded movies or imported TV series. That's why I wanted to make the determination myself.

[PLUCKYHD]

Actually tiki I mispoke it uses the field bmt creates "mediatype" and that does work for imported tv and should for movies as well.

If you are not using bmt you won't have those fields

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Are there currently any plans to implement the full Genre support as described above (With separate subfolders for Background, Banners, and Posters similar to how TV and Movies work)?

There has always been plans to implement this... but it keeps dropping down on my priority list I'll see if I can get these implemented correctly this weekend (or sooner).

Originally Posted by Tiki

Is there any way to look for fanart for a media object ina specific place?

For example, if I have a TV Show and a Movie with the same title but different fan art, my STV can tell which one it needs. It would be easy for me to call "getMovieBackground(mediafile)" or "getTVBackground(mediafile)"

Currently the fanart lookup is a blackbox... which was the intention from the start. The goal was to give the api a media file and let it decide where to look for fanart. But, utimately, the fanart all passes down to such an internal function where you pass it a bunch of parameters, and it creates the folder structure from that information. I'll look at exposing that core API so that STV developers that need/want finer control over the fanart resolution can simply call the API directly.

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Actually tiki I mispoke it uses the field bmt creates "mediatype" and that does work for imported tv and should for movies as well

bmt does use the MediaType field as well as a bunch of other indicators. ie, it can also scrape the title in real time to determine TV, or it will look at the category to determine if the mediafile is a Movie, even though it's a recording. The rules of fanart are quite complex, which is why they were wrapped in the API to begin with

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

There has always been plans to implement this... but it keeps dropping down on my priority list I'll see if I can get these implemented correctly this weekend (or sooner).

Thanks!

Originally Posted by stuckless

Currently the fanart lookup is a blackbox... which was the intention from the start. The goal was to give the api a media file and let it decide where to look for fanart. But, utimately, the fanart all passes down to such an internal function where you pass it a bunch of parameters, and it creates the folder structure from that information. I'll look at exposing that core API so that STV developers that need/want finer control over the fanart resolution can simply call the API directly.

That's what I figured...

Originally Posted by stuckless

or it will look at the category to determine if the mediafile is a Movie, even though it's a recording.

If this has been implemented already, I shouldn't need the direct calls exposed... Since the metadata searches didn't work right for movies recorded from TV, I thought the fanart lookups would fail too, but I am only starting now to really experiment with the Phoenix stuff (finally took the plunge and installed BMT 3.1 earlier this week).

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

If this has been implemented already, I shouldn't need the direct calls exposed...

I'll expose an uber api anyways, that way people can choose to use it, if they need that amount of flexibility.

Since the metadata searches didn't work right for movies recorded from TV, I thought the fanart lookups would fail too, but I am only starting now to really experiment with the Phoenix stuff (finally took the plunge and installed BMT 3.1 earlier this week).

I think the fanart lookups would be correct, but BMT, when it scans a file, scans it as a "file" and not a sage media file, so it doesn't use the category, etc. A short version of bmt did use the category, but, i had to remove it because it caused a severe issue in the automatic plugin where it cause the plugin to go into an endless loop. I'm hoping to address this in the 4.x release.

fanart lookups is highly dependant on the MediaType and MediaTitle fields, and if those fields exist in the custom metadata, then they are used. So, if bmt scanned a TV movie with a MediaType of TV, then the Fanart will never actually look at the category, since it already "knows" the type. The only time "discovery" is used, is if there isn't a MediaTitle or MediaType for the entry.

EDIT: Afterthought
so, as a hack/work-around, in your stv, you could re-set the MediaType field for a media item, if it's wrong, and then proceed to call the fanart apis... ie, something like... if the mediafile is a recorded show, and has a movie category, then call "SetMediaFileMetadata(MediaFile, "MediaType", "Movie"), and call GetPoster/Banner/Background, etc.

[stuckless]

Since in there looking at genres, i thought that I'd take a look at actors as well. Currently actors is a child of a given media item, ie,
TV/ShowName/Actors/ActorName/files

but should it become more like genres....
Genres/Action/Posters/files
Actors/ActorName/Posters/files
TV/
Moves/

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Since in there looking at genres, i thought that I'd take a look at actors as well. Currently actors is a child of a given media item, ie,
TV/ShowName/Actors/ActorName/files

but should it become more like genres....
Genres/Action/Posters/files
Actors/ActorName/Posters/files
TV/
Moves/

yes (then you only need to maintain a single (or group of pictures) per actor no matter how many shows/movies/etc they have been in

[Fuzzy]

agreed. Actors shouldn't be split up between titles.

[Tiki]

I'm not sure how people will use the Actors pictures. I know that on places like tvdb.com they have actor pictures specifically associated with a show (possibly in with a show-specific backdrop or in costume as a particular character, etc.) so there may be some benefit to being able to store show-specific actor pictures. On the other hand, it's probably overkill to store a ton of duplicate actor pictures.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm not sure how people will use the Actors pictures. I know that on places like tvdb.com they have actor pictures specifically associated with a show (possibly in with a show-specific backdrop or in costume as a particular character, etc.) so there may be some benefit to being able to store show-specific actor pictures. On the other hand, it's probably overkill to store a ton of duplicate actor pictures.

I use them in SMW I prefer it to text of the actors

examples

AllActors

ActorsinMovie

but agree one actor picture is enough.

[stuckless]

This took a lot longer than I had hoped... but I've finally got a build that, I think, implements Genres and Actor fanart, in the way that you want (I hope)

Before releasing this as the current build, I'd like you guys to do some testing and then provide some feedback.

The FanartAPI section was modified slightly... The old actor and genre api calls were removed, and a bunch of new genre and actor apis were added. Here's the new actor/genre fanart apis...

   GetFanartGenre(Genre, ArtifactType): String
   GetFanartGenrePath(Genre, ArtifactType): String
   GetFanartGenres(Genre, ArtifactType): String;
   GetFanartActor(Actor): String
   GetFanartActorPath(Actor): String
   GetFanartActors(Actor): String;

ArtifactType is one of "background", "banner", or "poster".

Genres will be stored in...
CENTRAL_FOLDER/Genres/GenreName/Posters/*.jpg
CENTRAL_FOLDER/Genres/GenreName/Banners/*.jpg
CENTRAL_FOLDER/Genres/GenreName/Backgrounds/*.jpg

Actors will be stored in...
CENTRAL_FOLDER/Actors/ActorName/*.jpg

Actors have no ArtifactType (banner, poster, background).

In addition to the helpful methods of GetFanartPoster, etc, there are 4 new generic apis that can be called. All GetFanartXXXX apis basically pass down to these apis, but now they are exposed as public, for those of you that need to fine tune the calls

   GetFanartArtifacts(MediaFile, MediaType, MediaTitle, ArtifactType, ArtifactTitle, MetadataMap): String;
   GetFanartArtifact(MediaFile, MediaType, MediaTitle, ArtifactType, ArtifactTitle, MetadataMap): String
   GetFanartArtifactDir(MediaFile, MediaType, MediaTitle, ArtifactType, ArtifactTitle, MetadataMap, Create): String
   SetFanartArtifact(MediaFile, FanartFile, MediaType, MediaTitle, ArtifactType, ArtifactTitle, MetadataMap): void

MediaFile - Sage MediaFile, MediaFile ID, MediaFile File, or a Phoenix MediaFile
MediaType - one of "tv", "movie", "music", "genre", or "actor" (if null, will auto discover from MediaFile)
MediaTitle - Media Tile (if null, will auto discover from MediaFile)
ArtifactType - one of "banner", "background", or "poster"
ArtifactTitle - Always Null (there is an advanced use case, but I'm going to cover it, so just leave it null)
MetadataMap - A Map of Metadata Fields that are relevant to the fanart call. Currently only "SeasonNumber" is ever used. (if null, it will auto discover from MediaFile)

I did find and fix a bug released to Season fanart, so if you found that it wasn't working before, hopefully it will work now.

SetFanartXXXX was changed so that it no longer will rename a file to make it default. instead, when you set a default fanart item, it will "record" it in the Sage.properties. When you request fanart, it will check to see if there is a "default" in the Sage.properties, and if so, it will use that file. This should get around the sage caching issue.

I've unit tested all the apis so hopefully everything else should still work as it used to... but no promises

Good luck and let me know how you make out.