Germany
It works smoothly in German for me. German interface with German contents. What do you want more?
Expand TVSeries to a sister plugin? My Films? (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter jbjones
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Do you call that a nice browser? Is it easily usable?
The answer is clearly no.
chambolle
It works smoothly in German for me. German interface with German contents. What do you want more?
MyTVSeries has been translated but at least 95% of the database is in english.
I don't say it is not a good plugin. I only say that I don't believe it is good idea to generalize it
I say that MP should be based on only one idea: a nice editable database, with tools to automatically fill the data.
chambolle
Well the only way the database will have data from other languages is if people enter it. The only reason we have so much English data is that we (meedio users) had a previous English tv info database which we brought into this new site plus we used to update from tv.com. The multi-language interface on the site was added after much pleading from non-English users, but if no one updates in the other languages then the data will not exist. There are many users, several from this forum in fact who update the German and Hebrew data regularly. Also all current English data is being added by users as well. So basically if what you want isn't on the site add it. Scott and I can't be expected to enter the data for languages which we can neither read nor speak. Sorry to harp but that's way it works in a community driven site like the tvdb site.
Paul
(in case you're wondering why I'm saying all this I am one of thetvdb site developers.)
I support this idea completely!
I like MesFilms/My Films for one thing: my DVD collection. I had to export everything from MovieCollector, yes, but it's really cool how it is atm.
However.. A sister plugin of this would (in my case) replace the default my movies in MP and this would be a good thing: it's way easier to make your DB, you can scan for avi info and display the logo's (even more useful here than in My Series imho), automatic updating,...
This is NOT reinventing the wheel as the current options are way to limited (default my movies) or way to complicated (my films, even tho I can work with it perfectly)
I like MesFilms/My Films for one thing: my DVD collection. I had to export everything from MovieCollector, yes, but it's really cool how it is atm.
However.. A sister plugin of this would (in my case) replace the default my movies in MP and this would be a good thing: it's way easier to make your DB, you can scan for avi info and display the logo's (even more useful here than in My Series imho), automatic updating,...
This is NOT reinventing the wheel as the current options are way to limited (default my movies) or way to complicated (my films, even tho I can work with it perfectly
)As someone who contributed code to Zeebons fantastic MyFilms plugin as well as writing scripts for ANT to get data from IMDB/TV.Com & Amazon (the auto. ones), I think people who knock it just totally misunderstand how to use it. It is IMHO the best MP Plugin. MyVideos was bloated, buggy and totally unuseable with an awkward interface when I moved to MyFilms last year.
If you want good results though like anything you have to understand how to use the tool. The dude who says he's a programmer and finds it too complex must have used it for all of 1 minute, it is simplicity itself. I even posted a demo database + config info so ANYONE can easily see it in action. Anyway I am certain that Zeebons will not be merging it with any other plugin as it is great at what it does and doesn't need to change and end up bloated and unuseable. In the unlikely event that did happen I personally would create a branch and maintain that myself.
I haven't used MyTvSeries but I 100% doubt it has the flexibility of the many scripts Ant has which can be totally automated so you do nothing while the PC fills in the info for 1,000's of entries. I use MyFilms to maintain a huge offline library of movies with imdb info + amazon covers/music videos/tv series all with episode info from tv.com + amazon covers. It is just not practical or sensible IMHO to try and integrate all this functionality into ANT when it is best handled by a seperate dedicated program via a windows not a TV interface.
To the doubters, try actually spending 4+ hours playing with Ant+MyFilms and reading up on how to use the Ant Scripts as they automate the whole process as far as possible). If you try and go down the route of a MP do-it-all plug you will end up with a bloated mess which I certainly won't be using. The MyFilms interface is perfection IMHO and very very simple to use. I totally fail to understand what exactly people find complex? If you can't be bothered to work out how to use ANT then the plug is not for you and you will miss out on the great power that using ANT offers. But you had to work out how to use/config MediaPortal, same with ANT.
If you want good results though like anything you have to understand how to use the tool. The dude who says he's a programmer and finds it too complex must have used it for all of 1 minute, it is simplicity itself. I even posted a demo database + config info so ANYONE can easily see it in action. Anyway I am certain that Zeebons will not be merging it with any other plugin as it is great at what it does and doesn't need to change and end up bloated and unuseable. In the unlikely event that did happen I personally would create a branch and maintain that myself.
I haven't used MyTvSeries but I 100% doubt it has the flexibility of the many scripts Ant has which can be totally automated so you do nothing while the PC fills in the info for 1,000's of entries. I use MyFilms to maintain a huge offline library of movies with imdb info + amazon covers/music videos/tv series all with episode info from tv.com + amazon covers. It is just not practical or sensible IMHO to try and integrate all this functionality into ANT when it is best handled by a seperate dedicated program via a windows not a TV interface.
To the doubters, try actually spending 4+ hours playing with Ant+MyFilms and reading up on how to use the Ant Scripts as they automate the whole process as far as possible). If you try and go down the route of a MP do-it-all plug you will end up with a bloated mess which I certainly won't be using. The MyFilms interface is perfection IMHO and very very simple to use. I totally fail to understand what exactly people find complex? If you can't be bothered to work out how to use ANT then the plug is not for you and you will miss out on the great power that using ANT offers. But you had to work out how to use/config MediaPortal, same with ANT.
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It's just that there is a steep learning curve with MyFilms. I agree with you it is a great plugin, but it does not work strait out of the box, there are a lot of steps to get things working just like you'd like. The reason people suggest merging functionality of the TVSeries plugin into MyFilms is because with TVSeries, you basically install, set the path to your TV Shows, let it scan, and you're done. There are a lot of ways to customize things, just like with MyFilms, but initial setup and use is very painless and requires very little knowledge and probabl not even the use of a guide or a wiki or anything.
Ease of use like this is not for people like you and me though, it's for grandparents and people who have no patience for this sort of stuff, who are not computer savy. I know several people who tried MyFilms, but ended up ditching it, to just use MVideos because they didn't feel like learning how to setup MyFilmns. That right there in my opinion is the main problem with MyFilms.
I could not aree more. I´m one of them who have tryed to use the Ant database and myfilms, but have end up ditching it just becorce i have not been able to make it work. Belive me i have tryed.
Ok, maybee im stupid...but IMOO even stupid ones should be able to make it work.
I feel myfilms is a plugin for advanced users and thats fine by me. So there for i totaly behind the idea of a plugin that uses a similar approach like MP-Tvseries users to import movietitles, coverimages and so on.
Just my 2 cents.
- December 6, 2004
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I haven't actually used myFilms, but I keep reading about it and did read the info / how to use guide to see if its something I might like. Frankly, that alone put me off.
I don't have an "Antz movie catalog" nor do I know what it is, how to set it up or anything. Then it says i need to import in there and then export (save as xml). Does that mean for every new movie I have to launch an external application, and export?
Then it says I need to give it "Ant Item for Storage File Info" to launch movies from MP. Huh, what?
So personally, no its not for me. Then again I don't have a huge movies collection, so the build in myVideos does fine for me. Otherwise I probably have tried, and might have found it easy to use, or maybe not.
I'm in no way saying its a bad plugin, just that its probably not for the casual user. It kinda reminds me of Linux ;-)
I don't have an "Antz movie catalog" nor do I know what it is, how to set it up or anything. Then it says i need to import in there and then export (save as xml). Does that mean for every new movie I have to launch an external application, and export?
Then it says I need to give it "Ant Item for Storage File Info" to launch movies from MP. Huh, what?
So personally, no its not for me. Then again I don't have a huge movies collection, so the build in myVideos does fine for me. Otherwise I probably have tried, and might have found it easy to use, or maybe not.
I'm in no way saying its a bad plugin, just that its probably not for the casual user. It kinda reminds me of Linux ;-)
OK I presume by steep learning curve with MyFilms you mean a steep learning curve with ANT? as MyFilms itself works just like any other MP Plugin.
I agree that for a novice using Ant to create the metadata for stuff might be too hard. But surely for that kind of user they would be better using a file explorer plugin in MP (one does exist) which just browses the hard drive folders and lets you play any music/media files it finds, obvioualy with no metadata, but if you wan't a quick and easy solution why bother with it.
I haven't checked out the automation abilities of MyTVSeries, having written scripts adapted perfectly for my needs using ANT I guess I am unlikely to, but how does it cope with stuff it cannot find? Can it use all the different sites ant has (about 50 of them)? Can you easily run database style queries or updates to manipulate the data from within the user interface.
I do agree as I wrote a while back that MyFilms could do with an auto-scanfolders option, that would scan the given path(s) and append any new media files (+ work out video codec, video size etc but no other metadata) it finds to your ant.xml file. These files could then at least be seen in MyFilms. Using the hierarchy feature the title field could be set to new\filename(no extension). When MyFilms plugin is run it could remove any new\... titles that no longer exists while leaving all others intact. New users could simply use it as a file explorer and add no meta data if they wish. I didn't have the time back then new job/baby but might do soon so will revisit. Hmmm the more I re-read what I've written above the more I like it, looks clean and not hard to add. In the long term if we could automate ANT running scripts then it would be better still...
I agree that for a novice using Ant to create the metadata for stuff might be too hard. But surely for that kind of user they would be better using a file explorer plugin in MP (one does exist) which just browses the hard drive folders and lets you play any music/media files it finds, obvioualy with no metadata, but if you wan't a quick and easy solution why bother with it.
I haven't checked out the automation abilities of MyTVSeries, having written scripts adapted perfectly for my needs using ANT I guess I am unlikely to, but how does it cope with stuff it cannot find? Can it use all the different sites ant has (about 50 of them)? Can you easily run database style queries or updates to manipulate the data from within the user interface.
I do agree as I wrote a while back that MyFilms could do with an auto-scanfolders option, that would scan the given path(s) and append any new media files (+ work out video codec, video size etc but no other metadata) it finds to your ant.xml file. These files could then at least be seen in MyFilms. Using the hierarchy feature the title field could be set to new\filename(no extension). When MyFilms plugin is run it could remove any new\... titles that no longer exists while leaving all others intact. New users could simply use it as a file explorer and add no meta data if they wish. I didn't have the time back then new job/baby but might do soon so will revisit. Hmmm the more I re-read what I've written above the more I like it, looks clean and not hard to add. In the long term if we could automate ANT running scripts then it would be better still...
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