Getting a picture for each TV episode

[tjobbins]

Hi guys

First of all - wow!  Thank you!  I have just started using PVD and it's really awesome.  I use J River Media Center 14 to organise all my TV, films and music.  There's a Media Center plugin called pvdimport that hooks into PVD and helps me get all the info from PVD into my media library.  This is a really big thing!

I am running the latest version 0.9.9.14 on Windows XP SP3 32bit.

So my first question.  I've started imported some TV shows as I learn my way around PVD.  This is working OK, but one thing I notice so far is that I never seem to get any picture for the episodes of a TV series.  

I get a picture on the TV show itself, but each individual episode never has one.   I've tried on three different series' so far - Brass Eye, Heroes and FlashForward.

I'm using both the IMDB plugin and the TVDB one.  But to be honest I'm not yet seeing much benefit from running the TVDB plugin - the IMDB plugin seems to import all the same info, and far more.  TVDB does have per-episode pictures where IMDB does not, but the TVDB plugin doesn't seem to be importing them.

Workflow, using FlashForward as an example:

1. Movie->New Movie Master.  Enter name of TV show 'Flashforward'.  Change Movie Information pugin to TVDB.  Left Poster plugin on Amazon.co.uk.   Didn't select any file.  Clicked Go.
    TVDB filled in some details, and I got an episode list
2. Ran IMDB plugin on the Flashforward item
    Now I have a lot more info
3. Tools -> Scan files ->  Selected my Flashforward directory
    It finds the episodes OK.  
4. In the Scan Files dialog I change Movie Information plugin to TVDB,  and leave Poster at Amazon.  I click Process
    It runs OK, and afterwards, I click on some of the episodes in the Flashforward tree, and see that they now have files against them.
   Each episode has very little info against it, just a year and description  No picture.
5. I select Episode 1 in the tree, and run TVDB again via Import->TheTVDB.
6. I have to choose Flashforward (2009) in the "Select Movie" dialog, even though it's the only option
    After running this, I now have an IMDB Rating, a Released date and the Writer.  Still no picture.
7. I run the IMDB Import on this episode
   Now I have a lot more info, like Actors.  But no picture.
8. I ran an IMDB import on all episodes. 
Now I do get two pictures.  These were episode 4, Black Swan and episode 6, Scary Monsters And Super Creeps.   Example, in episode 6, the picture chosen is the Poster picture, shown in the top left (to the left of "FlashForward")  in the episode URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1508479/

So it seems that I can state the problem as thus:

1. The TVDB plugin doesn't get pictures.
2. Many/Most IMDB episode entries have no pictures.
3. There is no way in PVD to use the TV Series master picture for each episode, if no specific picture can be found.

So if either problem 1 or 3 were resolved, I think I could guarantee to get a picture for nearly every TV episode.   

Is there anything else I can try at this stage or are these new feature requests?

Also, any suggestions on ways to make my process quicker would be great.  Is it possible to script/automate any of those 8 steps I did manually, above?

Thanks again for the great software and thanks in advance for your help.

[rick.ca]

Welcome to the forum, Tom.

Please see this topic for some background on TheTVDb plugin.

I hope the next update will include the ability to download episode images. As an alternative, I've been using the automatic screen shot feature to get my own image (the images on the website are just user-uploaded screen shots anyway). The work flow, however, is getting a bit tedious. I set the screen shot maker to get 8 shots. I then pick one, save it, load it as a poster, then delete all screen shots.

As it currently stands, all I use the TheTVDb plugin for is getting episode descriptions. It's descriptions are somewhat better and more consistent than those at the IMDb. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well for getting information for individual episodes. They have to be updated one at a time, and each time it requires a confirmation (as you point out). If there are more that a few episodes requiring an update, it's easier to update the entire series.

[tjobbins]

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation, rick.

I've raised my feature request (default episode image to TV show master image) here

Thanks for the suggestion re automatic screenshotting, that's a good idea too.  I did try doing that in MC itself, as that has the useful "Use screengrab for thumbnail";  but manually seeking to find a good shot always took ages, even if I was looking for something easy like the title screen.  Taking 8 shots automatically and just picking a good one seems a lot quicker.