Personal Video Database

Yoink

I'm working on something these days, maybe you'll see something within a few weeks

I've not been too active here lately, but I'll watch this thread with interest. A quick and easy way to pull PVD database info into MC would be a useful tool!

I'm sure you're aware that you can use PVD's export feature to generate an MPL file which can then be imported into MC. That's the way I've been doing it for a while - works great but requires the manual step of exporting from PVD and importing into MC. If what you propose doesn't work out perhaps you might find a way to automate this process somehow as a solution.

It might also be worth considering sending fields to PVD and not filenames. If you have accurate fields in MC this bypasses the need for cleaning up filenames. I export [Name] and [Filename] from MC to [Title] and [Path] in PVD.

Like Rick, it seems to me that MC's approach to video metadata is certainly less than inclusive (although recent trends indicate this may change at some point)... for me, at least at the moment, maintaining a PVD database as well as a MC database seems the best option. The closer we can get the integration the better, however

The way PVD refers to fields has changed since this post, but it shows how you can go about creating an mpl from PVD: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47538.msg326313#msg326313

If the resultant MPL were in a folder that MC could pick up in auto-import? I know it's not exactly what you had in mind, but we'd be halfway there at least...

Until Nostra swoops in and saves the day, of course

Oh wow, I've never seen some of those fields up there! haha

Yeah, I'd like that extra info too... I wonder how it would be best presented though - maybe in a note/memo field. I'll have a look - but my approach so far has been similar to yours... look at the existing script and trying to adapt it without breaking it. I've broken it a few dozen times now

Some feedback... works great! A few little niggly bits I've noticed so far...

1. Box Office doesn't format correctly in the standard field. Works fine as a "short text" custom entry
//Box office
 AddCustomFieldValueByName('Box Office', HTMLValues(HTML,
                             '<span>Box Office</span>', '</table>',
                 '<li>', '</li>',
                 ', ', EndPos));
2. Your MPAA + Reason formatting works okay, but if there is no reason listed, you get an output of "Rated M for ." etc

3. I added support for the "Region" field in AMG. It's being used more and more frequently on the site, but many older movies don't have it populated.
//Region
 AddCustomFieldValueByName('Region', HTMLValues2(HTML,
                             '<span>Premiere</span>', '</table>',
                 '<a href="', '</a>',
                 ', ', EndPos));
4. I seem to get a rating of 10 for every movie... must have a closer look.

Also, I'm not sure if it was you or Nostra who added the Reviews and Producion Credits functionality, but that's awesome - thanks

Rick, this is great - thanks for sharing.

Just wondering, do you mainly use allmovies for your metadata? I was trialling a system with custom fields a while ago to attempt to maintain both IMDb and AMG fields in the same database (Used standard fields for IMDb and a whole bunch of custom fields for AMG - AMG Director, AMG Synopsis etc etc). It was getting a bit unwieldy.

There are a few situations where AMG is incomplete compared to IMDb or vice versa... what's your system?

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