Expand TVSeries to a sister plugin? My Films? (1 Viewer)

[HappyTalk]

I finally got round to trying My Tv Series out of curiosity. I have all my movies/tv series setup perfectly in MyFilms using scripts I wrote for ANT that hit imdb.com/tv.com. All my episodes are very clearly named on disk but the importer doesn't seem to work very well IMHO.
Pressing UP on the parsing expression page doesn't move the selected expression up in the list it just re-enables all the expressions I'd already unticked? I added one expressions to cover most of them then a second one to cover a slight variation I use, however the second one gets ignored. I then unticked all expressions re-ran the parsing test and got the same results! I closed/reopened the plug and all the espressions are ticked on again? I ticked them all off, re-parsed and got same results, are these expressions even used? or is the tick box just ignored? There is a tab for replacing expressions, I don't want to replace anything but have to go and untick them all every time I re-enter the config!

The parsing tab indicated it had correct info for most of them, but clicking import found hardly any of them? Also the parsing tab seems to list each file twice! It seems too buggy/cryptic for me to make further progress, having written ant scripts to scrape imdb & tv.com I'm no newbie to all this.

I might try it again next week but my initial impression was that it was full of OTT complexity yet unable to handle the basics. I doubt many users will be typing in their own regexp. I spent about 2 hours playing with it but gave up as I have a working system and found it frustrating. MyFilms has a proper database system (via ANT which is many years in development) you can see what you're doing and work with it, it is a zillion times easier to use. I'm not sure how any one gets My TVSeries to work, it seems to be as cryptic/unuseable as MyMovies. The problem stems from trying to use a basic and very simple database manager in the config page as opposed to a more fully featured one. Sorry...

 

[allanp81]

To counter you there, I found the tv series plugin way easier to use than my films. I'm not a stupid person but I've given up with the myfilms/ant catalogue route.

 

[scythelt]

The problem stems from trying to use a basic and very simple database manager in the config page as opposed to a more fully featured one. Sorry...

Sorry you found it too difficult happytalk. As you mentioned in earlier posts, you have written ant scripts to fetch data from IMDB - my question is, why should you have to write the scripts to make ant/myfilms work in the first place? How much time have you invested in making those scripts work?

To be honest I think the real reason you're having problems with mptvseries is because you're over complicating things. I've never once touched the regex's. Everything just works. Take a look at the format of your tv episode naming conventions before you go messing with the regexes. They are really there as a "power user" option, but in reality for 98% of users, won't need to be changed.

Coming from a background of uber compliated systems like myfilms and ant scripts, I think you're trying to make mptvseries far more complicated than it ever needs to be.

 

[HappyTalk]

I'm not sure how it can be easier when it doesn't work? As I said I got the parser to fill in the correct tabs yet it found hardly any info? I'm not sure how someone can't use MyFilms. You use ANT to setup a db (a single table db is not exactly complex). Myfilms config simple maps ant fields to MyFilms ones and that's it?

Anyway I'm not going to go over the MyFilms vs MyTVSeries, simply saying I tried MyTVSeries for a few hours and was grossly underwhelmed I assumed it would be bug free by now. It seems to suffer from EXACTLY the same design flaws as MyMovies which turned me to MyFilms in the first place, primarily a totally unuseable configuration front end. It does have a nice graphical design but the config logic needs total re-analysis IMHO.

 

[d2globalinc]

I would agree with you as well on this scythelt - I am new to MP (about a month into it) and I have to say once I figured out My TVSeries - I think its now my favorite part of MP. I also have been contributing to thetvdb.com when a few of my series were not found. Anyway - I think the only way you can make this thing too difficult is if your filenames are not uniform and easily match up some of the pre-defined methods. Best solution - rename your episodes and clean up your file directories so they are easily imported.

Thanks again Makers of this plugin

- D2G

 

[scythelt]

It seems to suffer from EXACTLY the same design flaws as MyMovies which turned me to MyFilms in the first place, primarily a totally unuseable configuration front end.

Again, IMO you're trying to use mptvseries like you would myfilms. There's not much to configure in mptvseries - you point it at a directory, import and that's it. Nothing more required.

That is assuming you are using a standard naming convention for your tv episodes. If you're using something out of the ordinary, then you're on your own.

 

[HappyTalk]

The problem stems from trying to use a basic and very simple database manager in the config page as opposed to a more fully featured one. Sorry...

Sorry you found it too difficult happytalk. As you mentioned in earlier posts, you have written ant scripts to fetch data from IMDB - my question is, why should you have to write the scripts to make ant/myfilms work in the first place? How much time have you invested in making those scripts work?

I didn't find it difficult, it simply didn't work as it was supposed to. I said I got the parsing test to have correct data but it found very few of the episodes. Yer 'I' spent a lot of time writing those scripts as I was interested in doing so, but no one else need do so they can just use them (ones on ANT site may not be up to date). MyTvSeries has access to a web service yet finds 1/10th what a web scrape on tv.com finds.


It looks nice but doesn't work, too buggy. eg: Each time you re-run the parsing test the results get appended to the previous results resulting in multiple entries! so you have to close/re-run config untick expressions/replacements every time you want to test it - yawn!

 

[scythelt]

expression I added = <series>.<season>.<episode>.<title>.<ext>

Why add an expression? Just use the defaults - that's what they're there for.

It looks nice but doesn't work.

YMMV - stick to myfilms if that's what makes you happy.

I personally have over 50 tv series with multiple seasons each imported in mptvseries with absolutely no config needed on my part. It just gets everything I need.

MP-TVSeries is THE REASON I use MediaPortal. Massive thanks to Inker and all the other devs who have contributed to this plugin, they deserve a round of applause.

 

[Inker]

The problem stems from trying to use a basic and very simple database manager in the config page as opposed to a more fully featured one. Sorry...

Sorry you found it too difficult happytalk. As you mentioned in earlier posts, you have written ant scripts to fetch data from IMDB - my question is, why should you have to write the scripts to make ant/myfilms work in the first place? How much time have you invested in making those scripts work?

I didn't find it difficult, it simply didn't work as it was supposed to. I said I got the parsing test to have correct data but it found very few of the episodes. Yer 'I' spent a lot of time writing those scripts as I was interested in doing so, but no one else need do so they can just use them (ones on ANT site may not be up to date). MyTvSeries has access to a web service yet finds 1/10th what a web scrape on tv.com finds.

eg:
Heroes.S01.01.Genesis.avi
Heroes.S01.02.Don't Look Back.avi

expression I added = <series>.<season>.<episode>.<title>.<ext>

results = none found!

It looks nice but doesn't work, too buggy. eg: Each time you re-run the parsing test the results get appended to the previous results resulting in multiple entries!

I dont know why I'm responding but:
<series>.S<season>.<episode>.<title>.<ext>

Ever considered that if it works for most ppl except you it might be........I don't know....you?

Now please go back to Ant Scripts.

Bye

 

[HappyTalk]

Yes I already guessed that which is why I removed it from the post. If you are expecting a number for that field then you ought to strip off any letters, if you convert a string s02 to an int thats what would happen. Maybe you shouldn't have bothered responding (not in that tone anyway) and fixed some of the bugs I already bought up instead? look into the parsing test appending results to the existing ones for a start.