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Export plugins for J River Media Center
nostra:
I think I'll just add COM server to my TODO list for 1.1. I am pretty sure that it is the most recent version I will be able to concentrate on such things like controlling PVD from another App. Please use a simpler approach until then.
raldo:
--- Quote from: nostra on April 08, 2009, 12:09:23 pm ---I think I'll just add COM server to my TODO list for 1.1. I am pretty sure that it is the most recent version I will be able to concentrate on such things like controlling PVD from another App. Please use a simpler approach until then.
--- End quote ---
Great! A com server is a more generalized solution than my proposal...
rick.ca:
--- Quote from: raldo on April 08, 2009, 11:36:56 am ---
--- Quote from: rick.ca on April 08, 2009, 12:32:39 am ---If that's the design premise, it's hard to imagine how your plugin will further the development of PVD.
--- End quote ---
Why? You could still use PVD in the way you've always used it and prune the data. And then use an MC plugin for import. The difference would be that more people would use PVD.
--- End quote ---
You probably don't agree with it, but I do have a very clear premise. My experience as an MC and PVD user tells me it is very unlikely there will ever be a satisfactory solution for getting video meta data that is "built-in" to MC. J River might implement something, but it is likely to be simplistic and limited. It may satisfy casual users who don't care for more. I see no point in catering to them, however—they don't care!
The rest of us don't want to be restricted to one source of data, and want to be able to combine that data in any way we choose. That can require careful management of configuration settings and workflow which would be very difficult to control via a plugin. Yes, I know I could still do this and just use the plugin to import the results. But then why have the capability of controlling PVD from the plugin at all—for the users who have "simple" configurations requiring little maintenance? If that's the case, they should have no trouble running PVD.
I'm not really ignoring the "casual user" of MC. I just believe if one wants any control over the collection of meta data for video, they are better off using PVD directly. By "better off," I mean in ease of use, efficiency, ability to solve problems, and maintaining data integrity. I'm very much interested in more people using PVD. It's my hope a plugin that makes importing data from PVD much more user friendly would provide the incentive many MC users need. Once they try PVD, I believe they will discover for themselves this is the case. Also, I think the plugin will gain acceptance more readily if users understand PVD is doing the job of collecting and maintaining the meta data, and the plugin is just a rock-solid, one-click (once configured) tool for importing the results.
But all this seems rather moot...
--- Quote from: nostra on April 08, 2009, 12:09:23 pm ---I think I'll just add COM server to my TODO list for 1.1. I am pretty sure that it is the most recent version I will be able to concentrate on such things like controlling PVD from another App. Please use a simpler approach until then.
--- End quote ---
Version 1.1 has to be at least a year away, so I hope you don't plan on waiting. I realize you probably want to do it your way, regardless of my opinion. But might the "simpler approach" be something like what I suggest, and still be something you can build on later? If so, you might consider a successful "phase 1" plugin might generate enough interest to make things happen faster.
patch:
--- Quote from: raldo on April 07, 2009, 11:35:58 pm ---It's not just that, though: Some users may have "lesser criteria" on data. For example, some of my friends use MC but complain about the lack of metadata possibilties for movies. Or my sister imports some movies into MC and her husband has no idea what the movies are about. A description, year, director might be nice for them.
But none of them are ready for PVD in its current state.
--- End quote ---
Have you actually used PVD to get metadata from the web?
It is true there is a silent mode but this is just used to reduce the time you need to wait for downloads to occur, you still need to review the results and make corrections where appropriate.
To use PVD as a silent web retrevial engine would just give your sister & husband the impression it doesn't work.
--- Quote from: raldo on April 07, 2009, 11:35:58 pm ---Some users may have "lesser criteria" on data. ...A description, year, director might be nice
--- End quote ---
The data integrity we are talking about is "Does the imported meta data correspond to the video I have?" It is not about how many fields from IMDB have been imported. So no you will not reliably get the above data from PVD unless you ensure it is accurately imported into PVD.
The reason is relatively simple. PVD tries to use a trimmed version of the movies file name to search for information on the internet. But the file names a human created and often do not uniquely specify a movie. Further more a movie often has multiple entries in the online databases.
A unique relation from file name to internet database is not going to occur so PVD (or any other program) is not going to work reliably in silent mode with out subsequent user checking data integrity.
rick.ca:
--- Quote ---The data integrity we are talking about is "Does the imported meta data correspond to the video I have?"
--- End quote ---
Thanks for elaborating, patch. Just to clarify, my idea of "data integrity" also includes the existence/seen status, consistent titles for foreign films, the updating of all items to the same state, adding missing information "manually" using Web search to find alternate sources, replacing posters of inadequate/consistent quality, comparing questionable data to alternate sources, etc. In many respects, data integrity in this respect can be determined from MC as well as it can from PVD—but it can't be readily corrected. Trying to manage this process from MC, even if one has a much looser idea of "data integrity," would be a frustrating experience.
--- Quote ---you still need to review the results and make corrections where appropriate.
--- End quote ---
So I agree with this—in a much broader sense. I can assess the results almost instantly when they are "in my face" immediately after a download/update. And corrections can be made quickly and efficiently when all the necessary tools are at hand. Often a human judgement is necessary to select the right tool—change a setting and run the plugin again, use an alternate source, use Web search, make a manual correction, search and compare to other records, etc.
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