[Blog] What Sayeth You?: MP-TVSeries (1 Viewer)

karbl058

Portal Member
September 15, 2010
16
2
48
Mjölby
Home Country
Sweden Sweden
The good:
I love this plugin! We have almost entirely switched from watching TV to watching series. The plugin really makes it easy. I recently started using SubCentral as well and the integration is great! I wish I could list all the things I like, so don't think of this as a rant just because this section is shorter. :)

The bad:
It would be great if the importer could treat "and" and "&" as the same thing, since some episodes might have the ampersand and others have "and" in the names.
Also, it would be great to be able to select episodes (and hopefully rename the files) based on other things than only SxxEyy. This is a problem with for example The Muppet Show where a lot of seasons have a completely different order than thetvdb (because one is from the DVD:s and the other from the aired order). But using the names of the guest stars which are present in the file names, one can match them to the corresponding episode in thetvdb.
Finally, if the series name is missing from the file name, it would be great if the importer would look at the directory path to see if it can find a match one or more parent directories above (ie find Friends for the file "Friends\Season 1\S01E10blahbla.avi").

The ugly:
This is perhaps not a GUI issue but a loading issue, but the banner layout quite often get out of sync and shows the wrong image and/or is missing or has duplicated banners (I use Streamed MP). I have both series and banners on a network share, so it might be some kind of timing problem when loading them.
Regarding the config, I think the start import button could be made more visible. I looked for it a long time before I found it the first time I used the importer. The wide button blends in with the group boxes etc that surrounds it. Instead, make it more like a normal, possibly wizard-like, button.
 

emphatic

Design Group
  • Team MediaPortal
  • August 25, 2006
    3,718
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    Alingsås
    Home Country
    Sweden Sweden
    The Bad: Having to go to config on my HTPC in order to add a new series to a category (other family members don't like that either). Wish it could been done remotely from another computer. To elaborate, in Moving pictures I have a category set to a certain folder (full path contains). Add a new movie to that folder and it appears in that category auto-magically.

    This can be done in the plugin GUI with your remote already. It's in the "actions" section IIRC. Manual, sure, but at least no need to bring up the Configuration.
     

    todd3835

    Portal Member
    October 27, 2011
    19
    2
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    The Good: This plugin flat out is why I'm running Media Portal. With no longer having access to live TV, I wanted something I could have my TV Shows separate from my Movies. So when I say this plugin is what brought me to Media Portal, it was the #1 reason. For people without live TV but with an extensive library of older TV shows, this plugin really completes your HTPC experience.

    The Bad: Sometimes shows don't match. For instance a file named "Law and Order SVU" should find a match with the proper show. It doesn't even come up with the wrong show, it just fails. I could see it coming up wrong, but a fail? If anything I'd think it would at least match the wrong show (Law and Order). Just a minor annoyance.

    The Ugly: To me, there's really no show-stopper issues with this plugin. There's minor annoyances occasionally, but nothing that makes me think the plugin is bad.

    So in summary, I *LOVE* this plugin, and I would be lost without it! Despite the minor issues with matching (and it happens with movie matching too I'll add. For instance "Cars 2" comes up was "Cars" the original.), it's a awesome plugin.

    Oh, and for the person talking about using the GUI, the shows auto-import without it. If you drop the video files in the right directory remotely, it picks it up right away. If it can't match it (Like L+O SVU) it will pop up a message asking I think if you want to ignore or search manually (which worked wonderfully when I searched for "SVU"). This plugin can be used 100% *WITHOUT* the GUI once properly setup! I think that's probably one of it's best features!
     

    sirpilsofd

    Portal Member
    September 13, 2011
    6
    1
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    The Good: 99% perfect

    The Bad: Some one else in the thread pointed out that the plug in has issues with things like "and" and "&" or hyphens for example butt head vs. butt-head. I feel that the parser should be able to handle things like this.

    The Ugly: I really don't have any issues with the look since it really is at the mercy of the skin.
     

    pellegj

    Portal Pro
    May 7, 2009
    106
    32
    Home Country
    Sweden Sweden
    I would like it if MP-TVS would take initiative to change to the next season and episode automatically.

    Set it to only show unwatched episodes, after you watch the last episode of a season it will take you out to season selection if you have more than 1 season unwatched, if only 1 season left unwatched it will show you that season with the first episode selected.
     

    IchBinsShort

    Portal Pro
    January 3, 2008
    683
    54
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    AW: What Sayeth You?: MP-TVSeries

    The good: It is a very nice Plugin, and I love the automatic import that works to 99 % :)

    The Bad: You don't have the Airdate from your own country. It would be nice if you have the first Airdate in your own yountry.
     

    RoChess

    Extension Developer
  • Premium Supporter
  • March 10, 2006
    4,434
    1,897
    Finally, if the series name is missing from the file name, it would be great if the importer would look at the directory path to see if it can find a match one or more parent directories above (ie find Friends for the file "Friends\Season 1\S01E10blahbla.avi").

    Simply add a parsing expression from the expression exchange thread that matches that scheme in 2nd position. The 1st parsing expression will fail with series name not being present in filename and it will move on to 2nd, and then 3rd, etc. You can add multiple expressions to eventually cover any possible combination. That is also the problem with the default expressions already included that it is always possible you run into a false-positive with one of the existing expressions, so disable them all otherwise, except the ones you actually want to rely on.

    It would be great if the importer could treat "and" and "&" as the same thing, since some episodes might have the ampersand and others have "and" in the names.
    The Bad: Some one else in the thread pointed out that the plug in has issues with things like "and" and "&" or hyphens for example butt head vs. butt-head. I feel that the parser should be able to handle things like this.

    This is already possible. Simply add two string replacement entries, that replaces " & " + " and " into " ", and you will be good to go. Reason this will work is because TheTVdB search system that is used to find the right show will work fine if you ommit words, but if you add the wrong one it will fail.
     

    SpudR

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • July 27, 2007
    2,657
    718
    Yorkshire, UK
    Home Country
    England England
    The Good:
    As already stated, this is the #1 plugin i use on a daily basis - the importer just works without major intervention - The ability to go to the series and hit 'play' to play the next episode - the seamless integration with Fanart - the list goes on!

    The Bad
    I wish it were possible to rename files with the correct titles, and place them in a folder structure I dictate (in my case seriesName/SeasonX/episodeTitle-SxxExx.ext).
    It is a bit of a pain to manually do this everytime a new episode is placed on to the Media PC
    Currently I use theRenamer to do this, which works beautifully, but just pointing the plugin to the DL directory and making the magic work automatically would be amazing!

    The Ugly
    For me this seriously depends on the skin, but would agree with the config bit - it's fine if you take the time to get to grips with it, but some people are too eager to jump in without knowledge...

    All in all it's on the list of 'Plugins you cannot live without' for me :)
     

    sfhtemp3

    Portal Member
    January 20, 2008
    9
    4
    Germany
    Home Country
    Denmark Denmark
    The God: Fantastic plugin

    The Bad: A minor annoyance. I am of the type that can't stop mucking around with my HTPC... I have lost count of the times I have lost the database of what TV shows I have already watched (fresh Mediaportal installation, reorganized file storage...). It would be nice to have the option to export and import a simplified list of TV show information like <show>, <season>, <episode>, <has been watched>, <Position in stream>

    The Ugly: .... Nothing springs to mind
     

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