Phoenix API

[stuckless]

Ben,

I'll look at adding the delete method after the initial release. I think they are valid, although the "DeleteAll" can be a bit scary.

The title stuff, is basically "the fundamental flaw" that I mentioned earlier, but let me try to explain this a little better.

When you fetch metadata/fanart for existing item in the library, it's fanart is downloaded using the MediaTitle field as determined from the metadata that was fetched. Because we can't update the "MediaTitle" field for existing items, then there is a disconnect between the downloaded "title" folder name and the one that Sage uses. Once the SetMediaFileMetadata() is added, then this disconnect will go away.

I think that maybe I need to change the existing apis until the Sage apis are there. I can change the "on demand" apis to force the existing title and NOT use the one fetched from the metadata.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I'll look at adding the delete method after the initial release. I think they are valid, although the "DeleteAll" can be a bit scary.

Cool

Originally Posted by stuckless

The title stuff, is basically "the fundamental flaw" that I mentioned earlier, but let me try to explain this a little better.

When you fetch metadata/fanart for existing item in the library, it's fanart is downloaded using the MediaTitle field as determined from the metadata that was fetched. Because we can't update the "MediaTitle" field for existing items, then there is a disconnect between the downloaded "title" folder name and the one that Sage uses. Once the SetMediaFileMetadata() is added, then this disconnect will go away.

I think that maybe I need to change the existing apis until the Sage apis are there. I can change the "on demand" apis to force the existing title and NOT use the one fetched from the metadata.

I'm proberly way of the mark here but couldn't the api seach for images from both as a temp measure until the other Sage api's are completed? So if it doesn't find any fanart folders named:

Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace

it would then look for:

Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace

Not sure if theirs alot of work involved or not but it may also prove to be a good backup plan even when the Sage api's are completed.

edit: On second thoughts is it a good idea to use the metadata to label the folders? I'm sure you've discussed this with the other dev's but what happens when you have a metadata title that doesn't conform to standard naming policys like Aeon Flux? Where the "A" is sometimes changed to an unusual character.

edit 2:
Sweet, just noticed I've become a Sage Fanatic

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Ben,


The title stuff, is basically "the fundamental flaw" that I mentioned earlier, but let me try to explain this a little better.

When you fetch metadata/fanart for existing item in the library, it's fanart is downloaded using the MediaTitle field as determined from the metadata that was fetched. Because we can't update the "MediaTitle" field for existing items, then there is a disconnect between the downloaded "title" folder name and the one that Sage uses. Once the SetMediaFileMetadata() is added, then this disconnect will go away.

I think that maybe I need to change the existing apis until the Sage apis are there. I can change the "on demand" apis to force the existing title and NOT use the one fetched from the metadata.

Sage currently has two field for storing "title" information: "showtitle" and "episode". For recordings created with Sage, the ShowTitle will contain the name of the show (eg. "Bones" or "South Park"), and the episode will contain the episode name if it exists. If you record a movie that is aired on TV through Sage, the ShowTitle will be the movie name as it appeared in the guide data, and the episode will be blank.

For imported videos, the showtitle is the filename including path (eg: "c:\my movies\Spiderman.avi").

Using Sage's current implementation of .properties files, the show title cannot be changed, but the episode title can. In the properies file, the field "title" actually sets the episode, not the show title. So, for imported videos, the episode title is typically used to hold the movie name.

In the fan art import I created, I use the showtitle for sage recordings and upcoming items in the guide, but I use the episode name for imported videos and dvds.

When creating my import, I did not want to go through the work of stripping the path and extension from the filename used as the Sage Title. Plus, in my own video library, the filename is often not the full movie title (eg: "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" is saved as "TheEmpireStrikesBack.avi") and I use the RW MetaData Import to set the title inside Sage.

Perhaps the better way would be to try to match both the ShowTitle (file name) and Episode to the fan art.

So, what field does the Phoenix API use to look up fan art?

[jaminben]

Another option would be for you to concentrate on getting the movie scraper fully operational using XMBC scapers and to use EP's scaper for TV shows. To be totally honest and please don't take this the wrong way (I love your work as well) but IMO EP's scraper for TV shows is the mutts nuts and so far works flawlessly. Perhaps you two could get together to totally integrate both scrapers into one happy package. This would also loosen the burden from you for grabbing banners as EP has this sorted and I don't think movies really support banners.

I think I read that you where going to allow this as an option anyway, but rather than an option to add his work as an addition would it better to have one package? Obviously you two would need to agree to this.

Just a thought

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Sage currently has two field for storing "title" information: "showtitle" and "episode". For recordings created with Sage, the ShowTitle will contain the name of the show (eg. "Bones" or "South Park"), and the episode will contain the episode name if it exists. If you record a movie that is aired on TV through Sage, the ShowTitle will be the movie name as it appeared in the guide data, and the episode will be blank.

For imported videos, the showtitle is the filename including path (eg: "c:\my movies\Spiderman.avi").

Using Sage's current implementation of .properties files, the show title cannot be changed, but the episode title can. In the properies file, the field "title" actually sets the episode, not the show title. So, for imported videos, the episode title is typically used to hold the movie name.

In the fan art import I created, I use the showtitle for sage recordings and upcoming items in the guide, but I use the episode name for imported videos and dvds.

When creating my import, I did not want to go through the work of stripping the path and extension from the filename used as the Sage Title. Plus, in my own video library, the filename is often not the full movie title (eg: "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back" is saved as "TheEmpireStrikesBack.avi") and I use the RW MetaData Import to set the title inside Sage.

Perhaps the better way would be to try to match both the ShowTitle (file name) and Episode to the fan art.

So, what field does the Phoenix API use to look up fan art?

I'll take another stab at this Firstly, to answer your question, Phoenix will use the MediaTitle field, if set. If it's not set, then it does a similar logic that you described above to find a title. ie, it uses the media type and based on the media type it uses the appropriate title, removing, invalid characters.

The issue here, isn't the titles, it's the fact that the titles are not updated AFTER the media has been imported, which is really the problem that Ben has described.

Maybe an example will shed some light on this...
If I add "Terminator.avi" to my video library, and the metadata plugin is installed, it may, for whatever reason think that "Terminator" is actually "Terminator 2", and it adds it as "Terminator 2". The MediaTitle is set to "Terminator 2". Later in SageMC, or Default STV, using the BMT plugin, you can search and choose "Terminator" as the movie you wanted. The plugin will download the Fanart for "Terminator" and put everything in the correct directory, BUT, the "MediaTitle" is STILL "Terminator 2", and as a result the new fanart is not picked up.

This is basically a bug in the metadata plugin, because it doesn't "rename" the video title to be what was selected from the search list. But, since we can't Set the MediaTitle field, then we can't actually do a rename anyway.

Fundamentally, using titles, filename is probably the wrong way to do this.... but in light that we can't set sage properties on the fly and there are no better solutions offered, then I've opted to stick with the flawed title method.

In the current solution, if you are importing videos and running EP's tool or my metadata tools on the videos prior to importing them, then the title matching will work. This is only a problem if you are looking to CHANGE an existing imported media item using the metadata plugin stvi that i've added to the 2.0 release of bmt.

Hope this helps to clarify the issue??

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jaminben

Another option would be for you to concentrate on getting the movie scraper fully operational using XMBC scapers and to use EP's scaper for TV shows. To be totally honest and please don't take this the wrong way (I love your work as well) but IMO EP's scraper for TV shows is the mutts nuts and so far works flawlessly. Perhaps you two could get together to totally integrate both scrapers into one happy package. This would also loosen the burden from you for grabbing banners as EP has this sorted and I don't think movies really support banners.

I think I read that you where going to allow this as an option anyway, but rather than an option to add his work as an addition would it better to have one package? Obviously you two would need to agree to this.

Just a thought

Don't worry, I'm not offended that EP's tool is better at downloading tv episode information

That's why in the phoenix apis i've left the "implementation" of metadata/fanart fetching pluggable, so that another developer can come along and decide to add their own implementation to phoenix. Also the metadata tools that I wrote contains a fully pluggable system for adding additional scrapers, etc. That's how I was able to to include the xbmc scrapers into my metadata tools.

I can't speak for EP, but I think that we'll get this sorted out....

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Don't worry, I'm not offended that EP's tool is better at downloading tv episode information

Cool

Another idea for future additions to the pheonix api could be an option to allow updating of either metadata or images.

[jaminben]

I've just tried Metadata Tools STV Plugin 2.0 Beta 7 and for some reason its not downloading any images. It does find a list of available titles to select but thats it. I have only installed this on my client PC as the server is in use currently, does this matter? I also assume that I don't need to update my STVi as all the hard work and changes are done in the jar files.

Cheers

Ben

[jaminben]

I don't know what other people think but could you strip out the month and day for phoenix_api_GetMetadataSearchResultYear when searching movies. I would prefer it to be Title (2009) rather than Title (01-01-2009). The main reason for this is that I would like to be able to use GetMetadataSearchResultProviderId in the same table search result so that the user can pick a prefered site to gather their data. However having Title, release date & dataprovider requires the bar to be massive and it looks out of place. If you or anyone else disagrees then leave it alone

[evilpenguin]

Try not to get too wrapped up in the issues with metadata stuff, Sean and I are trying to get that straightened out. You can just work under the assumption that the metadata we've agreed upon will be in the proper place.

It probably won't be as seemless as you want at the beginning, but we'll make progress on that behind the scenes.

[stuckless]

Ben.... there's a new beta8... it fixes that issue... sorry about that... too many little things changing.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

You can just work under the assumption that the metadata we've agreed upon will be in the proper place.

Originally Posted by stuckless

Ben.... there's a new beta8... it fixes that issue... sorry about that... too many little things changing.

Yep, thats sorted it out.

Cheers

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jaminben

I don't know what other people think but could you strip out the month and day for phoenix_api_GetMetadataSearchResultYear when searching movies. I would prefer it to be Title (2009) rather than Title (01-01-2009). The main reason for this is that I would like to be able to use GetMetadataSearchResultProviderId in the same table search result so that the user can pick a prefered site to gather their data. However having Title, release date & dataprovider requires the bar to be massive and it looks out of place. If you or anyone else disagrees then leave it alone

That year thing should be handled in the metadata tools scraper,etc... I'll add a bug for that, so that I don't lose track of it.

As for the other stuff.... the stvis that provider are really meant to be a poc. Mike helped me alot with those, and ultimately, it would be nice if it allowed you to select a particular provider, instead of using the default list. (BTW, I don't know if you noticed that in the setting menu, you can set the order of the metadata providers). The "user selection" stuff will get updated over time... hopefully other people will simply contribute stvis that they would prefer and I can include them in the package.

And as EP noted, over time, we'll make the metadata stuff a lot more seemless. The important thing is that the base apis are there, and being used, so that when that happens, it'll just be a minor jar update.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

That year thing should be handled in the metadata tools scraper,etc... I'll add a bug for that, so that I don't lose track of it.

I should've mentioned that I've only seen it add the month and day when using the moviedb.org profile, IMDB is fine.

Originally Posted by stuckless

(BTW, I don't know if you noticed that in the setting menu, you can set the order of the metadata providers).

Yep, I did notice and thats what I was hoping would get included in the default install of SageMC which I mentioned a few post's ago.

Originally Posted by stuckless

And as EP noted, over time, we'll make the metadata stuff a lot more seemless. The important thing is that the base apis are there, and being used, so that when that happens, it'll just be a minor jar update.

Yep, I realise that, sorry if I seem a bit pushy

Cheers

Ben

edit:

One more thing, when GetMetadataSearchResultProviderId uses IMDB it carries the xml extension with it.

21 Grams (2003) IMDB.xml

edit 2:

The file naming discrepencies appears to be all fixed up, I've scanned around 30 of what I would call difficult titles and none have come back not working.

Sweet job

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by jaminben

I should've mentioned that I've only seen it add the month and day when using the moviedb.org profile, IMDB is fine.

I get around that by having two field for movies, that way you can access either one depending on what you're planning on using it for

ReleaseDate=1-20-2007
Year=2007

Everything i'm using is in this post...

[jaminben]

Ok, So I was playing with the latest beta of your plugin and I thought it would be a good idea to carry out a force_full_content_reindex=true. So having your plugin set to scan all new files I proceded with the re-index. After around 2 hours it finished scanning and I checked out the client and too my surprise it had found about 90%+ of my movies, added the correct metadata for each and downloaded all images, very cool.
However its not all good news as for some reason the pheonix fanart api's are not picking up any images except those that failed to locate any metadata during the reindex. It has found and downloaded all available images for each movie and placed them in the correct fanart folder structure, so I don't see why its not working. I've attached two screenshot to show what I mean.

Has Fanart = didn't find metadata but images do work.
No Fanart = found metadata but images don't work.

Any ideas what I've done wrong? I can't see why its not working as everything is in the correct place.

You may also notice that "No Fanart" screenshot uses the "UserRating" to create an active star rating system, but you can also see the user rating in text within the synopsis. I realise this is an IMDB scan and thats just the way it just comes through but is their anyway to remove that from the synopsis text? (future addition).

During the reindex process it also added poster images to the acutal movie folder as well as the new central folder system. Not sure if this is due to the old way of using posters or you've kept it in just incase people don't want to use the new method.

Many Thanks

Ben

edit:

This is getting rather confusing for me so I appologise if I'm not making any sense but I've noticed something else. When using the old beta of your plugin and I used the phoenix_api_GetMetadataSearchResults(Airing) from within SageMC to grab images and potentially metadata as well it would create a properties file named:

Bolt.mkv.properties

Using the new beta build (beta 8) and from the full reindex it creates a file named:

Bolt.properties

Is this the reason why metadata wasn't getting imported with previous builds?

edit 2:

I've also noticed "If(bmt_api_IsBMTPluginInstalled(), "Enabled", "Disabled")" doesn't seem to work. I assume that if I delete the .properties file associated with a movie then it should stay deleted and not re-appear 5 mins later when this is set to disabled?

edit 3:

Here's a snippet of my log file. You can see that fanart doesn't work with 50 First Dates but does with a bugs life. Maybe usefull, I dunno!!

Sat 3/28 13:37:02.016 FANART: MediaFileMetadata; key: MediaTitle; value: 50 First Dates
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.017 FANART: MediaFileMetadata; key: MediaType; value: Movie
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.026 EXCEPTION in getValueAsObject:sage.a.e: Error in method reflection of phoenix_api_GetFanartBackgrounds of java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException for:phoenix_api_GetFanartBackgrounds( AiringForBackground )
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.034 filter time = 0 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.041 filter time = 0 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.057 filter time = 1 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.064 filter time = 1 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.481 FANART: MediaFileMetadata; key: MediaTitle; value: 
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.481 FANART: Sage Media File was determined as: MediaFile: [MOVIE, A Bugs Life] for: MediaFile[id=1452766 A[1643649,1508469,"A Bugs Life",0@0826.21:19,91] host=sagewhs encodedBy= format=AVI 1:31:05 1067 kbps [#0 Video[MPEG4-Video 25.0 fps 640x272 40:17 progressive]#1 Audio[MP3 44100 Hz 2 channels 128 kbps idx=1]] \\SAGEWHS\Videos\A Bugs Life.avi, Seg0[Sun 8/26 21:19:31.505-Sun 8/26 22:50:36.705]]
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.481 FANART: GetAllFanartArtifacts(); Media: MOVIE; Artifact: BACKGROUND; Title: A Bugs Life
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.499 FANART: GetAllFanartArtifacts(); Returning: 3 Artifacts.
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.502 filter time = 1 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.510 filter time = 0 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.526 filter time = 0 ms
Sat 3/28 13:37:02.533 filter time = 1 ms

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jaminben

During the reindex process it also added poster images to the acutal movie folder as well as the new central folder system. Not sure if this is due to the old way of using posters or you've kept it in just incase people don't want to use the new method.

EDIT: Yeah, sorry, in plugin mode the image is created for default stv compatibility. In on demand mode, it's not created, but it probably should be.

This is getting rather confusing for me so I appologise if I'm not making any sense but I've noticed something else. When using the old beta of your plugin and I used the phoenix_api_GetMetadataSearchResults(Airing) from within SageMC to grab images and potentially metadata as well it would create a properties file named:

Bolt.mkv.properties

Using the new beta build (beta 8) and from the full reindex it creates a file named:

Bolt.properties

Similar to my previous comment, are you sure the properties file wasn't there to begin with? With the last couple of build, metadata is not downloaded/created when you are using the on-demand lookups. It will download the fanart, but not create any property files.

I've also noticed "If(bmt_api_IsBMTPluginInstalled(), "Enabled", "Disabled")" doesn't seem to work. I assume that if I delete the .properties file associated with a movie then it should stay deleted and not re-appear 5 mins later when this is set to disabled?

I have a fix this this... i think. I noticed that I was using Sage's SetProperty/GetProperty, but I need to be using the SetServerProperty/GetServerProperty so that the entries are actually created and stored on the server instance and not in the client instance.

Also, if you toggle the setting, you'll have to restart the server in order for the change to take effect.

Here's a snippet of my log file. You can see that fanart doesn't work with 50 First Dates but does with a bugs life. Maybe usefull, I dunno!!

The thing that I noticed is that for the entries that are NOT working, it's using the new MediaTitle field. Could you see what your Fanart directory is called for "50 First Dates". I bet, for whatever reason, it's not "Movies/50 First Dates/".

I'll do some more testing with the MediaTitle field.

Just an fyi... if you do a reindex on you collection, and there are existing .properties with the media items, then they will be used.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I've tested this on my end, and a local poster image is not created, although I'm considering adding an option to have it created, for default stv compatibility.

Are you sure the image isn't there from the previous time it was imported?

Their were defo no images present as I deleted them all because I wanted to see if the SageMC beta I was using would support the new fanart system for posters.

Originally Posted by stuckless

Similar to my previous comment, are you sure the properties file wasn't there to begin with? With the last couple of build, metadata is not downloaded/created when you are using the on-demand lookups. It will download the fanart, but not create any property files.

Some may have had a .properties file associated with it but not the whole collection. I was using the pluggin which I thought would notice when new files had been added automatically and it did do just that. I wasn't doing a manual check from within SageMC.

Originally Posted by stuckless

I have a fix this this... i think. I noticed that I was using Sage's SetProperty/GetProperty, but I need to be using the SetServerProperty/GetServerProperty so that the entries are actually created and stored on the server instance and not in the client instance.

Cool, As I said above, if I delete a properties file it will re-appear a few minutes later so I assumed it was the pluggin seeing a missing file and re-downloading the info.

Originally Posted by stuckless

Also, if you toggle the setting, you'll have to restart the server in order for the change to take effect..

Yep, done that

Originally Posted by stuckless

The thing that I noticed is that for the entries that are NOT working, it's using the new MediaTitle field. Could you see what your Fanart directory is called for "50 First Dates". I bet, for whatever reason, it's not "Movies/50 First Dates/".

\\Server\Videos\50 First Dates.mkv

\\Server\Fanart\Movies\50 First Dates\Backgrounds\image.jpg
\\Server\Fanart\Movies\50 First Dates\Posters\image.jpg

I hope that helps

I'm currently just checking through my jar files and making sure its not my user error as these things usually are.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I have a fix this this... i think. I noticed that I was using Sage's SetProperty/GetProperty, but I need to be using the SetServerProperty/GetServerProperty so that the entries are actually created and stored on the server instance and not in the client instance.

Heh, Its just clicked what you meant by this. So I went to my extender and disabled autoupdate as before I was doing it from my PC client. So far it hasn't updated the .properties files that I've deleted.

My bad, I should've read that properly

[ace007]

I want to ru nthe latest pre-release of SageMC (http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...237#post353237) which says it requires the latest build of Phoenix API which I downloaded. I see I have some references to Phoenix already in my Sage directory structure but I want to check with those of you more knowledable than me where I should put all of these new Phoenix API files.

Thanks