Plugin: Complementary Metadata Tool (CMT)

[wayner]

For a lot of views in Sage, especially in Gemstone and Phoenix, you need Posters and Backgrounds. But some content, especially home movies, has no Fanart. Therefore is it possible to add a create Fanart functionality to CMT?

I can think of two easy ways to do this:

1 - Create a poster and/or background from the Sage generated thumbnail. It looks like the thumbnail files are all in one folder and named with the full file name, including server, path, and filename but without slashes or dots. So file \\server\folder1\folder2\filename.avi has a thumbnail of serverfolder1folder2filenameavi.jpg. So I guess this would entail copying this file to your Fanart folder to Movies\filename\Backgrounds\whatever.jpg and/or Movies\filename\Posters\whatever.jpg

2- Use a program that can create a jpg file with a video frame that is x seconds into the file. The jpg could be stored as either a poster or background.

What do you think?

p.s. I have also asked that this be added to BMT to do for a batch of files but it might be nice to be able to do from within the Sage UI.

[mkanet]

Wayner, I also would like to find an easy way to add fanart for home movies and video clips. It would be great to have an automated solution; or, at least a quick way to do this.

Can you post the full path to the image folder you're talking about in your first suggestion? I have a feeling it might not be that simple though.

I've manually added fanart to a home movie before; but vaguely remember it being a painfully tedious process; which also included defining a category of home movie for the media file.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Can you post the full path to the image folder you're talking about in your first suggestion? I have a feeling it might not be that simple though.

I am not at home now so I can't check for sure but I think it is something like the SageTV\Thumbnails folder. To be honest I am not 100% that this doesn't come from a plugin but I think the thumbnails are just generated by the Stock UI.

But presumably there are programs out there that can generate a thumbnail X seconds into a video file. Playback software like MPC-HC or VRD can all do this. A quick Google also brings up Thumbnail Me but I am not sure it this will work from a CLI, and movie thumbnailer (mtn).

Browsing through the SageTV7 manual it looks like there is a ui/thumbnail_folder setting in the sage.properties file.

[mkanet]

No worries. Whenever you get home; and, have time, please post if you find a solution...

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am not at home now so I can't check for sure but I think it is something like the SageTV\Thumbnails folder. To be honest I am not 100% that this doesn't come from a plugin but I think the thumbnails are just generated by the Stock UI.

But presumably there are programs out there that can generate a thumbnail X seconds into a video file. Playback software like MPC-HC or VRD can all do this. A quick Google also brings up Thumbnail Me but I am not sure it this will work from a CLI, and movie thumbnailer (mtn).

Browsing through the SageTV7 manual it looks like there is a ui/thumbnail_folder setting in the sage.properties file.

You mean like the following when you turn on the Secret Extras built into SageTV?

Option in SageTV during playback:


Option in Detailed Settings that turns it on:


Or do you need something that does this for files listed as recordings?

[mkanet]

I didn't even know there was that option all this time I've used SageTV with the secret extras enabled! I wonder if that has any affect on Phoenix fanart. I just enabled it now.

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

You mean like the following when you turn on the Secret Extras built into SageTV?

Option in SageTV during playback:


Option in Detailed Settings that turns it on:


Or do you need something that does this for files listed as recordings?

[wayner]

That is what I was looking for except I would like it to also generate a Poster and a Background, not just a thumb.

By the way the folder is:
C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\GeneratedThumbnails

And here is an example of a filename:
carnoustievideosHomeVideosMOV07911MPG.jpg

This is a thumbnail for a file that is:
\\carnoustie\videos\HomeVideos\MOV07911.MPG

I ain't no regex expert but I have to think that it isn't too hard to take a full filename, including path, and strip out the "." and "\" and add on ".jpg" to get the Thumbnail name and then copy that to the relevant Fanart folder.

[mkanet]

Wayner, I knew that's exactly what you wanted (and what I want too); but didn't want to speak for you.

I have a feeling it's going to take more than just adding files/directories to the Phoenix central fanart repository though. I think BMT does something to associate default fanart poster/background/banner image files with an imported video.

If someone made a plugin that automatically added a "Home Movies" Category and created respective phoenix fanart for it (when the user drops a media file in a predefined HomeMovies folder), the movie poster may look kind of bad due to incompatible aspect ratios. So, an option to just use a generic Home Movies poster might be needed.

Originally Posted by wayner

That is what I was looking for except I would like it to also generate a Poster and a Background, not just a thumb.

By the way the folder is:
C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\GeneratedThumbnails

And here is an example of a filename:
carnoustievideosHomeVideosMOV07911MPG.jpg

This is a thumbnail for a file that is:
\\carnoustie\videos\HomeVideos\MOV07911.MPG

I ain't no regex expert but I have to think that it isn't too hard to take a full filename, including path, and strip out the "." and "\" and add on ".jpg" to get the Thumbnail name and then copy that to the relevant Fanart folder.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I have a feeling it's going to take more than just adding files/directories to the Phoenix central fanart repository though. I think BMT does something to associate default fanart poster/background/banner image files with an imported video.

I am 99.9% sure that you just throw the image in the right folder and the UIs will grab the image.

For my example above as long as there is an image file in %fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Backgrounds then that will be used as the background and as long as there is an image in fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Posters then that will be used as a poster.

I think I can write the Groovy code to do this in SJQ, but it would be nice to (1) have a better hook in the UI to do this - hence CMT, or (2) have BMT do this on a scan of folders that are pre-defined as Home Movies.

FYI - here is Stuckless' post on the Home Video functionality in BMT:

Originally Posted by stuckless

The latest release of phoenix (2.3.22) adds home videos support to phoenix and BMT. (An update to bmt is not required to enable this support) Support is as follows...

In Configuration -> Phoenix -> Home Videos, you can set one or more folders, separated by semi-colons, that are "home video" folders. If set, then phoenix will ignore those folders when processing automatic metadata/fanart requests, and those folders will be excluded from the Missing Metadata view. So, in essence, the Home Videos support works like the existing global exclude filter, except that it is NOT using a regular expression, but rather you give the specific folders that you want to use as home video folders.

In the Views, you'll see a new "Home Videos" view. If you have identified one or more Home Video folders, then all your home videos will show up in this new view.

And one last little piece of information. The Configuration -> Phoenix -> Home Videos configuration has a Category configuration as well. If you provide a category here, then any time a home video is added to your library, then the phoenix automatic scanning engine will add this category to the home video file. If you group by "Genre" or "Categories" then your home videos will show up under that category.

So what I believe this means is that BMT doesn't try to find Home Video metadata and Fanart from external sources like tdvb, imdb, tmdb, etc. But it shouldn't affect the basic Fanart file functionality I described above.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am 99.9% sure that you just throw the image in the right folder and the UIs will grab the image.

For my example above as long as there is an image file in %fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Backgrounds then that will be used as the background and as long as there is an image in fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Posters then that will be used as a poster.

The only additional piece to this, is that for this example 2 metadata values need to be set.
MediaType = Movie
MediaTitle = MOV07911

They can be set in either BMT, CMT, or the API SetMediaFileMetadata()

John

[mkanet]

I didn't know about the home videos support in BMT. So, at least that will take care of auto-assigning the category; which is what BMT's support does.

What I was trying to say earlier... the name of the video title is what's used for the fanart subdirectory; not, file name. So, just because a media file is called "MOV07911.mp4", doesn't mean "%fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Backgrounds\background.jpg" will automatically display the background. At least, not for Phoenix "Movies"

My "Home Movies" category doesnt even show up under any of the Gemstone Movie flows. However, it does show up under "Categories" standard SageTV Video imports menu with a thumbnail image (using the new secrets setting to create the thumbnail).

For the sake of just trying, I did create a fanart folder with the name of my media file and respective background/poster subdir's and image files. I already have Phoenix "BG Fanart = ON" for "Category" menu. I didn't see a background image I had added; only for real movies. No surprise, unfortunately.

We may be able to convince Stuckless from the forums to auto-assign Home Videos as Phoenix "Movies" under BMT. Currently there are three main Phoenix categories: Movies, TV, and Music. That way, we can see Home Movies under the Gemstone Movie Flows. Also, we could ask him to automatically assign Home Movies "Movie" title using the media file name (so, we can create a fanart folder for it and respective images).

Edit: John basically summed it up in 3 lines. It needs to be assigned as phoenix media type "movie" and a media title name (from filename). This can be done programmatically/automatically in BMT.

Originally Posted by wayner

I am 99.9% sure that you just throw the image in the right folder and the UIs will grab the image.

For my example above as long as there is an image file in %fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Backgrounds then that will be used as the background and as long as there is an image in fanart%\Movies\MOV07911\Posters then that will be used as a poster.

I think I can write the Groovy code to do this in SJQ, but it would be nice to (1) have a better hook in the UI to do this - hence CMT, or (2) have BMT do this on a scan of folders that are pre-defined as Home Movies.

FYI - here is Stuckless' post on the Home Video functionality in BMT:


So what I believe this means is that BMT doesn't try to find Home Video metadata and Fanart from external sources like tdvb, imdb, tmdb, etc. But it shouldn't affect the basic Fanart file functionality I described above.

[wayner]

@mkanet - I think as you were posting that John clarified some of these issues.

My Home Videos do show up as movies - but some, or perhaps all, of these videos were in my SageTV video library before I noticed the Home Videos categorization in BMT and setup my "\\server\videos\Home Movies" folder as a "Home Videos" folder in BMT.

I will try adding some new files and see it they have any settings for MediaTitle and MediaType.

[mkanet]

Cool.. I'll try asking Stuckless if he wouldn't mind adding these enhancements. It could at least save us from having to define mediatitle/mediatype for every single home video.

Originally Posted by wayner

@mkanet - I think as you were posting that John clarified some of these issues.

My Home Videos do show up as movies - but some, or perhaps all, of these videos were in my SageTV video library before I noticed the Home Videos categorization in BMT and setup my "\\server\videos\Home Movies" folder as a "Home Videos" folder in BMT.

I will try adding some new files and see it they have any settings for MediaTitle and MediaType.

[wayner]

I did post this in the BMT forum a few days ago but haven't got a response. Perhaps stuckless is just busy with other stuff and doesn't have too much time to support BMT these days which is totally understandable.

[wayner]

@BobPhoenix - that looks great but it only creates Thumbnails. I am thinking that we need to create at least Backgrounds that can be used in some views to see what videos you have.

Towards that end I have written some Groovy code that can run in SJQ to do this. If anyone wants I can post my code - it is kind of rough and doesn't work on all types of files.

[nyplayer]

This plugin cannot be installed because sageex-api download fail.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...518#post561518

[Monedeath]

As of the most recent 9.0.x STVi's, the CMT plugin is now causing double-vision to occur on cast/crew lists. The CMT cast list show up first, and then the STV cast list follows a little bit further down the screen.

Edit: On further reflection this is probably a Sage v9+ situation where CMT should now be comparing its cast list to the one that Sage v9 has, and augmenting/replacing as needed, since Sage is tracking characters now.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

As of the most recent 9.0.x STVi's, the CMT plugin is now causing double-vision to occur on cast/crew lists. The CMT cast list show up first, and then the STV cast list follows a little bit further down the screen.

Edit: On further reflection this is probably a Sage v9+ situation where CMT should now be comparing its cast list to the one that Sage v9 has, and augmenting/replacing as needed, since Sage is tracking characters now.

I don't have V9, but just check if you are creating .my files and have .my file reading enabled in the Metadata Options, that would certainly cause the symptom you are seeing.

John

[Monedeath]

From memory, yes that was turned on. Will check later to see what happens when turned off.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

I don't have V9, but just check if you are creating .my files and have .my file reading enabled in the Metadata Options, that would certainly cause the symptom you are seeing.

Creation was in fact on, could turn off the ALWAYS read .my file option, couldn't get it to not try to read the .my files in general. As such, double cast lists happen when it finds a .my file.