Apple: If no movie trailer descriptions - import from IMDB? (1 Viewer)

[dir]

When I browse the movie trailer lists in the iTunes section of OnlineVideos, many (most) of the videos don't have a description of the movie. They usually all have name, date of release, certification, genre, directors, and actors, but only about 10% have a description.

I assume this may be because the website changes quite often and the scraper can't get it, but rather than worry about that, it would be great if I could tell OLV to get the meta data from IMDB or themoviedb or rotten tomatoes or somewhere.

Obviously this functionality would only be useful for movies, and not all Online Videos are movies. But the trailers browsing facility seems to have really been stripped away from back when the Trailers plugin existed - there's no ability to have it display wallpaper/background images or retrieve additional/missing artwork and meta data.

I used to really enjoy wasting an hour just browsing and watching movie trailers within MP, but the ease with which this could be done previously seems to have been eroded away, with no ability to download additional/missing artwork and text. Trailers are technically "online videos", but they should be handled as a special case so that this rich experience isn't sacrificed.

Perhaps this is a request that needs to be pointed to Latest Media Handler or Fanart Handler, though niether of those handle retrieving additional/missing text.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Either ltfearme or trevor is making a new trailer plugin, that should solve these problems.

 

[dir]

.... and of course, 30 minutes later, after the plugins have had enough time to do their majik, 90% of hte trailers now have movie descriptions. I was clearly impatient.
Having grovellingly admitted that, I will still hold that most of the trailers don't have artwork (when browsing by studios, at least). It could be that this is still downloading though!

Looking forward to a new plugin.

 

[offbyone]

Why not use the IMDB site in OnlineVideos then?

Fanart Handler once supported Fanart for OnlineVideos, but this depends on used skin and I am not sure if this is still supported.

Either ltfearme or trevor is making a new trailer plugin, that should solve these problems.

Oy, first time I am hearing of this

 

[kiwijunglist]

It's just for trailers only not sure if focus is browsing trailers or just trailer scraper and support for downloading trailers for movies.[DOUBLEPOST=1372599337][/DOUBLEPOST]I have an idea for online videos though....

online videos can be launched with from the skin with the following parameters
-Trailer -IMDB %IMDB_ID% -Title %title% -Year %year%

It then checks themoviedb api to see if trailer is listed (themoviedb only lists youtube trailers), if trailer is listed then O.V. plays that youtube trailer straight away. If there is no trailer listed then O.V. does a search on youtube with "%title% (%year%)"

The current implementation in Titan is that clicking on trailer button in moving pictures searches youtube with "%title% (%year%", however it would be nice if it could just play the trailer directly (eliminates a step). The above feature would solve that, but still have support if there is no trailer listed on themoviedb.

As an additional option you could specify a fallback site. eg. the above example would become
-Trailer -IMDB %IMDB_ID% -Title %title% -Year %year% -Fallback youtube.com

 

[offbyone]

I was thinking of something similar:
Create a new site "Trailers" that can check any of the available trailer sites for the given infos (name + year or imdb). This site can then be configured by the user to pereferably check for trailers in the user's language for example.
Only problem is that I am missing the time to implement it currently.

 

[dir]

The biggest missing functionality for me is the ability to save and use local trailer files. I started collecting trailers over 10 years ago and many of these are simply not available on itunes/apple trailers or IMDB. Undoubtedly this will also be true in the future - trailers available now may not be available in the future. I know we're in the "cloud" era and any/everything should likely be available "out there" somewhere, but you could argue that artwork and metadata is always out there and therefore we may as well just download it every time we need it. Which of course is silly.

Also, I get the impression that developers tend to overlook the fact that many users around the world do not have unlimited or fast internet, and can't or won't (re-)download /stream trailers because of the cost or they don't like the stuttering of streamed trailers. Having the trailer locally available means there are no delays when wanting to view it from within, say, Moving Pictures.

Its a bit of a pain associating a saved trailer with a movie. Years ago we got really stuck on this in Meedio because nobody could agree on the approach. My attitude is not to ask others for agreement and simply decide on one way to do it. It'll become a 'standard' fast enough. For those of us with existing trailers, I'm happy to do a one-off exercise to manually import/move my trailers so that they're integated.

 

[kiwijunglist]

I was thinking of something similar:
Create a new site "Trailers" that can check any of the available trailer sites for the given infos (name + year or imdb). This site can then be configured by the user to pereferably check for trailers in the user's language for example.
Only problem is that I am missing the time to implement it currently.

That sounds good, I think there are 3 uses for trailers

1. Stream trailer for movie in collection

2. Browse trailers for general interest

3. Scrape + download trailers for movies in user's collection.

I think #1 can be solved without much work using above idea and taking advantage of the fact that themoviedb api gives youtube trailers only and that 99% of trailers can be found within the first 1-2 results by searching youtube with "%title% (%year%)"

PS. I noticed trakt was a really good source for trailers, but when I asked them they told me they get all their data from themoviedb.

 

[offbyone]

@dir : You can download every trailer you play with Onlinevideos.
The integration with MyFilms is the best here - it should even allow automatic download to the correct folder.

 

[dir]

@dir : You can download every trailer you play with Onlinevideos.

The integration with MyFilms is the best here - it should even allow automatic download to the correct folder.

You can? I can't from within MP Titan GUI. There's a field labelled "Download Folder" in the OV configuration that's blank by default. I certainly don't want OV downloading/saving every video I watch (like porn, youtube, random junk etc.). I can't see anywhere to tell OV to only download trailers.

Besides, even if I download this way, there's no way from within MP to play these downloaded trailers again except through the generic link in Online Videos. They aren't considered trailers that are associated with a movie and metadata.

Regarding MyFilms, I'll look at it yet again (once its MP 1.4 compatible), but historically, I've rejected it because it requires a 3rd party cataloging app / database ("Ant"), which itself was so convoluted and complicated that I'd always give up. Having to figure out which of the 100+ scrapers/scripts to use just to get info for my movies, and figure out how to get them working, was WAAAAAAY more bother than it was worth for me. It was clearly written for European users and the myriad of non-English language movie websites out there.
When I tried Moving Pictures, its only requirement was that my movies were in their own folders, and the folder names were the same/similar as shown in IMDB. No external database or cataloging app. No learning scripting languages or 3rd party importers.

Undoubtedly MyFilms has some great features and has matured from the days of geek complexity, but if you only speak english, and only use Media Portal, there's really no point in investing time in using AMC when Moving Pictures is so simple and integrated.