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Filters No Poster Bug

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rick.ca:

--- Quote ---You can usually (9 times out of 10) tell if the poster is the right one by comparing poster to actors or by comparing poster against description.
--- End quote ---

But 9 times out of 10 it's not necessary to do anything to establish the poster is the right one—at least for the first few. There are also several different ways to run the plugins. You might prefer not to use batch mode. If you care so much about making a careful selection for each movie, you're probably better off running it separately for each one. Batch mode is for those of us who want speed and efficiency. The plugins can also be run in Silent Mode with (optionally) all posters downloaded. Using that, you can review all available posters at full size right in the movie card—allowing you to make a perfectly informed choice.

I think an even more practical view is the behaviour of the poster selection dialog just doesn't matter that much. Some users are going to be happy with any poster of reasonable quality. They can get that for 90% of their movies automatically—without making any choices. Users who care about choice and quality are not going to find it by making one choice from one source. They will find it necessary to check the quality of what was downloaded, and will often need to replace it with something from a different source.

pencilhead:

--- Quote from: rick.ca on July 25, 2009, 12:16:40 pm ---But 9 times out of 10 it's not necessary to do anything to establish the poster is the right one—at least for the first few. There are also several different ways to run the plugins. You might prefer not to use batch mode. If you care so much about making a careful selection for each movie, you're probably better off running it separately for each one. Batch mode is for those of us who want speed and efficiency. The plugins can also be run in Silent Mode with (optionally) all posters downloaded. Using that, you can review all available posters at full size right in the movie card—allowing you to make a perfectly informed choice.

--- End quote ---

Why would you not use batch mode? It is made to automate the process.
When you are doing a lot of movies then that 10% can be a considerable No.


--- Quote ---Batch mode is for those of us who want speed and efficiency.

--- End quote ---

Exactly! and for those times when you are unsure of which poster to pick it is far more efficient to simply select the movie from main panel while the poster selection is visible rather than wait until the end of the batch run and then have to go back and change posters.
Far better to do it at the time.


--- Quote ---I think an even more practical view is the behaviour of the poster selection dialog just doesn't matter that much. Some users are going to be happy with any poster of reasonable quality. They can get that for 90% of their movies automatically—without making any choices. Users who care about choice and quality are not going to find it by making one choice from one source. They will find it necessary to check the quality of what was downloaded, and will often need to replace it with something from a different source.

--- End quote ---

I'm not sure you understand what my issue is.
I'll try to be clearer...

I have imported 700 odd movies from another database using csv.
I have then run a batch job and imported info for movies from IMDB. (in silent mode)
this process didn't import any posters.
I then selected all the movies and have run import posters from amazon.
I tried this in silent mode and it didn't automatically find any posters, so I am left with having to manually select each one.
ie. Import posters batch run is still working but pops up thumbnail dialogue box for each movie.

The problem is that if I don't know which movie to choose. (there may be 5 different movies to choose from) I can't select the movie from the list to make an informed decision. I have to pick one that may be wrong.
The batch job then moves onto the next movie.

I would like to be able to select from the list the movie while the batch job is running so I can make an informed decision at the time. Rather than having to go back and check later.

An alternative would be for the main display as  batch job does each search. That way the movie will always be displayed.

Cheers
PH

rick.ca:
Unfortunately, it seems you're not yet experiencing the normal operation of the program and it's plugins. The IMDb and Amazon plugins are currently not retrieving posters—probably due to changes in those websites (those changes will have to be determined and the plugins updated). If those were working properly, you'd be getting a reasonable poster for most movies automatically by running those plugins in Silent Mode.


--- Quote ---Why would you not use batch mode? It is made to automate the process.
When you are doing a lot of movies then that 10% can be a considerable No.
--- End quote ---

I do use batch mode. You're the bent on using it in a way it was not designed for. As I've already said three times, the first several posters in the list are usually for the correct movie—stopping the batch routine to examine the movie information would be a waste of time. And yes, a large batch with an "error" rate in the order of 10% is the worst possible circumstance. The batch runs largely unattended, but requires regular user interaction at random intervals. It's bad enough you have to sit around and wait to provide the necessary input. The best way to deal with this is to do so as quickly as possible so the batch run completes as soon as possible. Once it's done, you're left with movies that all require intervention. Then what you're concerned about makes no difference. There's no more random waits. You might even save a lot of time and frustration by selecting all the movies that didn't get an acceptable poster (you can do the selecting by bookmarking them) and then running an alternate plugin—in Silent Mode. Or, if you insist on believing it's a matter of making an "informed choice," you can do so by not using batch mode.

If you're serious about making a feature suggestion, perhaps you should make your case in Feature: Split information gathering and user interaction. If you and raldo can find any common ground, maybe nostra will be compelled to listen. Good luck. ;D

patch:

--- Quote from: pencilhead on July 25, 2009, 06:33:19 am ---It would be much more efficient to have the main program not locked out while thumbnail popup is showing. If you are unsure if poster is correct one you can then select the movie so you can read information about it. This would allow a more informed choice of poster at the time.

--- End quote ---
Agree this feature would be nice to have.
When choosing some posters I can display the Amazon web page but would then like to check other fields in my database (actors, year, studio, imdb link) to make sure I have the correct poster.

Not sure what complexity this implies for nostra. So would support it only if it was not difficult from his end.

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---When choosing some posters I can display the Amazon web page but would then like to check other fields in my database (actors, year, studio, imdb link) to make sure I have the correct poster.
--- End quote ---

How often do you have to make such a determination? How do you justify interrupting a batch routine to fuss over a selection where it might be impossible to tell from a thumbnail anyway? Wouldn't it be faster just to download the poster (or all possible candidates) and check the full-size poster when it's right beside the information?

If Amazon poster searches are so inaccurate, maybe we should be asking if there's any way that can be improved. Poster plugin searches should be happening after the movie information download has been completed—so there should be enough "good" information with which to do a search that gives accurate results. So maybe the plugin should use Amazon's advanced search page, using Title and Director to ensure it gets only correct posters. Amazon, being what it is, will also throw in crap like packaged sets, but those appear at the end of the list and are easy to spot.


--- Quote ---Not sure what complexity this implies for nostra. So would support it only if it was not difficult from his end.
--- End quote ---

Just in case my position isn't clear... I'm not opposed to this idea because it might be difficult to implement. It may very well be trivial to implement, and not have any adverse performance consequences. I'm opposed because I believe it's a bad idea to be facilitating a workaround before even considering fixing the source of the problem.

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