English > Support
Scan folders/file scanner confusion
patch:
From 0.9.9.x Beta --> 0.9.9.3 New plugin system
--- Quote from: blue334 on December 06, 2008, 12:36:18 pm ---Why would I spend time manually preparing files in such a way that I wouldn't have to use the built-in automatic functions? It is also on the edge of the scope of a file scanner to retrieve info not from the file itself but from an array of files paired with the video file.
--- End quote ---
I do not believe anyone intends to manually generate such files.
You are correct PVD current internet search capability is the best way of collecting such information.
But there use is the same as id3 tags for music files.
As such they are best written by an export command from within PVD.
They could then be read by any other instance of PVD (eg another user on the same computer or same network scanning a shared directory, or movies copied to a completely separate network). Once movie descriptions are stored near movie files they can also be used to transfer information to other programs (the same as is currently done with music files). It is correct that writing tag information to internal tags would be preferable, but that is not supported by mediainfo.sourceforge.net and unlikely to be supported within the foreseeable future see http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1695277&forum_id=297609
blue334:
I think what you're asking can largely be acheived using the current export plugin.
What you're describing is essentially an advanced html export template.
Where you lose me is where you suggest this kind of information storage should be read by PVD directly. PVD is after all a database app, you cannot acheive anything like the current functionality outside the database engine. A browser would be better suited.
patch:
--- Quote from: blue334 on December 08, 2008, 11:02:49 am ---I think what you're asking can largely be acheived using the current export plugin.
What you're describing is essentially an advanced html export template.
--- End quote ---
When I last tried (0.9.8.20), the export function went close. It was able to create 1 file per media entry with useful data in it. However what I could not achieve is to put this file near the media file (same directory & name as media file but different file extension) as the path variable wanted an absolute address. I didn't try exporting poster images the same location but with a jpg extension, but believe that to would be useful.
So yes I believe I am after an enhancement to the export function.
--- Quote from: blue334 on December 08, 2008, 11:02:49 am ---Where you lose me is where you suggest this kind of information storage should be read by PVD directly. PVD is after all a database app, you cannot acheive anything like the current functionality outside the database engine. A browser would be better suited.
--- End quote ---
It's value is in transferring information between instances of PVD or to another similar application.
The ways I intend to use it is
1) I store my multimedia an shared computer drives. When I add movie to the collection I scan it into PVD, check the display name, link to imdb, and cover are correct.
2) I would like to be able to write this information back to the movie (or it's directory)
3) There are many other media users in this household who access the movies from the multiple user accounts on the multiple computers. To avoid having them redo step 1, PVD could just scan and read the data written in step 2 (it already has the ability to scan a directory on start up, and read information from a text file near the movie file).
4) Similarly if some of the movies were copied to another server, where different users ran PVD, then they too could scan the identifying data into their copy of PVD automatically.
5) I believe media centre is also likely to be able to read tags of this sort, enabling efficient transfer of information between applications
This is the same functionality achieved by tagging mp3 files, and basically has the same advantages.
nostra:
The export plugin will be improved with an extra option to save files near video files in the next version.
I am also planning an export template and some additional import functionality (including file scanner) using predefined XML files near video files.
patch:
Tag export/import (like ID3 for mp3) has been marked as already added. This is good news if that is the case. Looking at 0.9.9.10 I can't see where it is implemented.
Further to discussions here
Actually I'm not sure what is going to be the most efficient path to getting movie tagging functionality.
Importing & exporting, text & image data near a movie file is part of the functionality required.
However I suspect working reliably with the file scanners name parsing and multi-part file identification could well be more challenging.
To explain
For a single file movie the tag information would probably go in .jpeg and .txt (or .xml or .pvd?) files with identical path and base file name.
For multi-file movies the base file name is less obvious as it would involve stripping out the disc number or using the first file name or exporting for all component files
For DVD images (ie with .vob files) the tag files could go within the directory containing the .vob files or 1 level above; with a generic file name or directory name (if 1 level above .vob files)
For TV series similar issues arise however then there is the need to identify the episode, season, series, as well as grouping with other episodes in the same series.
As such it wouldn't surprise me if nostra intentionally left it till other parts of the file scanner were implemented & stable.
mmm
Reading through this again, it looks as if I'm making it all too hard so perhaps it is time to stand back & think what it is all about.
My aim is for PVD to import media with maximum reliability and minimum user intervention.
The problem is PVD needs to make a connection between the video data I have & various internet databases but PVD can't watch movies and it is often ambiguous which record in and internet database is preferred. So an indirect link needs to be used. The best way of doing this is going to vary with the information available to PVD, for example:
1) Analyse file (& path) name to deduce movie name, then use that to look up internet databases. PVD does this very well (& flexibly with regex). The only enhancement I can think of is sometimes the enclosing directory has a better name, so being able to easily select that would be handy.
2) Some media files have an associated .nfo file containing a link to an internet database (most often imdb). It would be good if PVD could automatically extract the reference. I'm actually not sure if it is doing this already as it has been discussed. Knowing what .nfo file to associate with what media file could be a problem as they are generated by humans, thus done inconsistently. The way to start is support the easy cases ie if have .nfo with same base file name as media or folder with one .nfo & one media file then PVD could assume they belong together. Ideally PVD would display some how that it found the reference in the "Scan results" dialogue box. Perhaps the action could show "Add movie" imdb link. This would save the user worrying about the information in the file name.
3) If the movie has already been imported into PVD, and links to internet databases checked, then it would be good if that information could be written back to the movie file, so if it was moved to another system, it could then be imported into PVD there with minimal user intervention. Writing data back to the movie file is also likely to assist communication between media programs (is it does for music with mp3 tags). For PVD though the value is to provide assistance to the file scanner, so the writing protocol needs to be linked to the file scanner reading protocol. Again just doing the easiest case (single movie file) would be useful (provided it cleanly ignored the more complicated case and its functionality was documented eg in change log)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version