Announcements

Fixed IMDB Scraper Library

billyad2000 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:49:58 GMT

I've updated the main build to include the new library, but for those that already have version 3.154 - just overwrite the imdb.dll file in your mc folder with this file Download imdb.dll This build should be ok, I tested it with about 20 movies and it worked fine, but there is always the possibility of a discrepancy in a few movies, if anyone has any issues then let me know, be sure to include the imdb url to the problem movie I've noticed that downloading fanart and posters from ...

IMDB Scraper fix - 19th November 2009

billyad2000 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:16:32 GMT

Fixed IMDB scraper library, This will also fix the issue with spec characters. Download imdb.rar I've tested a few movies with this and it seems fine, but there is always the possibility of a discrepancy in a few movies, if anyone has any issues then let me know, be sure to include the imdb url to the problem movie. Also available is tmdb_posters.rar, this has been updated to use TMdb API 2.1, it seems to be significantly faster than 2.0 Download tmdb_posters.rar Download ...

Progress Update - 18th November 2009

billyad2000 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:28:25 GMT

Just a brief post to let you know whats happening with MC and when and what you can expect from the next build. Whats been done. For movies there are several enhancements and new features. The TMdb API handler for has been upgraded to use TMdb API 2.1 Customizable genre filter list. Support for HTML Templates Movie list now displays Runtime/Rating/Year as prefix when sorting by those catagories. Tooltip on movielist now shows basic movie movie details on mouseover Movie ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.154

billyad2000 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:58:55 GMT

Changes for new version 3.154 Bugfix - tag changed to xbmc does not recognise sortorder Bugfix - Wrong medianfo.dll was included in distribution resulting in incorrect tags Bugfix - Unhandled exception when using the "Change Movie" option Bugfix - When searching for new movies Google was used to find the IMDB ID, this is very accurate, but it seems that google blocks a user after a certain number of searches (In my case it was about 350), ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.148

billyad2000 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:04:55 GMT

Just a small update on 3.143 New feature for Movies, support for tags. The field is below the Movie title, by default it is the same as the title, but xbmc will list movies alphabetically according to what is in this tag. You can view this order using the new "Sort Order" Radio Button. Download Version 3.148

Running into an issue:

jetskijoe — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:18:36 GMT

It looks like IMDB changed some of there tags around. Please see the following error Deleting existing poster and backdrops Clearing current movie details Scraping Movie Body with settings: tt0259822 http://www.imdb.com/ System.Xml.XmlException: The 'p' start tag on line 8 does not match the end tag of 'genre'. Line 8, position 13. at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String[] args) at ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.139

billyad2000 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:55:51 GMT

New Release Build 3.135 A number of bugfixes have been reported since Sunday, this build addresses most of them. Changes since version 3.135 Missing TV Art would raise exception Changed TV Folder Parser tag added to streamdetails After browsing posters, changing the show in the main browser would keep previous show details Searching for TV Posters on IMDB would result with an exception if no IMDB ID is available Season-all default preference can now be ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.143

billyad2000 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:34:42 GMT

New Release Build 3.142 3.143 Edit I am closing in on the error that causes TV Episodes not to be added, 3.143 has a bit more information for me. Changes since version 3.139 Renaming tv episodes would remove some chrs (,+=) from filenames TV Episode added support for .flv Exception on "change movie" is now caught, debug log file created in Media Companion folder - "changemovie.log", please post log if you encounter an error For those who are missing ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.135

billyad2000 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:11:14 GMT

New version 3.135 Changes for this build Added - Poster Browser has been added to TV Shows Bugfix - Regex error which limited multipart episodes to 2 episodes Bugfix - Regex error which changed episode path to lowercase causing custom regex to not work as intended Bugfix - TV Show Genre auto scraper contained unwanted "|"s Bugfix - "season00.tbn" does not import to XBMC, filename changed to "season-specials.tbn" Changes - Added - Option ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.125

billyad2000 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:45:32 GMT

New version 3.125 Changes Bugfix - various regex problems fixed that could cause multipart episode nfos including x264 Bugfix - When an nfo was found using a stacked convention then a media search would create a new unstacked movie nfo and list both Bugfix - Search for new episodes opened the fanart tab Bugfix - TV fanart browser caused exception when no MOVIE is selected Bugfix - & wrong way around Added Regex editor for ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.128

billyad2000 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:23:45 GMT

New version 3.128 Couple of minor fixes Bugfix - Reset filters button located outside window boundaries Bugfix - Last image in movie fanart browser checkbox was located outside window boundaries Bugfix - Multipart episode identification was broke Whats next Adding a browser for TV Show posters, season posters, and episode screenshot capability. Keep the bug reports coming, I intend to concentrate now on adding the poster browser, hope to get this finished within ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.127_Fixed version

billyad2000 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:31:17 GMT

New version 3.127_Fix First build contained error where scrape selected show button was concealed behind a panel, I have changed the link below to the fixed version. Changes Bugfix - More regex filters added to include 720p, 720i, 1080p, & 1080i Bugfix - MC did not recognise episode 0 Bugfix - Editing and saving title would cause season and episode to be appended to front of title Bugfix - browse button in Movie posters would disappear when a search was performed Bugfix ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.122

billyad2000 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:12:00 GMT

New version 3.122 The TV Show cache file has been changed since 3.102 and it will not work with the new build, use the "Rebuild TV Shows" to fix the issue So whats changed: TV Section Most bugs have been fixed TV Show Fanart browser now enabled TV Shows can be rescraped and edited TV episodes can be played using Media Player or other according to options TV Shows can be Opened in Browser at IMDB or TVDB Only seasons that have episodes are listed in the treeview TV ...

Progress update 13th October

billyad2000 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:59:43 GMT

Just a brief update since I know I'm a little bit behind my schedule. I've just finished for the day and have almost finished the next build, I have had to change a few things that were not quite working as hoped, which has been the cause of the delay. TV Shows should be working much better from the next build, with rescraping show and episode data, fanart, and editing now enabled. The GUI has also been amended slightly, mostly in the tv show and episode areas. All that remains really, ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.106

billyad2000 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:12:01 GMT

New version 3.106 Finally, but by no means completely, TV Shows is now enabled for this build. It should be noted that the tv show and episode handling is very beta, and although it shouldn't hurt your files, their may be times when it does not behave as expected As with gen1, tv shows can be added from the preferences by adding either the add root for folders containing multiple shows or by using the add single folder button. A separate item should be listed for each seperate tv show. Once ...

Progress report 15th September 2009

billyad2000 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:45:10 GMT

Almost there now, this is going to be close, as you may know I am going away on Sunday evening for a couple of weeks, and I wont be able to do much, if any work on MC. So far I have completed the TV Show handling, and tv shows can now be added and scraped, series/season posters and fanart can also be auto-scraped (The add TV Show browser is much the same as gen1), the scraper library works exceptionally well and will even download posters in your preferred language if they exist, there should ...

Progress report 6th September 2009

billyad2000 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:24:53 GMT

I know it has been almost 2 weeks since the last build, but there has been a reason for that. I have been working hard to get TV Show handling completed. This is an essential part of the functionality, and it has been missing for far too long. TV Show browsing is now fully enabled and works great. The shows are added to a treeview hierarchy, this has simplified things for the user and has removed the need for multiple combo/list boxes, all Shows, seasons and episodes can be viewed at ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.098

billyad2000 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:27:00 GMT

New version 3.098 Added - option to prefix runtimes less than 100 with 0 (or 00 if less than 10 minutes) This is enabled from the General scraper preferences and will only work for files that have the basic runtime information, eg "5 min" or "94 mins" or "80 minutes" (The space is not needed). Runtime fields such as "132 min | 144 min (extended version)" will be untouched unless they are edited. It is suggested that HD tags are used since this ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.094

billyad2000 — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:53:09 GMT

Changes to new version 3.094 Single fix this time I accidentally removed the scan for new media button Download Version 3.094 Just overwrite the previous version, ( the config will remain compatable only if you are upgrading from version 3.xxx). Many thanks to everyone for the bug reports, keep them coming (Not to many though ) This thread has been locked, please use the appropriate forums for discussion, bug reports, advice etc

Updated imdb.dll

billyad2000 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:50:22 GMT

This updated scraper library will fix the issue where movies could not be identified when the folder/file name contained the ampersand character (&)

Just overwrite the current imdb.dll in your Media Companion directory with the new file.

Download imdb.dll

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.087

billyad2000 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:13:32 GMT

Changes for version 3.087 Bugfix - Encoding issue with outputting html list fixed Other - Html list now sorted a-z Other - typo fixed in The Batch Rescraper Wizard form Download Version 3.087 Just overwrite the previous version, ( the config will remain compatable only if you are upgrading from version 3.xxx). Many thanks to everyone for the bug reports, keep them coming (Not to many though ) I am happy with the overall functionality of the movie handling now, and ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 3.008

billyad2000 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:19:00 GMT

. Changes since yesterday: Rescrape Movie will add HD Tags if the option is enabled and the tags dont already exist MC would completely ignore invalid xml files, these are now added to the list by the filename, they can be viewed alone by selecting the problem filter. I've tweaked the rescrape routine so that rescraping the problem movies should fix them.The nfo's are validated by the presence of , , , and tags to avoid scene ...

New Release Media Companion gen2 beta

billyad2000 — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:26:15 GMT

New Release Media Companion gen2 beta This is a little earlier than planned due to the IMDB scraper being broken on the last version, The movie handling is almost complete, scraping, editing, poster and fanart handling should be working fine. This is a beta release, there are some functions and preferences that are not yet enabled (such as profiles), The output logs are incomplete, and exception handling is very basic. Known issues that will be fixed in the next couple of ...

Progress Report 20 May 09

billyad2000 — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:35:33 GMT

As most of you know I decided several weeks ago that Media Companion could go no further without some serious work. This has been progressing nicely, although not as fast as I (or you) would like. After ripping the old perverbial guts out of the program, I have spent the last few weeks concentrating on getting the movie section functioning again, and also looking at the GUI and hopefully improving it. It will be quite a while before a finished version is available, but I would expect a ...

Whats Happening?

billyad2000 — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:28:52 GMT

Hello everyone, i'm sorry about the lack of communication over the last couple of weeks, but I have been extremely busy. Just to make things clear, Media Companion is not dead, it is however going through a major transition. After I uploaded the last version and started getting reports of different bugs and issues, I started the usual process of trying to track them down to fix them. It was during this process that I realised that that the code was becoming impossible to maintain. Constant ...

New Version 2.291

billyad2000 — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:23:53 GMT

New Version 2.291

Fix for encoding error on shutdown in version 2.290

Download Version 2.291

Please report bugs with as much detail as possible.

New Version 2.290

billyad2000 — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:54:53 GMT

New Version 2.290 As many of you will likely be aware I have actually had to roll back to version 2.209 for core of this version. I have named it 2.290 for the sake of chronology, earlier versions will no longer work with TVDB I have been busy all day adding what I considered to be the most important features that have been added since 2.209 and I think i've got most of them. HD Tags is available Movie Scraper Wizard Missing TV Episode Thumbnail Search, as well as one or two ...

New Version 2.287

billyad2000 — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:27:06 GMT

New Version 2.287 Bugfix - All TV Shows that were missing the TVDBID tag would list all episodes for each show without an ID. Bugfix - Language settings were not been used in the TV Scraper until after a TV Rebuild Bugfix - The Default and DVD order setting in the TV Show Scraper was setting the inverse of intended (setting 'dvd' would save 'default' and visa versa) In addition to this, the cache option is now disabled by default until I can figure out the problems with it. If you ...

New Version 2.284

billyad2000 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:37:58 GMT

New Version 2.284 Main Changes Media Tags are now available for Movies, set the option in the scraper settings. A Rescrape all movies wizard has been added to the 'movies' Drop down menu. This allows you to rescrape all movies, replacing any combination of tags, including actors and Media Tags. A good example of a use for this would be to Add Media Tags to all movie nfo files without altering any other part of the nfo. (The 'Leave actor tags alone, but download thumbs to local ...

New Version 2.233

billyad2000 — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:24:43 GMT

New Version 2.233 This should fix most of the issues that affected version 2.229 Fixed - Progress Bar Issue Fixed - 404 Exception when TVDB API unavailable when searching for episode thumbs Fixed - Exception when performing rebuild Fixed - Auto TV Scraper not filtering Hex Tags when scraping IMDB actors for episodes. Changed - Both fanart and Episode thumbnail search will now only list new images in the output log Download Version 2.233

New Version 2.229

billyad2000 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:36:34 GMT

New Version 2.229 Fixed - x264 in episode filename would return multiepisode information for episode 264 Fixed - IMDB codes changed to hex Fixed - Some New TV Shows would cause an exception when added Fixed - Movie title & year not been updated in the movielist when changed via the edit window. Possible fix - A generic error occurred in GDI+. was occuring when trying to save new fanart. This seems to be a .net issue and i've implemented a reccomended workaround. Due to the inconsistant ...

New Version 2.220

billyad2000 — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:30:42 GMT

Version 2.220 Largely a bugfix release and code cleanup release, The issue with the rar size preference being ignored has been fixed The TVDB scraper now addresses images.tvdb directly to avoid the problems that the new mirrors are causing Local actor thumbs are now supported for TVDB thumbs as well as IMDB Many other small bugs have also been fixed The cache file has been updated and should be more stable now, it also includes the actorDB, you may have noticed that in the ...

New Version 2.209

billyad2000 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:44:29 GMT

Just a couple of things Additional functions Support for movie.nfo, movie.tbn, & fanart.jpg has finally been added. (note; at the moment playback and mediainfo are disabled when browsing nfo's in this format) You can now set the size of rar files ignored by MC during scraping (default is 8MB) I've finally implemented the download of actor thumbs to a local path (For Movies only at the moment, support for TVDB will be coming soon), this allows several things, at the moment the ...

New Version 2.203

billyad2000 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:50:41 GMT

Just a couple of things Bugfixes Error caused by missing "Media Companion" Folder within the application data folder XML character translation error when adding newly scraped episode titles to the episode listbox Changing profiles when using scraper threads caused issues, user now has choice to cancel scraper threads or keep with profile Additional functions To improve the speed of browsing an option has been added to skip checking for trailer files when loading info An ...

New Version 2.201

billyad2000 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:34:40 GMT

Sorry about the delay in getting this up, everytime I thought it was about ready I discovered new issues that had to be resolved. I am hoping that most people will find this works ok, but I will be working hard over the next few weeks to fix problems. General Changes / Things you need to know MC now stores all user configurable files in a "Media Companion" folder located in your users application data folder. This should solve issues with Vista permission issues when locating ...

New Version 2.141

billyad2000 — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:31:52 GMT

Version 2.141 has been floating around for a couple of weeks now, there are only a couple of changes, but I think it they are enough for people to benefit from the update. Just a couple of changes :- support for movies in the .rar format including multi-volume now works 100% I have fixed most of the issues with the movie scraper that cause it to stop after scraping certain movies, in addition to this, when an error does occur it appends the error to the output log, any errors should ...

New Version 2.135

billyad2000 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:27:31 GMT

New Version 2.135

Just a small fix

An error that caused the Media Companion Movie Scraper thread to exit before it had completed scraping all movies.

Download Version 2.135

New Version 2.134

billyad2000 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:29:04 GMT

New Version 2.134 This will be the last release for a couple of weeks, I'm now finally starting on the tv show handling Changes since version 2.132 Bugfix - Some trailers were not recognised by media companion Changes The Fanart and Poster Browsers are now directly accessible from the main Movie Page, since most things are editable without entering the edit form it seemed natural to add this. Having to go into the edit form for every new movie and browse fanarts was a pain. The ...

New Version 2.132

billyad2000 — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:44:46 GMT

Bugfix - Media Companion would re-scape .rar files that had already been scraped.
Bugfix - The tag was still added to new .nfo files instead of

Download Version 2.132

New Version 2.131

billyad2000 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:41:17 GMT

Version 2.131 Bugfix - with multi volume rar files, when checking non XBMC nfo files for IMDB ID would look for file named "moviename.part001.nfo" instead of "moviename.nfo" Bugfix - Stacking preferences were ignored when using the fanart or poster browser. (Fanart or Posters that already exist using the convention not selected will be renamed to avoid the possibility of multiple fanarts and/or posters for the same movie) The delete function has been improved ...

New Version 2.125

billyad2000 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:26:09 GMT

Version 1.125 Sorry about the delay in fixing the .rar handling, I haven't had much time this week due to a family crisis, I should be able to get back to normal next week. Just a few changes changed rar handling so that for multi-part archives named .part001.rar etc. The .partxx1 is now removed. I'm not sure about normal stacking for these archives eg. At the moment "movie cd1.part001.rar" is named to "movie.rar" or "movie cd1.rar" if the stacking ...

New Version 2.102

billyad2000 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:12:51 GMT

Lots of changes for this build. Genre Filter Has Been Re-writter, now includes all IMDB filters, aswell as capability of searching by Year or Year Range. Searches Can Now Be Performed by Actor, click the Magnifying Glass next to the Actor Name to list all the movies with that actor. Double Clicking a fanart in the browser now opens the fullsize fanart in the window and displays the resolution, much like the poster browser. An option has been added in the Scraper Preferences to limit ...

New Version 2.121

billyad2000 — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:13:55 GMT

Version 2.121 Just a couple of small additions :- Option to list Watched or Unwatched titles. The options are located in Menu/Movies I've added support for the .rar extension for movies, this is experimental since I have no way of knowing if the .rar file contains movies. To avoid scraping small files such as subs etc, i've set a minimum filesize of 8MB. For multi-volume rar's with the naming convention :- "moviename.part01.rar" "moviename.part02.rar" only ...

New Version 2.118

billyad2000 — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:45:34 GMT

Version 2.118 Just a single Bugfix, looks like Media Companion is working pretty well now, reports of problems are getting few and far between Version 2.118 addresses the issue that raises a "File Not Found" exception when exiting the poster browser. Download Version 2.118 I'm not accepting any more feature requests for the movie section from now, I'll wait a couple more days to allow people to report bugs and then I'm gonna start on TV Shows. I've spent the last ...

New Version 2.117

billyad2000 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:48:36 GMT

Version 2.117 Bugfix - Editing an unwatched movie and saving marked the movie as watched Bugfix - Editing an actor would raise the "Are you sure" Dialogue when saving Bugfix - When exiting the Poster Browser and no poster is available then an exception was raised Bugfix - Saving a Poster from Poster Browser did not also save folder.jpg New searches located in menu/movies List Movies Without Fanart List Movies Without a Poster Additional Preferences Added :- If ...

New Version 2.113

billyad2000 — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:52:19 GMT

Bugfix - trying to play a TV Media File would result in an unhandled exception Bugfix - Enabling year filter would result in an exception if no year(s) are entered Bugfix - tooltip displayed when "Display new movies" checkbox is not Bugfix - Regex error for multipart tv episodes Bugfix - The watched catagory would not recognise exported .nfo's that had an episode count >1 Misc - TV season and episode no's were validated to be less than 99, this stopped shows such ...

New Version 2.111

billyad2000 — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:53:25 GMT

Just a couple of things. I've changed the watched tag to , If there is no tag or set at 0 then it is assumed that the movie is unwatched, a value of 1 indicates that the movie has been watched, thanks to ChoccyHobNob for setting me straight. An error stopping the MPAA tag from being scraped has been fixed For german users "," is replaced with "." in the movie rating Download Version 2.111

Small Update 2.107

billyad2000 — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:53:34 GMT

2 small fixes from 2.106 When creating the multi episode capability I inadvertantly broke the episode regex import ability i've been informed that watched tag 1 doesn't import to XBMC, it is now saved as true or false, let me know if this works ok. Download Version 2.107

New Version 2.106

billyad2000 — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:54:24 GMT

Small update For the Movie Section Bugfix - HTML character translation should now be working properly Bugfix - File in use error when saving edits or rescraping should now be fixed Bugfix - Filenames converted to lowercase when using stacknames for fanart, posters etc Bugfix - Options/General - Don't download actor thumbnails when browsing Movies (Speed Up Browsing) Could not be selected. New Feature - Watched/Unwatched toggle button is added to main window, tag is saved with ...

New Version 2.085

billyad2000 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:11:09 GMT

Changes Since Version 2.079 Fixed - System.NullreferenceExeption when the program tries to display a just generated nfo for "XIII" Fixed - XIII is displayed in the List (Movie Title) as "XIII" Fixed - Movie Title WALL-E is being scraped & displayed as WALL&# 183;E Fixed - Fanart displays even if the preference "Use available fanart for background" was unchecked Fixed - Fanart would still download even if the preference "Scrape ...