Personal Video Database

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Use a shortcut instead of the batch file.

IMDb has changed the format of the Title page. The plugin will have to be revised.

Among other changes, clicking on the User Rating graphic records a vote, and displays Your Rating underneath. The javascript that does this appears to consistently include the rating, so I imagine the fix will be easy.

When a fix is available, you will be able to search for IMDb Rating = 0, and then run the plugin with those movies selected to update the ratings.

my movie list is about 7000 titles long...

With a collection that large, you obviously need to be using the best software.

I hope you'll stick around and help us beta test 0.9.9. It seems the multiple audio streams feature will be in the first beta release, and you'll probably find the beta version stable enough to use fairly soon. The auto image picking could wait—as this would most likely be done in "batch mode" by a script anyway.

I think a script—rather than building it into the scanner—is probably the better solution. Once the image files are created, the function is no longer needed, as PVD becomes the source of the images (i.e., they are downloaded using PVD, then saved as filename.jpg from PVD). Given this workflow, a more useful feature would be the ability to export posters as filename.jpg rather than the current title.jpg. That would allow those of us who use this file scheme to keep it up-to-date.

BTW, the Import from text file script "imports information from a text file that is located near video files with the same name and a .txt extension." Is it really applicable to this situation, or are you just saying it could be a starting point for creating a script that is?

About using PVD with MediaPortal...

darichman did this for Media Center, which also requires import files to be in XML format. See if this topic helps.

Do you have the option "Do not add people from awards if they are not listed in movie credits" on?

Yup. No room for hairstylists and the like in my database.

here are two icons (Open and Close). Also GPL from the net. Tell me what you think.

Too small. Not as good as the current folder icons.

It would be useful to have larger versions of the icons for use on the large screens used for htpc.

Hopefully, the Customizable Views feature will allow us to create a view suitable for HTPC use. I think that's going to require a lot of discussion about how it's implemented and used. In other words, I think we need to wait to see what nostra has come up with before considering things like the best icons to use.

They still say: 0.9.8.20

That's what the file property of the executable says it is, so it's "correct" in that sense. I suspect a minor bug fix was made to 0.9.8.19, so the version was incremented, but the installer name, etc. were not updated. See this message. I think it would be a good idea to update the download page and change log. Once the beta is released, users are going to be paying more attention to version numbers.

I install the apps I like on drive D: if they are portable so they could stay theoritically forever without worrying.

I don't know how, but there must be a way of changing the location of the Application Data directory in Windows. I prefer to leave it where it is, and include it in my daily backup routines. I've never reinstalled Windows, but I often recover from my own mistakes by restoring application data from backup. BTW, even if the system drive is not the best place to put it, a separate data directory is much preferable to saving data with the applications.

I'll check if it will not look too overloaded.

I think there's "overload" already—just because of the number of different awards tracked by IMDb. I think this would help, particularly when there are a large number of nominations and only a few wins. It also resolves the shock of seeing "6 wins and 5 nominations" for a move like Catwoman. (Four of the wins are Razzie "worsts;" the other two are for makeup. )

BTW, I've noticed many award entries are duplicated (a varying number of times). It looks like it's because it's a "team" award given to a number of individuals—but the plugin is not getting (or correctly saving) the peoples' names.

Thanks. That helps me understand a little better. What you seem to be saying is some users have an interest in having information in various languages, for various reasons. I wonder if the best solution is not just to make the entire database multilingual. That is, there would be separate "version" or "tier" of each record—one for however many languages the user wants to use. It would then be up to the user to decide what information (i.e., source) to download to each language tier. This might involve a script getting information in one language, and then translating it and saving it to the tier of another language. Multiple scripts could be run in batch mode to populate multiple tiers all at once—as new movies are added.

What I'm imagining is something where you could use your database in German, but switch it to English for a particular movie when you know the IMDb information stored there is more complete. And switch it to Italian when your Italian friend is visiting and doesn't quite understand the information in German or English. Even if you didn't want to maintain Italian information for all your movies, you would still have the option of switching it to Italian and downloading from an Italian source on an as-needed basis.

This is great. I think we're well on our way to having version 2.0 all mapped out—before nostra can finish 0.9.9. 

it would be really nice to a have these tags translated

I suppose it would, but where would the translations come from? There are currently 2200 items in my tag list. The ability to add translated values manually would not be practical for dealing with numbers like that. Do you have something automated in mind?

Glad you got it working. Yes, it's confusing at first. But once you realize you can use any combination of plugins and scripts to get whatever you want...

Here's an idea. Imagine a configuration table, with data elements (chunks of data available from external sources) listed in the left-hand column, followed by a column for each external source (i.e., for each plugin or script installed), and a right hand column for setting the standard or custom field to save that data in. In each valid cell (i.e., the data element exists at the source) is a flag for the overwrite setting (omit, save if field is empty, add to existing, and overwrite). Then it would be easy to configure things like "Put IMDb user comments in Description, but overwrite this with the allmovies synopsis, if one exists." This would also provide a way to see at-a-glance where all the movie information is coming from.

There you go, nostra—something for your version 2.0 todo list. Right. I know, "...with a low priority."