Personal Video Database

 I'm really not sure I'm doing things the right way, so see for yourself and please no bashing...
 I have unzipped your file and copied the content into the plugins templates directory.
 For testing purpose I am using a test database made of 2 movies. They are both in a folder of the exact same name than the movie file.
 I first tried to export and generate .nfo files and nothing was happening. All that I was getting was a new explorer window opening on PVD's directory. No file was being created.
 I then played around with the file in notepad, not knowing at all what I was doing.
 I changed the "nearfile" part to this:  nearfiles="%t%.nfo"
 and it actually worked.
 I mean that I got an image file and an nfo file generated for both movies in the right directory with the exact filenames.
The first nfo file (movie A) did not contain the imdb URL of the movie, while the second one, for movie B contained only the Allmovie URL.
Movie A in pvd only had an imdb URL while movie B in pvd had two URL's, imdb and allmovie.

 I then opened XBMC and tried to see if that nfo file was used by it.
The info it took from Movie A was only the poster, plot and runtime. The nfo file for Movie A contained more info, like director, actors, etc.
The info it took for Movie B is roughly as limited, with tagline and outline (this info was not present in movies A's nfo file).

I must then have done something wrong when modifying the script.
What should "nearfiles" be set as?
Also what is the use in pvd preferences/folders/specify a path. Specify for what?

So what i am trying to achieve is:
Add movie into pvd, dl any required info from online sources. I can then export movie as a .nfo+image. These files can live in the movie directory. When xbmc does its library update. It will read the .nfo file first as a default and update its internal library with this info. (No need to do second d/l stuff from i/net).

That's exactly what I'd like to achieve.

I'm wondering if the information in XBMC is at all customizable, or can you only use the fields they provide

From what I have gathered, it seems that XBMC is quite rigid and has its own restricted fields. I also think their search options are not that great. That's why I would still love to use PVD as the brain and XBMC as the face...

Maybe deazo can beta test for you

I'd be glad to do so, this would give me a great starting point. CAD could you post the files? (FYI I'm back home on monday so don't expect any testing before that)

 Also, I am wondering about posters:
 I have chosen the posters to be part of the database and not separated.
 When the .nfo file will be generated next to the movie file, is there going to be a kind of "image path" pointing XBMC to the right poster? Considering the poster is "part" of the pvd file, how can it have an image path?
 Please do not laugh if this sounds stupid.. .

  Hi Nostra Rick and all,

 I have now finally built my HTPC and I am copying over HDD all my burned avi's.
 Parallel to that I would like to find the best way to use XBMC to view PVD's info in their beautiful interface.
 My question you guessed it again is about the transfer process.
 I have read all posts about the subject on PVD's forum as well as XBMC one. And I came to a few conclusions. I'd like you to help me find the best one or if you think of others, to advise. Thanks for your help in advance.
Also before I list my "solutions" I'd like to point that I am clueless and useless at coding and scripting so I am not contemplating writing scripts unless someone tells me it's dead simple of course!

 1. From what I have read, a nice way would be to have PVD create a .nfo file next to each movie file, in the format accepted by XBMC. At the moment I do not think PVD has this feature, and I am not even sure if it can generate .nfo file. For info, the .nfo file structure for xbmc can be found here: http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Import_-_Export_Library#Video_nfo_Files
Can you tell if such a feature is in the pipeline by any chance, and that it is worth waiting for it to appear in a future update? (really I am not asking for this as I know there are a lot of other things to take care of, but I might be in luck?)

2. In the past I was using Extreme Movie Manager to manage my collection and my subscription to that software is still on, so I can use it. In its last updates, it has the ability to generate .nfo files in the XBMC format. So I'm now considering doing PVD --> EMM --> XBMC... Since I am useless at writing XML templates, I am thinking of finding a way to export in an xml file the following info from PVD (the crucial info I really do not want to loose):
- Original title
- Movie file path
- Posters
- Personal Rating
- IMDB URL (for re-scraping with EMM)
- Allmovie URL (for EMM re-scraping)
Is this feasable? What is the best way to generate such an xml file, readable by EMM ? (I guess I should also ask on EMM's forum)

I really do prefer PVD to EMM's overbusy interface with no interlink between plot keywords, but I also really need to use XBMC so this is the only solutions I came up with. I have also been on XBMC forum but can't find the info I need.
I know this might be asking a lot but if you can I would really appreciate some help!

Thanks

  Hi just a quick word, I've got exactly the same issue.
  Could you tell me where you got the old plugin please?
  Thanks!

 D.

 This the way I do it. I thought I would share it with you, it might help I don't know.
On average I enter movies by bunches of 50 or so.
 I use excel because it's much faster to type the movie title, hit enter, and so on. I also add media label (number of the dvd the movie is on) but that's just because of the way my collection is organised.
I then import the excel list into PVD.
It is very easy to find the movies I have just entered because I sort by date added.
I then select them all with the the shift key, and use IMDB import to harvest the information from IMDB.
I use Amazon and google image to find posters but that's another subject.

I don't know if this helped you, but I don't see any problem with this way of bulk data entry, and didn't find anything quicker.
If I had my movies on a hard drive I would use the Scanning utility and it would even go faster (scanning the burnt dvd's is very slow because of the drive mainly).

 Hi all,

since my favorite Poster import plugin is not working anymore (that is kinopisk), I am now mostly using Google image search for this. This way I can find pretty good quality pictures on the web.
I am using the following string but would like to enhance it.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?as_q=movie&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=%s&as_oq=&as_eq=&imgtype=&imgsz=small|medium|large|xlarge&imgw=&imgh=&as_filetype=&imgc=&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images&as_st=y%u

 How could I for example add in the Google search the name of the director so that I am sure I will actually find images only related to the movie, and not other ones?
 Is it possible?
 
Extra: I would like to add a small suggestion: We could have the browser integrated into PVD and we could just add the poster with a right click or something (at the moment I "Save As" then look for it from the movie information card). Another even better one would be a kind of Firefox add-on that would allow you to right-click on an image and add it as a poster to the movie information currently opened in PVD.... Of course I can imagine these things are rather complex and time consuming. Just a thought...

Thanks for your help.

D.

 I just did your suggestion, it fixed the font problem (see screen) but the script still does not work.
 I have manually deleted it from the script folder, replaced with the latest one. No luck...
 Heeeeelp...

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 I have installed the latest one I think, taken from the script package on the download page.
 Since I cannot read it (it comes in EéÉÉeéeéiiii characters), I assume it's the one finishing with ".ru"...?

 I have just re-extracted the scripts to the script folder just in case, and it still doesn't work. All other scripts do work.

Thanks for your answer Nostra.
It looks like I haven't lost Kinopisk plugin, but it just does not seem to work properly anymore.
The problem seem to be with fonts, the script is unreadable and comes out with £""??!! instead of proper letters.

What is rather curious is that I get that on two different computers, an XP one and a Vista one, and none of them (seem to) have problems with fonts.
Would you know by any chance the font I am missing, so that I could install it?

Thanks for your assistance and time.

D.