TvSeries , MP-TV Recordings, plug-n-play (1 Viewer)

RonD

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  • December 20, 2011
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    I like TV Series and it is my primary way to watch MP-TV Recordings that I make on my server. Almost all my shows 99+% are MP-TV-Recs and have very few "other" shows that I use with MP-TVS.

    Most MP-TV-Recs shows/episodes import cleanly with MP-TVS, but a number of my MP-TV-Recs seem to become "lost orphans" that get lost somewhere in the ozone. They don't show up anywhere in MP-TVS, and they don't show up in the MP-TVS-Config. If I use a sqlite debug tool, I happen to use Firefox, SQLite Manager Plugin, select local_episodes, sort by episodeindex, I usually find a number, 10, 50+ of shows with seasonindex/episodeindex = -1/-1. If I delete all these rows, then run MP-TVS-Config, I can typically find/fix the "lost orphans" and they show up in MP-TVS. Seems like I need to do this clean up every 1-2 weeks.

    Is there an option somewhere that tells MP-TVS to use the RecordingName.xml file that MP-TV-Recs creates for each recording. For example

    Wayward Pines - 2015-07-23 - Cycle.ts
    Wayward Pines - 2015-07-23 - Cycle.xml

    inside the xml file they have the following, (I pulled just some key fields for forum message, see attached xml for gory details)
    <name>TITLE</name><value>Wayward Pines</value>
    <name>EPISODENAME</name><value>Cycle</value>
    <name>STARTTIME</name><value>2015-07-23 20:59</value>

    This gets rid of interesting/complex Parsing Expression Regex-MagicSpells used to infer the TITLE, EPISODENAME, STARTTIME and other key metadata from path/filenames. From my "user view" if I make a recording with MP-TV Server, the recordings are "native content" and MP-TVS-plugin should work 1st time, plug-n-play, with MP created "native content" without needing to play games with recording names, parsing rules, etc. So far I have not found a MP-TV Recording name template that works 100% of the time.

    I understand that MP-TVS also works for "other content" that needs some way to pass metadata to MP-TVS and the Parsing Expression, path/filenames, etc are needed to handle Not-MP-Native content. But it seems like "native content" should just work.

    There is an additional messy detail, there can be a number of different Shows can have the same title, for example http://thetvdb.com has 4 different Beauty and the Beast, 3 Last Man Standing, 2 Nashville, etc and the user needs to help MP-TVS figure out which versions they want.
     

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    • Wayward Pines - 2015-07-23 - Cycle.xml
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    Edalex

    Community Plugin Dev
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  • January 3, 2008
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    Xml support doesn't exists and it should be coded first.
    But I dont see the problem with identifying those episode name you've mentioned.
    Let's ask our guru @RoChess about expressions
     

    RonD

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  • December 20, 2011
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    that example probably does not have a problem, seems like the most problems show up anytime there are numbers in program name, say The100 for example, or in the EpisodeName, but why should importing a native MP recording need to worry about file name parsing to find key metadata, when all that info is in the xml file
     

    RoChess

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  • March 10, 2006
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    @RonD, MP-TVSeries was not created to deal with MP recordings, it was written universal to deal with users libraries of TV shows. "The 100" imports fine for me, so maybe talk to the MP Recording developers why yours was given a title that failed to process correct like it does for thousands of others.

    There are only 3 Beauty and the Beast entries at TheTVdB if you search via API, and they need to be given the proper (year) aspect to identify them.

    Run all your filenames through a 3rd party processor otherwise that might fix most of those issues for you, but the source is where you really need to attack it from. There are always going to be exclusions, but that's where the string replacement system comes into place otherwise. It allows you to fix titles before they are parsed, so you can quickly correct mistakes that your source creates.

    The import system on MP-TVSeries is extremly old, and delicate so not much attention is given to fix it, as it might totally break functionality that others rely on much more. Of course if you find the time to learn C#, and rewrite it, then the developers will gladly accept your submissions. For now they put their focus into areas that serve the community more.
     

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