- Moderator
- #31
Well the XBMC NFO format is the closest thing to a standard I am aware of; there is a semi-formal definition available on their wiki. For the upcoming 0.8 release LRFalk01 has written a scraper that reads full movie details from NFO files (rather than just pulling the IMDb ID for more accurate retrieval like we do now). So with the next release it should be super easy to migrate from XBMC.
But as far as standards go and the possibility of Moving Pictures creating NFO files like this, I am not 100% certain the route we will take. The XBMC NFO "standard" is not incredibly flexible and in some places a bit limiting. For example there is no support for release date information (only release year) and the format does not take into account the fact that the release date varies from region to region. There is only one field for the certification of the movie (which is called MPAA, ignoring all the other rating bodies of the world). And then there is file specific data stored such as the path of the file, codec information etc, which I think really is not appropriate for such a file format. None of these things are really a problem for Moving Pictures at the moment, we too only store release year and we only store the rating of a single ratings body. But I think these things limit the flexibility and longevity of the format. Not that it couldn't be expanded.
Anyway just saying we haven't made a decision. But again, full NFO file reading is a go for 0.8.
But as far as standards go and the possibility of Moving Pictures creating NFO files like this, I am not 100% certain the route we will take. The XBMC NFO "standard" is not incredibly flexible and in some places a bit limiting. For example there is no support for release date information (only release year) and the format does not take into account the fact that the release date varies from region to region. There is only one field for the certification of the movie (which is called MPAA, ignoring all the other rating bodies of the world). And then there is file specific data stored such as the path of the file, codec information etc, which I think really is not appropriate for such a file format. None of these things are really a problem for Moving Pictures at the moment, we too only store release year and we only store the rating of a single ratings body. But I think these things limit the flexibility and longevity of the format. Not that it couldn't be expanded.
Anyway just saying we haven't made a decision. But again, full NFO file reading is a go for 0.8.