Utility: Batch Metadata Importer 3.x

[stuckless]

True, but since SageMC (with DVDProfiler) hasn't caught up with that requirement many still have the "video_ts" folder.

Am I to understand that a DVD folder may not contain a VIDEO_TS subdirectory? If so, how would someone determine that the directory is a dvd folder vs just a directory of video files?

[bcjenkins]

The files contained within would be vob, bup, ifo.

B

[stuckless]

Just updated to 1.1... now includes dvd folder support as long as the dvd folder has a video_ts subfolder. I'll have to think about how to deal with dvd folders that don't have a video_ts folder later. The trick is trying to "discover" that the files in a folder are in fact dvd files and not just regular files. I'd like to avoid excessive scanning and file extension checking if possible.

Download Here

[stuckless]

My import into Sage worked well. The only issue I see is that the Categories (Genre) seem to import as a complete string including the ; seperators. I would have thought that the first one would be the Category and the second would be the SubCategory and the rest would be ignored. This is likely an issue with the import in Sage and not your tool unless the formating in the .properties is not what Sage is expecting.

I've taken all the Genre information and concatenated them separed by ;. If this is not what Sage expects, could somone shed some light on how Sage should receive the Genre information.

Thanks.

[JREkiwi]

Genres separated by /

ie: Movie/Comedy/Romance

John

[bcjenkins]

Stuckless,

The properties file needs to go up one level. It needs to be the same level as the directory.

B

[stuckless]

The properties file needs to go up one level. It needs to be the same level as the directory.

Fixed in version 1.2 (now posted). Funny I had to go back and read and re-read... my brain kept seeing DVDNAME/properties and not what it should have been

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

[PGPfan]

I'm having trouble getting this to work in my system. First off, I'm using Sage for WHS, and to get it working at all, I had to install Java on to the WHS machine - no big deal. However, I store all my DVD rips on an unRaid server outside of Sage and WHS - accessed via UNC path names. It seems that this utility (when run from the cmd prompt of WHS) can't see movie directories that are on a different machine.

Can anyone confirm this? Any advice on a work-around?

-PGPfan

[stuckless]

The other thing I noticed is that I thought there was a propertiy for a Rating and for an Extended Rating. A Rating might be PG where and extended rating might be "Rated PG for ....". Not sure IMDB offers both nor if the properties file support both, I just remember getting a simpler Rating (only the PG) when using the imports in SageMC (now using the Default STV).

I use the IMDB rating as is... I don't do any further Rating parsing. I may look into this and provide 2 fields.... no promises

[stuckless]

I'm having trouble getting this to work in my system. First off, I'm using Sage for WHS, and to get it working at all, I had to install Java on to the WHS machine - no big deal. However, I store all my DVD rips on an unRaid server outside of Sage and WHS - accessed via UNC path names. It seems that this utility (when run from the cmd prompt of WHS) can't see movie directories that are on a different machine.

Can anyone confirm this? Any advice on a work-around?

I'll be honest... I'm not a windows person... So i'm not sure if this is a java limitation or "programmer" limitation. I suspect the latter. In my setup all mounted filesystems appear as directories, so in my case, everything looks like a regular file/directory even if it's mounted.

Do you have the option of temporariliy mounting the remove filesystem as a drive? If so, then that should work, as a work around.

I'll look into UNC as well... to see what I can find out.

UPDATE: I did find this... Doesn't look promising.

[jusjoken]

All my Video files are on another machine from the one I ran the tool from (both Windows PCs). I passed the path like "\\server\directory\directory" I included the quotes in my case as 1 of my directories contains a space in the directory name. I had no issues running the tool.

[PGPfan]

Thanks guys, I'll try some of the thing posted and will let you know!

-PGPfan

[stuckless]

PGPfan, perhaps look in the metadataupdater.log in you user's home directory and see if there are any exceptions that are being thrown. Maybe the tool doesn't like your directory for some reason.

[ChuckSchick]

Stuckless,

Thanks so much for this tool. It is working wonderfully with a sample directory. Fantastic work.

One question...

Is it possible to use the metadataupdater.properties "Title Mask" to use the <filename> for the .properties title rather than the lookup value?

Something like... maybe

org.jdna.media.metadata.impl.sage.SageVideoMetaData.titleMask=${filename}

The reason being that for some movies the file name I'm using is more useful than the IMDB Title value. For example, I've dropped the "The" from most titles so that they are easier to find in the library. Another example:

I'd rather see in my library..

Harry Potter 1 - Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter 2 - Chamber of Secrets

Using the IMDB Titles sorted alphabetically obscures the film sequence.

Anyhow, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouse, but if there is a way to do this short of manually editing the .properties values, I'd love to know.

Thanks - Chuck

[ChuckSchick]

Answer to own Question!

I'm leaving the Title Mask field blank. This is preventing a Title from being written to the properties file.

org.jdna.media.metadata.impl.sage.SageVideoMetaData.titleMask=

SageMC then sorts by and displays the Filename rather than the IMDB title. Perfect.

Thanks!

[stuckless]

Thanks for finding a solution that doesn't require a programming change I may add in ${filename} just for completeness.

[jusjoken]

Suggestion (to make life easier for me and maybe others

To support "offline" movies, could you add a property to the metadataupdater.properties file like CreateMissingFile=true so that when using the --force and passing in a filename, if the file does not exist, then instead of the **Error: File Not Found message, the tool would create a 0 byte (empty) file representing the movie and then continue as normal in searching IMDB, creating the properties file and the jpg. This would support a simple method for creating offline video records for those of us that like to have our offline collection within Sage.

Ken

[stuckless]

To support "offline" movies, could you add a property to the metadataupdater.properties file like CreateMissingFile=true so that when using the --force and passing in a filename, if the file does not exist, then instead of the **Error: File Not Found message, the tool would create a 0 byte (empty) file representing the movie and then continue as normal in searching IMDB, creating the properties file and the jpg. This would support a simple method for creating offline video records for those of us that like to have our offline collection within Sage.

Not sure I understand, but let me try.... You run the tool with a non-existent filename, such as "Batman Returns.avi", and if the file does not exist, then it will still create the file "Batman Returns.avi" and continue to fetch the metadata? While it's not hard to do, I'm not sure I understand why the file didn't exist in the first place

I'll add it to the todo list.

[jusjoken]

I keep an "offline" directory with 0 byte (empty) avi files that each represent a video I have burned on a DVD (the actual avi file is NOT on a hard drive). I can then use Sage Video Browser to review this directory to select an offline video that we may want to watch (looking at Ratings, Genre and other details that upload from the properties file). We of course then don't actually play the empty avi file in Sage, we go to our offline DVD collection and get the DVD and then watch it using Sage DVD player.

Hope this makes more sense. Sage MC supports an offline video solution related to DVD Profiler, but as I am using the Default STV now I am missing a way to do this other than manually creating an empty avi file and then running your tool.

[stuckless]

Makes a lot of sense now that you've explained it. I'll add it to the list of enhancements... I'll probably just add a --offline flag that will do what you've asked for.

BTW... I've updated the main post with information about currently worked on/considered enhancements.