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Messages - patch

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101
Support / Re: Filters No Poster Bug
« on: July 26, 2009, 08:25:23 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on July 26, 2009, 04:44:43 am
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?
The amazon link is available while downloading, it is lost after downloading. So I can not readily compare the Amazon page with other fields after download.

Similarly, during download, when the dialogue box is put up the database is locked so I can not compare it then either. The advantage of changing it here for me is that it is also locked during imdb lookup at which time I sometimes like to access the other fields also. For example "Open containing folder" so I can see if there is a .nfo file with imdb link & thus remove the ambiguity. More rarely I look a a poster stored with the movie or the opening movie credits.

Another example is when PVD suggest I "change file path" and I interpret that as probably having a duplicate copy of the movie on that occasion. I then need to either delete the other poor copy (find then "open containing folder") or keep both eg to add a HD copy (find other record, duplicate it, change title to reflect difference eg append "(HD)", change file path).

My work flow would be more efficient in both occasions if the main db was not locked when a dialogue is put up. However getting multitasking software running reliably is more problematic than single tasking software, hence my concern for nostra complexity.

102
Support / Re: Filters No Poster Bug
« on: July 26, 2009, 03:51:28 am »
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.
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.

103
Support / Re: Old Database Does Not Work
« on: July 20, 2009, 07:41:30 am »
Quote from: looneytv on July 20, 2009, 03:53:08 am
Failed to open database

File is not a valid database Connection authorization failure Error Code: 3
I think I got the same error recently when trying to open a database from a user account that had been opened from an administrator account (actually opened from firebird server running as service which has administrator privileges).

Login as an administrator and try to open the database again, you may well find it works.

104
Development / Re: Italian Translate 0.9.9.11
« on: July 04, 2009, 12:49:23 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on July 03, 2009, 08:40:49 pm
Sometimes I wonder if it would better to borrow a term commonly used for such things, and replace "master" with "wizard."
Agree
New master always makes me think I am creating a new template which will be available when adding later movies. ie.
"New Movie Master" -> "Add movie wizard"
"New" -> "New movie"

105
Support / Re: View episodes in people view?
« on: July 04, 2009, 12:39:39 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on July 03, 2009, 09:12:41 pm
What would be nice to have is ability to add "guest stars" only to the episode credits.
A possible solution would be for PVD to not add people to episode credits it they already appear in the series credits.

106
Support / Re: PVD crashes during zelluloid import filter
« on: June 27, 2009, 02:54:32 am »
Quote from: seabass on June 27, 2009, 02:11:44 am
the only other problem I noticed was that during the standard import over Amazon(de) Poster Plugin I was questioned two times to ad a movie and in the end PVD added the movie twice in to the database but only one entry had a path to the file location and the OFDb description.

This is not specific to 0.9.9.11 or your database, I have noticed the same thing with 0.9.9.10 & I think earlier versions. Have not worked out a pattern but when adding a batch it only occurs on some movies so I suspected it was an interaction with imdb or AllMovie.com

107
Development / Re: French translation
« on: June 20, 2009, 05:54:21 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 20, 2009, 03:12:39 am
Oui, mais est-ce gratuit? ;)

 ;D ;D Google translate is very useful

There is a free 30 day trial of fully functional software.
I use it sufficiently often (multiple computers including via pen drive) that I was happy to pay for it a year or 2 ago.

108
Development / Re: French translation
« on: June 20, 2009, 02:51:34 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 19, 2009, 09:35:36 pm
Quote
I compared our files using WinMerge.

Thanks for that tidbit. WinMerge is much better than what I was using before.

Yet to try WinMerge
Have used Beyond compare and found it very good for similar tasks.

109
Support / Re: Always Show Problem
« on: June 19, 2009, 09:10:24 am »
Quote from: Laraman on June 17, 2009, 04:34:26 pm
If the facility to make a film not visible is no longer avaliable then why is there an advanced filter to show visible or not visible films.

I believe it is how delete works in PVD. The issue is PVD runs as a relational database with links between records so when you "delete" a record, PVD just hides it, rather than deleting it and it's associated links. When you then re-add the movie PVD un-hides it with all the prior links. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing but does appear to be how PVD works.

As such show / hide invisible is a way of looking at the inner workings of PVD. I assume that is why it is an advanced filter. Might be better called Show/hide "deleted record remnants ".

This also means requests to change show / hide invisible record functionality, is actually a request to change the inner workings of PVD. No something I would do lightly.

Quote from: rick.ca on June 18, 2009, 07:37:02 am
ask Nono if there's a way Kroozbox could exclude movies based on a bookmark or custom flag being set.

I agree with this approach. If Kroozbox works better with a subset of possible movies, then adding that facility to the Kroozbox interface is logical.

110
Support / Re: Scan folders/file scanner confusion
« on: June 15, 2009, 04:14:27 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 08:11:36 pm
Quote
You do of course realise there is a certain amount of similarity between what you are doing with your file manager and what I (& I assume others) are trying to do with PVD file scanner.

Yes, I thought about that and concluded that just because a similar function is required at two different stages of my workflow does it mean it has to be restricted to one or the other.

mmm
PVD already has regex, it already stores user defined regex expressions for the file scanner.
As a wish list item I would like to combine the essential features of rick.ca file renamer into PVD. To explain:-
The "Scan results" dialogue should show the fields it will potentially use to search the online databases & set up the record. For movies these are
Title
Original title
Year
url
Path

To that I would like added the ability to run user defined regex (via buttons or menu selection). Typically they would take the "path" as the input string & output to the above fields as appropriate. To be general it maybe worth having tha ability to start from other fields. I imagine some may prefer to run a regex on the existing Title to clean it.
It would also be useful to make the url active so the linked page could be viewed in the users default browser.

For series a similar thing could be done, but more fields are required
Season
Episode
Episode title

The user needs also to be able to correct the scanner if it gets it wrong. A possible solution is to have a series check box, which when ticked indicates the video is part of a series and the extra fields are shown (Unless it is felt the scanner would always be correct). I have not thought through how to incorporate the add to series functionality, but that too would be applicable here.

The reason I would prefer it as part of PVD is I like the way PVD file scanner just shows me the new or changed files when I point it a at directory trees. I also think a dedicated tool like PVD could do a better job of managing video files.

The actual file name updating could then be done as a second step, useful for those who look at the file names or want to ensure subsequent accurate re-scanning.

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 08:11:36 pm
Quote
I would like at least the option to append the old file name ending to the new cleaned name, maybe Title (Year) IMDb# [old descriptors].ext as I'm not sure I would really like to loose some of that information (CAM, TS, dvdrip, HDTV, BluRay)

Just specify the regex that will do so. Instead of skipping over them (or, for example, dropping everything after finding the title and year), put those parts in variables and append them as [old descriptors].

Sorry I didn't explain myself, I was thinking how I would like a PVD file renamer to work, not how Directory Opus works

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 08:11:36 pm
Quote
Not sure if it would cope with graphics data but given the often reasonable image PVD can pull from imdb I still think it is a good approach.

Don't forget it's now very easy to export posters to images "beside" the media file. So if a lot of effort has gone into getting better quality posters from elsewhere, this is a reasonable thing to do—to make those available to other PVD databases and/or just to be a visual reference in the file system.

A nice companion to a file renaming feature would be the option to save the poster beside the file at the same time.

Good ideas

111
Support / Re: Scan folders/file scanner confusion
« on: June 14, 2009, 02:56:49 pm »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 12:05:42 pm
My file manager includes a regex file renamer. One button cleans movies, another episodes. Maybe I'll configure a third to deal with those that have a more accurate title in the containing folder. Even with some requiring manual adjustment, it still works out to seconds per file. And then the filenames are accurate and meaningful in my file system as well as in PVD. The same thing can be done with a number of excellent freeware file renamers.

That sound like a good system.
I got sick of doing it by hand. The issue I found was often multi-part files were used and for replay all files names needed to match (sub-titles, multiple discs etc). As such it was easier to leave the cryptic but matching set of file names. Typically the folder names are more human readable, hence my approach.

Does the file manager you use cope with multi-part files appropriately? Which one do you use?
You do of course realise there is a certain amount of similarity between what you are doing with your file manager and what I (& I assume others) are trying to do with PVD file scanner.

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 12:05:42 pm
But only 50% of those have NFOs

imo PVD being able to link directly to the exact imdb reference would be a very useful feature. Currently I do this by hand which is much less efficient.
True if I knew the Exact imdb title & year the text search would work well, but often I do not know this prior to looking it up on imdb.

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 12:05:42 pm
Maybe what would be much more useful would be the ability to rename files. Files could be renamed to Title (Year) IMDb#.ext and a variable added so regex could capture the IMDb# and add the URL.

That is a neat idea.
We would need to ensure it worked with multi-part files.
I would like at least the option to append the old file name ending to the new cleaned name, maybe Title (Year) IMDb# [old descriptors].ext as I'm not sure I would really like to loose some of that information (CAM, TS, dvdrip, HDTV, BluRay)
Not sure if it would cope with graphics data but given the often reasonable image PVD can pull from imdb I still think it is a good approach.

112
Support / Re: Scan folders/file scanner confusion
« on: June 14, 2009, 09:37:20 am »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 07:22:20 am
Quote
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.

You should be able to handle that with regex as well, unless the pattern is hopelessly inconsistent. What is the source of the directory and file name?

Media file names are often very cryptic eg "vmt-agmihtf-xvid.avi" but the enclosing directory is more informative "A Good Man Is Hard to Find". Maybe others don't have this experience, but I find it is rather common. Currently I cut & paste in the "Scan results" dialogue to make the name more informative for the imdb lookup. This is a wish list suggestion to improve to the "Scan results" dialogue to make this process more efficient. Regex would not make the manual editing more efficient as the very reason it is a manual process is the naming is generated by humans so is inconsistent.

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 07:22:20 am
Quote
Some media files have an associated .nfo file containing a link to an internet database (most often imdb).

I don't see much point in this. Sure, it there's a reliable URL consistently available in a consistent format, then this may help, but the primary approach is supposed to be to get the filename (and maybe year) and use that to search IMDb.

URL are in a consistent format (they are a valid url). If one is available it will always point to the correct imdb record with greater accuracy than a search (duplicate records in imdb, similar movie titles etc). So if it is available it is worth using, if not then falling back to file naming & database search is of course required. Currently I can "Open enclosing folder" open the .nfo file, cut & paste from there. Importing into a custom field would provide similar functionality but not address why I suggested it ie the improve scanner performance.

Note I have spent time making file names look pretty in the past, but given I now access my movies from PVD the actual file names and paths are largely irrelevant. If I need to change them to import into PVD then that indicates the efficiency of operating PVD could be improved.

.nfo are supplied with at least 50% downloaded content and most have imdb link, so I suspect I'm not the only one who would benefit from this functionality, hence it's suggestion as a scanner enhancement wish list item

Quote from: rick.ca on June 14, 2009, 07:22:20 am
Quote
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.

I marked that off because I did not interpret the feature request to necessarily be an integrated tag management system, and I thought most of the pieces were in place for this to be done on an ad hoc basis.

PVD is run on an open database with various import & export capabilities. It has always been possible to import movie information from various sources in an adhoc fashion. The aim of using tags is to further improve the file scanner performance. To do so it becomes part of the file scanner. Maybe PVD has all the tagging capability nostra wanted to implement, if so then a some what adhoc solution must be the answer.

BTW
The above suggestion are in-order of solution specificity, from most general (but least exact) to most exact / potentially automatic.

113
Support / Re: Scan folders/file scanner confusion
« on: June 14, 2009, 01:30:46 am »
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)

114
Support / Re: Bulk Import Images to PVD from PC?
« on: June 14, 2009, 12:44:41 am »
I'm off topic here so have continued here

115
Support / Re: Bulk Import Images to PVD from PC?
« on: June 13, 2009, 12:38:50 pm »
Quote from: rick.ca on June 13, 2009, 06:32:57 am
Maybe the plugin you were thinking of would not be so necessary now that the Images by ID utility is available.
On this we disagree rick.ca unless I'm missing something.
You indicate Tag export/import (like ID3 for mp3) has been added, but unless I am mistaken, the functionality Reset was adding is actually part of this and not yet available.

So Reset, I would still very much appreciate any progress towards acheiving movie tagging functionality.

116
Support / Re: Importing Multiple Movies/Videos From CD, DVD, HD or Folder
« on: June 13, 2009, 05:09:19 am »
Quote from: patch on June 05, 2009, 12:59:41 pm
This is probably best done by making "Path" one of the tree view options.
It should be implemented so a high level directory could be selected and all movies in that directory and below are displayed (implemented by an "all" entry added to each directory level or selecting directory name).
On reflection this is going to have to wait till grid view is implemented.
The reason is, for this to work, the tree selection needs to be separate from the record display.
ie select in left hand panel what sub tree you want to look at-> results displayed in main right hand panel.

IMO it would be a good way of browsing any/all of the tree view displays

117
Support / Re: TV Series & File Scanner
« on: June 06, 2009, 06:08:54 am »
Quote from: darichman on June 06, 2009, 05:53:51 am
I have all my TV shows in the file format...
E:\Television\Dark Angel\Season 2\Dark Angel - 2-03. Proof of Purchase

See http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php?topic=1168.0
[Thanks, Patch. We're here. ;) ]

You use a similar format to me, add similar regex before the standard ones
I uses season directories of the form "s1" but you use "season 1"
So you will need to replace my "\\s(?P<season>[0-9]{1,2})\\" with with your "\\season (?P<season>[0-9]{1,2})\\" 
Note leave out the bounding quotes

118
Support / Re: Importing Multiple Movies/Videos From CD, DVD, HD or Folder
« on: June 05, 2009, 12:59:41 pm »
Quote from: discourteous on June 03, 2009, 09:05:43 pm
3 (not a real problem, but connected with 2): is it possible to preserve directories for all added files (ie. just leave them as they are in Windows Explorer)?

This is probably best done by making "Path" one of the tree view options.
It should be implemented so a high level directory could be selected and all movies in that directory and below are displayed (implemented by an "all" entry added to each directory level or selecting directory name).

As such it is actually a useful suggestion if it is not too hard to implement. Unfortunately I suspect it would not be trivial as it would imply a variable number of sub-levels dependant on the users file structure.

119
Support / Re: PRINT OUT?
« on: June 05, 2009, 09:53:19 am »
Quote from: super on June 05, 2009, 09:07:51 am
THERE IS KEY FOR PRINT OUT AS: :(
-MOVIES WITH INFORMATION
-LOAN HISTORY
-STATIC FOR DATABASE

Print functionality has been suggested as a future enhancement http://www.videodb.info/forum_en/index.php?topic=908.0
In the mean time you can use the export plugin to readily produce such a list then print that.

BTW
Best not to use all capitals, shouting is rude unless you actually have cause to (or it is an abbreviation / acronym)


120
Support / Re: Importing Multiple Movies/Videos From CD, DVD, HD or Folder
« on: June 03, 2009, 10:49:12 pm »
Quote from: discourteous on June 03, 2009, 09:05:43 pm
Problem: Tools -> Scan folders for new movies
1: doesn't add all movies in (sub)folder(s)
2: preserves folder structure only for some movies (ie. PVD doesn't leave most of them in their subfolders, but forces them into "root" dir)
3 (not a real problem, but connected with 2): is it possible to preserve directories for all added files (ie. just leave them as they are in Windows Explorer)?

PVD does not ever display the explorer file structure when browsing movies.
It displays in a flat file structure then add it's own structures (See tree view, series)

The only time explorer file structure applies is when selecting a folder to scan or showing path to files on disk.

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