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Topic Summary

Posted by: MrHaugen
« on: September 30, 2012, 02:14:39 pm »

Yea. I understand that. I'll put PVD a bit on the shelf then, and explore some other options first. Perhaps I'll be back one day when my meta data need expands.
Thanks for the help.
Posted by: rick.ca
« on: September 30, 2012, 01:24:49 am »

No, I don't think PVD will deliver what you're looking for. It's too much work for something that just 'fills in the blanks' left by MC. It's value is in it's ability to manage the whole process of collecting data by various means from a variety of sources. If used for that purpose, then PvdImport provides an effortless and fully automatic way to import the same data to MC.

I understand most MC users want and expect MC to do everything for them. I have a somewhat different perspective because PVD had provided me with a very effective database at a time when MC handling of video (especially meta data) was a complete joke. After a very long time talking and debating about it, and a lot of development work, what MC still falls far short of what I've been able to do will PVD all along. So I'm quite happy to continue using PVD to collect all my data, and ignore all the shortcomings of J River's crappy implementation.
Posted by: MrHaugen
« on: September 30, 2012, 12:29:28 am »

Thanks for the explanation. I remember well all the meta data discussions on interact, but I did not recall if this could be used without user interference or not. At least not in PVD.

I'm sort of a collector, but I'm mainly looking for a few missing pieces of tags for my movies and series. Like IMDB ratings, info of movie prequel and sequels, and pershaps a few more. I'm not really that anal about my collection, but I find my self missing some info now and then, and that annoys me.

So, if I understood you correctly, this can all be done automatically, exept for the fact that you have to initiate the start of the batch meta data fetching? Is there any way to do that automatically? A batch file that triggers this ever half hour or something? I do not care if 1 of 100 movies are tagged incorrectly. That can be easily spotted and fixed. But I do care if I have to log into my server 2 times a week to start this batch job :)

My goal is to sit in my couch, watch new trailers in MC18 (that is downloaded automatically each day), find a movie I like, enter the title in couchpotato on my pad, wait for the download, wait for the meta data scraping in PVD, import to MC18, and then playback. I want to avoid that extra step of going down to my workstation or server to kickstart this process. Sure. This might sound crazy lazy, but if it can be done in some way, I would like to try that first. It's just super convinient.
Posted by: rick.ca
« on: September 29, 2012, 10:46:29 pm »

I'll try to avoid details, as much of that will be self-evident once you start using the program. I suggest you start with the beta (currently version 1.0.2.3), as it's stable and includes some useful new features.

You probably recall me stating at Interact that importing from PVD to MC is fully automatic. I'm referring to the process PvdImport provides, once properly configured. It monitors the PVD database directly, and automatically updates any records that have changed. The process of collecting data within PVD is better described as semi-automatic. That's not a bad thing. You're probably considering this because you've learned from painful experience the J River approach of trying to be fully automatic just gives you incomplete results for an arbitrary set of data that wasn't what you wanted in the first place. PVD gives you control over what data to collect and where to get it from.

The file scanning process—that matches files to records and creates a new record if one doesn't exist—uses a set of regex (processed in order, first match wins) to do the matching and extracting of data from pathnames (to create new records). If your file naming practice is 100% consistent, then the scanner—if properly configured—will be 100% successful. For practical purposes, expect it to be 95% successful, with the rest easily fixed manually. The exceptions will be mostly unavoidable issues with unusual or ambiguous video titles. Those will be minimized if both an accurate [Title] and [Year] are provided (in the pathname).

The scanner can be configured to run specified meta data import routines on the files it finds, but you still have to approve the processing of the batch. Generally, I prefer to data importing as a separate step I can oversee. Movies and episodes (at least) require different routines. I'd rather select the items I want updated, then run the appropriate updates. Those can be run in batches. For new movies, for example, I run one batch that combines data from four different sources.

So if your expectation is for something you can configure and forget, PVD is probably not for you. It's for those who care about the process of collecting data about movies (as any 'collector' would), and therefore want as much control as possible over it. If that is important to you, the result is a good one. Both MC and PVD will add files to their database as they 'appear' in scanned folders. In PVD, you run the import applicable import routines and make whatever other adjustments you want to make (e.g., adding a bit of data manually, finding a better poster, etc.). All this data then appears automatically in MC. The best approach is to do all the data maintenance in PVD, and then just enjoy it in MC.
Posted by: MrHaugen
« on: September 29, 2012, 04:47:05 pm »

I've been reading some topics about auto import, but nothing gave me any clear conclusions. I've read most of the starter and help text, but I still end up with a few questions. Before I start taking the time to learning this app, and setting up the database, I would like to know if what I want to achieve is possible at all.

Automation are very important to me. I do not want to add movies several times a week. When a movie is ripped, or downloaded, I want it to be imported to my dear JRiver Media Center 18.
I think it's possible to do auto import in PVD, but there was some comments that this might not be som automatic if there is more than one result returning? Are there no way to make 99% of the movies automatically import to PVD? I have a 100% percent consistent directory structure and filename that identifies the original title as well as the release year. Can this be used to improve the search results?

Can this be achieved, or will there be much manual operations?