Improved IMDB usage (1 Viewer)

[LastMar]

I think it would be better to be able to do IMDB searches on a particular movie file you have, based on the filename... You could then attribute the information you get from IMDB to the file.

Do MPEG files have tags like MP3's do?

 

[mPod]

No, they definately don't. It's not defined in the MPEG Video standard. http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/

 

[LastMar]

Okay, well as an alternative, the information could be stored in a text file... You'd need to write code that takes in the imdb information, formats it in an easy-to-use way that can be read later, and saves it as a .txt file with the same filename as the movie file. The other side of this would have to read in the information and display it in MP.

Once in use, it would be something like this:

Select a movie, MP looks for a .txt with the same filename.

If it exists, it displays it (but still leaves the option for an IMDB lookup)

If it doesn't exist, it creates a blank file with the right name and "displays" that, and at the same time automatically searches imdb in the background

The imdb searching is done by the name of the file, so correct naming is important

Shouldn't be too hard to code, if you know how to get the info from imdb... Which I don't

 

[MrMario64]

and whats the advantage of putting this in a text file over what we do now and putting it in a database?

 

[LastMar]

and whats the advantage of putting this in a text file over what we do now and putting it in a database?

I didn't realize the data was actually saved; however, a text file might be better (but I'm no expert) because of three things I can think of:

It seems like the program wouldn't have to step through as much data to find the correct information.
Also, the formatting could be done in the text file, leaving only the task of displaying the text for the program to handle.
It would also make it easier for people to manually edit the text if they wanted to.

Anyway, my main point is that you should be able to tell it to search for a selected file on imdb, rather than having to type it in yourself...

For example,

-Read in the filename
-Cut off the extension
-Change non-alphanumeric spaces to characters (to avoid searching problems)
-Search by title
-If there isn't an exact match, show a list of partial matches
-If there is an exact match, show the exact matches (there could potentially be more than one), and then below that either show the partial matches, or hide partial matches unless full list is requested
-When a match is chosen, apply it to the file (either by text file or database)

So it could work out. Maybe not.

 

[gabbe]

I like the idea with a file for every movie. Look at GAM, it use separates files, and is much faster than MP. Saves both the info file and the picture.

In the info-file You should find:
1/ filename (s) for movie (> 1 file -> easy stacking)
2/ picture name
3/ disk number (if movie file don't exists -> offline movie)
4/ normal imdb info

advantages:
1/ Can have info for movies that don't exists in imdb (I have many of them)
2/ Info is easy editable for normal users
3/ Easy to change picture
4/ No need to remake everything in "every" MP-update
5/ Can copy info/picture together with movie on DVD/CD
6/ Easy to have "off-line" movies. Just delete movie and left picture and info.

disadvantage:
? , can't see any

Don't say that everything is editable in MP's database now. It maybe is but I have tried with sqlite. And that was NOT easy. It was more like impossible. I did manage to change the picturename but after next update all was gone :-(
regards gabbe