WIZ.BIN tool - Show info graft, prune, compare/combine multiple WIZ.BIN files..

[DMZ]

I've looked over a few of the tools which can be use to help with migration of Sage and so far not quite a solution.

BMT I need to explore a bit more since it did appear to operate on the WIZ.BIN despite show recording presence. I just didn't get the time to see if I could export that info or not.

In a nutshell, the situation is as such:

Recorder machine with ~750G HDD records a bunch and periodically I have been moving watched shows and movies I want to archive or recode along with the current WIZ.BIN.

Secifically I copy what I want off to an external drive + the wiz, then delete the shows from the Sage UI, recodings listing.

My assumption is that some of the info stays in the wiz forever (show ID, watched/dislike, etc) but the show/episode info is gradually lost. Concluded by the wiz.bin shrinkage I notice later.

So ultimatly I have drives full of show and snapshots of the wiz.bin from each time I'd move things off the recorder machine...

With those I am hoping to somehow merge them all back to a single wiz.bin and move all the recordings onto a single space..the drive pool of a WHS server.

The other features mentioned in the title would be handy too, but it would seem my situation isn't far fetched and surly there are numerous people who have offloaded recordings similarly to how I have done.

I am kind of a purist with SageTV, not done much with customizations and run just the plain vanilla setup. Kind of expect I'll stay with that plan for a while while I flesh out a solution and unfold my plans for the house and TV.

I've looked over the API a little but not presently able to devote the time to personal programming since I am moving across the county quite a bit. However at first glance it seems the API can facilitate what I am thinking.

Anyone able to confirm tools exist or API possibility or steer me to existing tools to merge assorted WIZ versions (age, SageTV and STV version wise)?

[Tiki]

Wiz.bin is a closed proprietary database format. There are no tools available to merge, split, view, or edit the wiz.bin files directly.

Sage exposes much of the data that is stored in the database through its API functions. Therefore it is possible to write software that reads or modifies data stored in Wiz.bin, but there are limits on what is possible.

There are various tools for importing/exporting or modifying metadata.

BMITools is designed to scan the internet to collect metadata and fanart for your movies and tvshows and save that data so Sage can use it.

There is another import called Read/Write Metadata (RW Myfiles) that can export any metadata that is stored in Wiz.Bin for a recording or import. The exported data is stored as a text file - one file per recording in either .my format or .properties format. It can also read those files back in to Sage and provides a way to edit data from inside Sage.

The default SageTV stv has a feature which I think is only visible if you "enable the hidden extras". From within the Malore-style recording menus you can select a file and choose "Options" and there is an option to export XML data. I'm not sure how to re-import the XML data - haven't tried this one.

[GKusnick]

The XML generator plugin automatically maintains a set of XML metadata files in parallel with your recordings. You can re-import these back into Wiz.bin using the web server (and possibly other tools as well). This seems like a better archive format than Wiz.bin snapshots.