New Version 2.209

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 benefits are much quicked speed when browsing movies and actors, XBMC will no longer need to dl these thumbs when importing the nfo file. In the future it will also allow the actor thumbnails to be changed from the low quality imdb thumbs, missing thumbs could be added from other sources.
  
  How does it work?
  This requires a bit of work from the user to set it up
  
  Step 1, Enable the "Save Actor Thumb" checkbox in the preferences/scraper tag
  Step 2, For the "Local Path" enter the path to the folder you wish to use to download the thumbnails to, or use the browse button. This can also be a network path.
  Step 3, Some people will find this to be the tricky part. Enter in the "XBMC path" textbox the exact path to the folder you used in step 2, this must be the XBMC path, eg:-
  
  local path:- "Z:\Actors"
  XBMC path :- "smb://GIGANAS/public/Actors/"
  
  Once you have done the above then save and exit, from this point any movie scraped or re-scraped download actor thumbnails to "Z:\Actors
  The thumbnails are named as the IMDB actor ID, eg Liam Neeson would be saved as "nm0000553.jpg"
  Your movie.nfo files will look a bit different,
  instead of;
  
  <actor>
  <name>Christian Bale</name>
  <role>Bruce Wayne</role>
  <thumb>http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM3OTE2ODc3NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDQ5NTYyMQ@@._V._V1._SY400_SX300_.jpg</thumb>
  </actor>
  
  you will get
  
  <actor>
  <name>Christian Bale</name>
  <role>Bruce Wayne</role>
  <thumb>smb://GIGANAS/public/Actors/nm0000288.jpg</thumb>
  </actor>
  
  The idea is that XBMC will get the thumb from your selected location.
  
  Media Companion also uses the same thumb by substituting the XBMC path with the Local Path stored in step 1 above.
  
  It's fairly simple, just make sure that XBMC can has permission to access the folder your saving the thumbs to

Download Version 2.209

Thanks again Billy, good work!

My previous version was V2.141. I have just downloaded & installed the latest version.

I copied my config.xml across into the new folder & ran the new Media Companion exe. The config.xml I assume was moved to the new location for user data as it was removed from the MC folder.

Initially, there was no TV shows reported at all, I didn't check the movies however at ths point. I closed MC & restarted & then I had my TV shows, but no series nor any episodes. My movies however where all there.

A third restart did not make any difference.

I then performed a 'Rebuild TV Shows' & the TV series & episode information had returned.

Just wondering if this is normal behaviour or not for a fresh install?

Thanks again
Stormy

the local thumbs are be the best addition, thanks!

I just noticed that the /subs folder is not ignored and it adds a new movie per folder (using folder names for the scraping)
can they be ignored?

I know I can click on each move and click Re-Scrape but it would be sweet if there was an auto Re-scan all movies or something. Then it would check imdb for addition updates and rewrite then nfo as movie.nfo and also add in all the actors. I like all the updates but the only way I can get the stuff to work is to delete all my old nfos and reget everything or click on each movie and Re-Scrape.

Thanks
Joe

thecopier wrote:

the local thumbs are be the best addition, thanks!

I just noticed that the /subs folder is not ignored and it adds a new movie per folder (using folder names for the scraping)
can they be ignored?

Note sure if there was specific exclusion for "subs", if there was its failing here also. What I think is happening (at least for me) is that any "subs" directory that contains a rar file is being processed and as far as I can see the preference for minimum size is being ignored.

Other issues with this release is that (I used the "movie.nfo" option) it didn't correctly detect the ".nfo" files that all previous versions have accepted/created, so I had 2 movies that we picked up on a scan, had names like "The movie name (AC3-6ch) part1.avi", it seems to accept "cd1" OK.

When I rebuilt the database, it became all screwed (movie data pointing to wrong movies), seems back to normal after restarting. I'm going back to the previous version...

will download and try new version today. only downside I can see so far is with older versions I ran then from my E drive and the config files stayed in the same folder. If I resetup my machine, as i often do for work purposes, I never worried about backing up or losing the config data for MC. I will look at the config files and hopefully there is still a way of keeping the info in the same drive and directory as the executable.

I would also like to be able to keep the config.xml with the executable & treat MC as a 'Semi-Portable' program. The other reason is that I have each new MC is in a new folder named after the version & as such each folder has its own config.xml. When a new version comes out I copy the old config.xml to the new folder. That way I can 'go back' a version if required.....

I realise that Vista will not allow this in the Program Files folder.

Also I realise that having two possible locations could also be troublesome...

Cheers

I'm sorry about the lack of progress on this, I know that there are some bugs to be worked out on this and over the last week I have been to busy to get much done. I will look at getting the main issues fixed over the next few days. I am also having some difficulty for the lack of useful feedback, there were a lot of changes between versions 2.141 and version 2.201 and this small thread contains most of the feedback.

The issue with the rar size has been fixed for the next version, most other issues are related to the quickstart cache files, i'll look to fix it, but it may be best to remove the feature completely. I am not convinced that there is that much difference on startup speeds. I'm also almost done with support for local actors for TV Shows. The actor search has also been fixed.

If you wish to back-up your config files then they are now located in the system folder "Application Data"

For XP this is
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Media Companion\
In vista this is
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Media Companion\

According to programming guidelines this is the correct location to store them.

All new versions of Media Companion will look for the settings in the above folders. You will be able to use any future version of Media Companion in any location and keep the same settings. Using a previous version is also as simple as running an earlier .exe

For those who were using multiple config files then you can do just that using profiles, each profile having its own config. MC starts up with the last profile used, use the menu to change profiles.

I could look at adding an option to backup these config & profile files to a user specified when the program is ended, but it would be much simpler to use a batch file to copy the files.

The new file location is a backward step for me. I loved the fact MC worked as a portable app and to be honest it makes me want to stick to an older version.

Due to the lack of feedback and bug reports I am wondering if other are doing the same.

tt4079 wrote:

The new file location is a backward step for me. I loved the fact MC worked as a portable app and to be honest it makes me want to stick to an older version.

Due to the lack of feedback and bug reports I am wondering if other are doing the same.

I'd prefer it if it worked as a portable app by looking locally (same directory) first, however its never functioned well (for me) as a portable app due to the app not supporting relative filenames (I had a batch file create the config file).

Billy I wouldn't be too concerned about the lack of feedback, it usually means that we are having difficulty finding problems......

I guess you would be able to examine the number of downloads of the newest version & work it out from there.

The other issue I guess is that as you well know, some weeks you have all the time in the world to download new versions & play with the new settings etc, but other weeks theres no time to do anything....

I have downloaded the latest version, implemented the local actor thumbs but still to date I haven't had the time to see if the xbox can see them with the path I provided.....too busy I'm afraid with other stuff & at the moment the xbox is in use. Also my NAS is full so, my new episodes are in a temporarily shared location so we can still watch them so I haven't run MC overthem yet.

Anyway, as time permits, I will provide some feedback.

Cheers
Stormy.

This version works ok for me, including the actor thumb caching.

XBox still takes a lot of time for updating/adding movie info though.

I know that is a lot to ask for, but it does take a while to scan into xbmc. if I could just click on media Companion and click export and then go to xbmc and click import that would be great.

Thanks
Joe

jetskijoe wrote:

I know I can click on each move and click Re-Scrape but it would be sweet if there was an auto Re-scan all movies or something. Then it would check imdb for addition updates and rewrite then nfo as movie.nfo and also add in all the actors. I like all the updates but the only way I can get the stuff to work is to delete all my old nfos and reget everything or click on each movie and Re-Scrape.

Thanks
Joe

I second the Re-Scan All feature. So many moives that going 1 by 1 is just too painful. Also someone else pointed out that XBMC still takes forever to scan fro new content - so the Export to XBMC Format and then reinport on the box would be a nice addtion as well to speed up large libraries.

As always - love the new features - excellent work!

hey billy i just wanted to say this is a handy little tool with great potential.
i noticed you said you werent getting too much feedback. i mainly use it more for the tv than the movies. the movies side of it has worked well for me but the tv side of it needs some catching up. i had posted before about it not scraping everything at once. i still have that issue. i had to keep doing it over and over until it got all my shows but it doesnt seem to get everything. it has missed alot of the episode images and didnt get all season images either. it did get all nfo files. rescanning doesnt do anything to fix it and when i edit each show and rescrape poster. its hit or miss (more miss) as to pulling images from site. it seems to find the images, meaning it will say found 10 matches and show 10 spots to choose from but the images dont display and cant be downloaded.
like i said the movie side works great but the tv side gives me headaches but i dont want to sound like im complaining too much because it still has made my job getting this info entered on my pc easier than having to do ALL of it on my own.

thanks for sharing this great little program.

yankz23 wrote:

hey billy i just wanted to say this is a handy little tool with great potential.
i noticed you said you werent getting too much feedback. i mainly use it more for the tv than the movies. the movies side of it has worked well for me but the tv side of it needs some catching up. i had posted before about it not scraping everything at once. i still have that issue. i had to keep doing it over and over until it got all my shows but it doesnt seem to get everything. it has missed alot of the episode images and didnt get all season images either. it did get all nfo files. rescanning doesnt do anything to fix it and when i edit each show and rescrape poster. its hit or miss (more miss) as to pulling images from site. it seems to find the images, meaning it will say found 10 matches and show 10 spots to choose from but the images dont display and cant be downloaded.
like i said the movie side works great but the tv side gives me headaches but i dont want to sound like im complaining too much because it still has made my job getting this info entered on my pc easier than having to do ALL of it on my own.

thanks for sharing this great little program.

There is an issue with TVDB and a new mirror they have started using that hosts images, I will upload a version later today that gets images directly from the TVDB image server.

As for the tv scanner stopping before scraping all episodes, it is caused by exceptions occuring within the tv scraper thread, these are reported at the end of the output log and you need to give me details of the error report before I can do anything about it.

i didnt save any of the log files when i was doing this. i just kept rescanning until it was done...sorry
looking forward to your new version.

Hi Billy

Just wanted to post some positive feedback for your latest version - works fine for me, as uninteresting as that sounds


One quick question - is it possible to use rottentomatoes (e.g. http://rottentomatoes.com/m/slumdog_millionaire/ ) as a basis for rating movies? That is, to use a rottentomatoes scraper?


The tomatometer ratings on RT are MUCH more accurate than IMDB, since on IMDB a lot of fanboys rate EVERYTHING with a 10, and also dodgy movie studios try to skew the ratings. RT only uses the ratings of actual film crtics, so is much more reliable.

Any chance of this happening?


Cheers


Jon

Please let me start off by saying i'm having a major dumb moment..

Using latest version 2.209, and in the TV Section.
I'm trying to "Rescrap Selected TV show"
It's grayed out, can't select it.

I'm trying to select new season thumbs/banner
I think you had this feature before... is it now under preferences/general/use folder names.

Big thank you for this wonderful little Application, I only nit picking at the moment.

Mack_ire wrote:

Please let me start off by saying i'm having a major dumb moment..

Using latest version 2.209, and in the TV Section.
I'm trying to "Rescrap Selected TV show"
It's grayed out, can't select it.

I'm trying to select new season thumbs/banner
I think you had this feature before... is it now under preferences/general/use folder names.

Big thank you for this wonderful little Application, I only nit picking at the moment.

Click the Edit button,

This displays a page that lets you edit or rescrape the tvshow information, aswell as set language, sortorder, episodeactorsource etc.
You can also use this page to view the fanart and poster browsers, the poster browser lets you select what poster you wish to view, main, seasons, specials etc

Hope this helps

Great program btw....I like the new version, it is getting better all the time. I do think I prefer a profile directory to keep things portable but does not affect me too much.

Notice a couple of issues with fanart.

1) When I scrape a new show it finds and saves it as it should (movie name-fanart). When I use the fanart button and select the one I wish to save, it saves it in the movie directory as fanart.jpg (always). I have the folder settings off in the preferences.

2) Trying to get around this I used to option to re-scrape all movies for fanart. For some reason it finds less than 1% of the movies that have it on TMDB. I thought it may be a time out error but is is consistent on the shows it skips, when I go in maually via the fanart button on any of these shows it pulls up the artwork very quickly. An example of one show from the logs:

Checking Movie :- I:\Movies\Action\Home of the Brave.nfo
Checking TMDb For Fanart At URL :- http://api.themoviedb.org/2.0/Movie.imdbLookup?imdb_id=tt0763840&api_key=(API_KEY REMOVED)
TMDb Has No Fanart For This Movie :- I:\Movies\Action\Home of the Brave-fanart.jpg

Manually it finds the fanart and will happily save it in the folder as fanart.jpg.

rynoc wrote:

Great program btw....I like the new version, it is getting better all the time. I do think I prefer a profile directory to keep things portable but does not affect me too much.

Notice a couple of issues with fanart.

1) When I scrape a new show it finds and saves it as it should (movie name-fanart). When I use the fanart button and select the one I wish to save, it saves it in the movie directory as fanart.jpg (always). I have the folder settings off in the preferences.

2) Trying to get around this I used to option to re-scrape all movies for fanart. For some reason it finds less than 1% of the movies that have it on TMDB. I thought it may be a time out error but is is consistent on the shows it skips, when I go in maually via the fanart button on any of these shows it pulls up the artwork very quickly. An example of one show from the logs:

Checking Movie :- I:\Movies\Action\Home of the Brave.nfo
Checking TMDb For Fanart At URL :- http://api.themoviedb.org/2.0/Movie.imdbLookup?imdb_id=tt0763840&api_key=(API_KEY REMOVED)
TMDb Has No Fanart For This Movie :- I:\Movies\Action\Home of the Brave-fanart.jpg

Manually it finds the fanart and will happily save it in the folder as fanart.jpg.

1) I can't duplicate this for movies, the filename is always according to the preferences, you mention new shows, for TV Shows the only correct format, supported by XBMC is fanart.jpg.

2)I have fixed the bug that caused the issue you mentioned with some fanarts not being detected. The example you gave (Home of the Brave) will now scrape correctly. I also noticed that some backdrops are being uploaded as .png files, these will also now be downloaded.