Disclaimer: *** This is an ALPHA version. ****

Stuff happens. Things break. Not all features are fully fleshed out. If you're not ok with this then don't download. There are several high-quality video collection plug-ins out there. Also, this app is for tinkerers and is completely user-friendly at the moment. If you don't mind "...seeing where it keeps its brains.." then read on.

Screenshots: http://cid-bc8c4296c2addc53.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/tvlibrary%20alpha

Installer: http://cid-bc8c4296c2addc53.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/tvlibrary

Requirements:

• SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 SP1. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DC614AEE-7E1C-4881-9C32-3A6CE53384D9&displaylang=en

 

Section A. Overview

• Configuration file is \ProgramData\tvLibrary\tvlibrary.config. This is an xml file.
• App defaults the watchedfolders to movie library folders, c:\public\videos\, and [current user]\videos.
• The plug in shows up under it's own "TV Shows" strip in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
• Supports movie metadata from themoviedb.org, dvdid.xml files, and windows dvd info cache.
• Supports tv series metadata from thetvdb.com.
• Metadata is downloaded and cached in the \.metadata\ under each content's parent folder
• Metadata is also aggregated into a SQL Server Compact database.
• By default, it will recognize ripped tv shows using either of the following naming formats:
  • Babylon 5-S01E02-Soul Hunter.avi
    Babylon 5 - S01E02 - Soul Hunter.avi
    Babylon 5.S01E02.Soul Hunter.avi
    Babylon 5.s01e02.Soul Hunter.avi
    Babylon 5-S01x02-Soul Hunter.avi
    Babylon 5-01x02-Soul Hunter.avi
    Inspector Morse - 04x02 - The Sins of the Fathers.avi
    \\SERVER\Heroes\Season 01\01. Genesis.avi
    \\SERVER\Heroes\Season 01\01.Genesis.avi
    \\SERVER\Heroes\Season 01\01 Genesis.avi
    \\SERVER\Heroes\Season 01\01-Genesis.avi
    \\SERVER\Heroes\Season 01\01 - Genesis.avi
    Dexter S01E02.avi
    DexterS01E02.avi
    Dexter-S01E02.avi
    Dexter.S01E02.avi
    Dexter.01x02.avi
    Dexter-01x02.avi
    Dexter - 01x02.avi

Section B. Changes From Previous Version

• Custom archived tv expressions no longer supported. Too much confusion about xml and formatting.
• The plugin does not scan for folders at all. It simply queries the database. This database is populated by a hidden console app that is launched when the plug in runs. If the console app, VideoLibraryEngineService.exe, is already running then it will not be run again. This exe scans the watched folders every 5 mins (default setting) and does file watching.
• Spanned-folders no longer used or supported.
• Uses mencoder to transcode dvds when playing on extenders. The transcoder is also used by the dvd library (Vista) and Movie Library (Windows 7). It's currently set up to default to Japanese audio and system language subtitles when playing anime/japanese movies. I am still working on the transcoder side of it to properly detect the correct forced subtitle track.
• Context menu allows all files in a gallery to be played in current viewing order. Also allows playing all randomly.
• Metadata xml schema changes
• When downloading movie metadata, the plugin will look for dvdid.xml files and use the id to get the info from the dvd info cache. If no dvdid.xml files are present the n the app will use themoviedb.org.
• Supports a playback playlist that can contain episodes or movies
• Supports advancing forward/backward through the current playlist
• Supports adding to the playlist using the context menu or the details page
• Detailed logging can be turned on by setting "EnableDebugging" to "true"
• Press play on a video to play it
• Press play on a series to play the whole series in episode order
• Press play on a season to play the whole season in episode order
• Click on a series to go directly into it. If you want to see the series details then you have to use the context menu.

Section C. Important Keys/Buttons.

• Use SkipForward key to display the context menu.
• Use the Left and Right keys to bring up a simple 'Now Playing' overlay. This will be expanded to include Shuffle and Repeat controls as well as a 'Show Playlist' button.
• Use the Channel +/- keys to go Next/Previous through the now playing playlist

Section D. Disclaimers and Known Issues

• Includes some code from the wonderful OML Project. Specifically, but not only, the dvd IFO parsing stuff and proper usage of MediaInfo. I updated the IFO parsing code to get the proper audio and subtitle stream numbers that mencoder would use.
• UI is based on Internet TV 1.x
• No support for spanning series root folder across multiple paths. No support for spanning the same season folder across multiple paths.
• Transport controls still disappears under Windows 7
• Extender dvd playback doesn't skip back or skip forward.
• There are various UI glitches
• Gallery is still slow for 50 - 100 + items. I may have to bite the bullet and change it to use VirtualList
• Find Info UI is temporarily removed
• Settings UI is not coded yet --I know, I know..it's taking forever. I HATE DOING UI work...
• Genres not implemented yet. This is not an oversight on my part -I haven't gotten around to messing with list view.
• For now, you can't switch the gallery types ie. large, small, poster, thumbnail, etc. This is due to major refactoring that requires re-thinking how/where I am going to store pivot settings.

Section E.Shoutouts and Other things.

• Much thanks to: Translucent and the other good folks at the OML Project; MSBob for assistance with some topics such as JIL; all the users who provide good critique, useful feedback and words of encouragement.
• Don't forget to support themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com.

repying to...

Test: delete the *.season.xml files and *.series.xml and *.seriescache.xml files. It should have automatically killed this when it detected that the metadata version was different between the config file and the xml file.


I did this for the series that was giving the error. The service regenerated the files fine, and the db file increased in size (now 404 kb), but still nothing in MC.

Should I do this for all my series/seasons?

Just let me know if there is anything else i can try to help.

1. did you basically kill all *.xml files in \.metadata?

2. Are you using a naming format not in the first post? Custom archived tv expressions not supported.

3. What is the Status field say in one of these xml files?

4. Do you have new *.series.xml file? What's the status?

5. What exception messages are in the log? Better yet, PM me your .config and your .log files.

JackLuminous:

1. did you basically kill all *.xml files in \.metadata?

2. Are you using a naming format not in the first post? Custom archived tv expressions not supported.

3. What is the Status field say in one of these xml files?

4. Do you have new *.series.xml file? What's the status?

5. What exception messages are in the log? Better yet, PM me your .config and your .log files.

1) I deleted the the 2 xml files in \.metadata and the 2 xml files in the \season\metadata folder

2)No custom expressions. All files are named
xx - name.avi

3)I checked a few of the xml files for the Status field and they were all blank.
4) yes, the xml files were regenerated; again with empty status fields

5) I'll send a pm.

I checked your pm and the *.video.xml looks like they were not deleted. They have a february timestamp on them. I confirmed this by checking the tags. "TitleDescription" and "SubtitleDescription" are from the old schema. The season and series xml file looks new however, so it's downloading stuff. What happens if you nuke the *.sdf file and nuked the *.video.xml files then run the plug-in again? It should take a few mins to scan all your watched folders and start adding content. You should be able to view content before it's finish adding all of them.

Hey Jack,
I know this will not work for some people, but how about writing a quick util that nukes everything created by this or previous versions to aid in rebuild?  A quick search/delete based on the watched folders in the config would be helpful for those of us that just want to start fresh without missing something.....

I'm having no luck getting many series to show and suspect its the same issue?
Ben.

Ben,

Are you seeing ANY of your content show up in the plug-in? Or NONE of your content is showing up?

Actually, setting the metadataversion in the .config to something different from what's in the *.video/series/season.xml file and setting IsFirstRun should have triggered a delete before doing anything else. However, there could be a bug there. I'll test again
using my own content.  Usually what i do is just do a search in Vista/Win 7 ;-).

...I could provide a command-line option to VideoLibraryService.exe so that if it sees this command, it'll nuke the *.*.xml files found in the watched folders. Image files will not be touched. With this done, you could open a command-line prompt and run "videolibraryservice.exe deletexml"  or something like that.

 

 

I'm seeing a few series/seasons, 16 out of 100+.  The rest show over to the movie side.  I've got a bunch of stuff with SeriesName/seriesSxxExx/VIDEO_TS/*.VOB which I believe you're not supporting so I have to do a rethink how/if I want to convert all that.  However, many things that seem to be the right formats are not showing up as series/seasons but rather on the movie side.  I've checked my file dates, most are from prior to 2.0 switch and I did do the edit to the config setting firstrun to true and the rest as outlined in a previous post.

A bug I think: I'm not able to add the /users/pubic/public videos/ to the watched list.  It crashes the app.  I've renamed the directory, now it works.  The log file is about 135mb... just noticed and set debug to false.... Haven't looked at it.

Here's my current config file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<VideoLibraryConfig>
  <WatchedFolders>X:\,W:\,V:\,Z:\media\video\Series-Shorts\,Y:\Users\Public\Videos\</WatchedFolders>
  <Language>en</Language>
  <SeriesCacheExpirationDays>6</SeriesCacheExpirationDays>
  <DvdTranscoderDelay>10</DvdTranscoderDelay>
  <DvdTranscoderEnableAnimeMode>false</DvdTranscoderEnableAnimeMode>
  <DiscoveryScanInterval>5</DiscoveryScanInterval>
  <DiscoveryPurgeMissingContent>true</DiscoveryPurgeMissingContent>
  <QueryNewContentDays>14</QueryNewContentDays>
  <QueryMostWatchedTrigger>2</QueryMostWatchedTrigger>
  <QueryMostWatchedLimit>50</QueryMostWatchedLimit>
  <ThumbnailOffsetPercent>0</ThumbnailOffsetPercent>
  <IsFirstRun>false</IsFirstRun>
  <EnableDebugging>false</EnableDebugging>
  <MetadataVersion>2.0</MetadataVersion>
</VideoLibraryConfig>

Actually, I did implement the "SeriesName/seriesSxxExx/VIDEO_TS/*.VOB" as long as the seriesSxxExx stuff follow any of the supported naming convention. Now, if it's not being recognized still then that's another thing we can look at :-)

Ok, now, basically the old schema is not getting wiped out like it should have and that's the main problem. Really, the easiest thing to do is to nuke the .metadata folders. I'm currently looking at why it didn't nuke the metadata xml like it should have. I hope to have an update out tonight to fix this.

As far as the bug, I've now added logic to deal with invalid paths so the app doesn't give up the ghost.

EDIT: Actually you don't need to worry about IsFirstRun. If the metadataversion is different between the .config and the .xml, then it will do a re-download. I've found a bug preventing a proper refresh.

a few follow-ups/thoughts:
- can I change the default starting place to be title rather than favorites?

users/public/public video/ is (I believe) a default vista thing, so not sure why that doesn't work but maybe its part of my problem?

It's not picking up *.vob's.  Maybe I'm just not getting the file name right?  Here's an example of video.xml from one of the suspects:
BODY{font:x-small 'Verdana';margin-right:1.5em} .c{cursor:hand} .b{color:red;font-family:'Courier New';font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none} .e{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .k{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .t{color:#990000} .xt{color:#990099} .ns{color:red} .dt{color:green} .m{color:blue} .tx{font-weight:bold} .db{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC;font:small Courier} .di{font:small Courier} .d{color:blue} .pi{color:blue} .cb{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;font:small Courier;color:#888888} .ci{font:small Courier;color:#888888} PRE{margin:0px;display:inline}0) fix(e,"cb");} if (e.className=="di"){if (e.children(0).innerText.indexOf("\n")>0) fix(e,"db");} e.id=""; } function fix(e,cl){ e.className=cl; e.style.display="block"; j=e.parentElement.children(0); j.className="c"; k=j.children(0); k.style.visibility="visible"; k.href="#"; } function ch(e){ mark=e.children(0).children(0); if (mark.innerText=="+"){ mark.innerText="-"; for (var i=1;i

Also, I've noticed ehexthost.exe and VideoLibraryService.exe go berzerk now and then chewing up aoubt 80% cpu usage for about 10 minutes now and then. unheard of cpu usage on this machine.  Any way to encourage it to play nice?  I suspect this is related to rescanning?
Ben.

Let's see if we can fix the 'old schema' problem first then revisit this.

Standby.

bikesquid:

a few follow-ups/thoughts:
- can I change the default starting place to be title rather than favorites?

users/public/public video/ is (I believe) a default vista thing, so not sure why that doesn't work but maybe its part of my problem?

It's not picking up *.vob's.  Maybe I'm just not getting the file name right?  Here's an example of video.xml from one of the suspects:
BODY{font:x-small 'Verdana';margin-right:1.5em} .c{cursor:hand} .b{color:red;font-family:'Courier New';font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none} .e{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .k{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .t{color:#990000} .xt{color:#990099} .ns{color:red} .dt{color:green} .m{color:blue} .tx{font-weight:bold} .db{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC;font:small Courier} .di{font:small Courier} .d{color:blue} .pi{color:blue} .cb{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;font:small Courier;color:#888888} .ci{font:small Courier;color:#888888} PRE{margin:0px;display:inline} 0) fix(e,"cb");} if (e.className=="di"){if (e.children(0).innerText.indexOf("\n")>0) fix(e,"db");} e.id=""; } function fix(e,cl){ e.className=cl; e.style.display="block"; j=e.parentElement.children(0); j.className="c"; k=j.children(0); k.style.visibility="visible"; k.href="#"; } function ch(e){ mark=e.children(0).children(0); if (mark.innerText=="+"){ mark.innerText="-"; for (var i=1;i

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

- <Metadata>

  <ContentID>bcdd578f-cdaf-471f-96e9-35ab4feb5f4e</ContentID>

  <ContentType>Movie</ContentType>

  <MediaType>DVD</MediaType>

  <MetadataVersion>2.0</MetadataVersion>

  <NeedsMetadata>false</NeedsMetadata>

  <Status />

  <ProviderID>MMDISCID|PMU3SYB0</ProviderID>

  <ProviderSeriesID />

  <Synopsis />

  <Language />

  <UserRating />

  <ParentalRatingReason />

  <Duration>0</Duration>

  <Position>0</Position>

  <WatchCount>0</WatchCount>

  <SeasonNumber>0</SeasonNumber>

  <EpisodeNumber>0</EpisodeNumber>

  <StationCallSign />

  <StationName />

  <ChannelNumber />

  <ChannelSubNumber />

  <RecordStartTime>0</RecordStartTime>

  <RecordEndTime>0</RecordEndTime>

  <IsHD>false</IsHD>

  <IsClosedCaptioned>false</IsClosedCaptioned>

  <BroadcastStatus />

  <AirsDayOfWeek />

  <AirsTime />

  <IMDBID />

  <DvdID>MMDISCID|PMU3SYB0</DvdID>

  <ProgramID />

  <ScheduleItemID />

  <Zap2ItID />

  <Genres />

  <People />

  <Tags />

  <PosterImageSource>Z:\media\video\Series-Shorts\Nero Wolfe\Season 1\Nero Wolfe S01E03\folder.jpg</PosterImageSource>

  <BackdropImageSource />

  <BannerImageSource />

  <ThumbnailImageSource />

  <CreatedDate>05/01/2009</CreatedDate>

  <ModifiedDate>06/28/2009</ModifiedDate>

  </Metadata>

In the config change DiscoveryScanInterval to 60 or something. The setting is in minutes. I will modify the worker threads to be below normal priority as well.

bikesquid:

Also, I've noticed ehexthost.exe and VideoLibraryService.exe go berzerk now and then chewing up aoubt 80% cpu usage for about 10 minutes now and then. unheard of cpu usage on this machine.  Any way to encourage it to play nice?  I suspect this is related to rescanning?
Ben.

Installer updated. To wipe out your old schema. Delete the \ProgramData\Videolibrary\*.sdf file, change the MetadataVersion in the .config (to anything different) then launch the app. I recommend turning on debugging before you do this so you can see what's going on.

Hey Jack,
Did as noted, and can't say I see anything changed, though it is rescanning and by dates it's all fresh.

Will send a copy of log file in PM.
thx for the help,
ben.