Television episode database

[erikt]

Hi,
I'm sure someone else has already done this, perhaps I could get
some hints. I have episodes of various TV shows stored on my HTPC
in the following way, for e.g.:
C:\My TV Shows\CSI\S01E01.avi
C:\My TV Shows\CSI\S01E02.avi
I've also stored a .jpg in that directory for the particular show.

What I would like to do is have a TV screen that has a list of shows,
that uses the .jpg I've stored in the show's directory. Then, if I select a
show, I would like it to goto a screen/overlay listing the episodes I have
for that show. I don't really need it to parse the season/epsisode
number, a simple text list of the .avi files in that directory would be fine.
Then, of course, I would like to select one of the .avi files and have it
played in ZP.

I managed to import a "TV Shows" database using:
\\(?<name>.*?)\\(?<episode>.*)\..*
and a custom import type and the folder as a container. This gives me a
database with the correct cover-art and db elements for each episode.
However I'm lost trying to get the database to display in the way I
described above.

Any hints would be really appreciated.
erikt

EDIT: Immediately after posting this, I realized that this is exactly
how the music database works. I'll have a look at how this is displayed
and see if this doesn't give me the clues I need.

EDIT2: Using jowaldo's latest skin and the latest XL exec, I tried an
experiment. After creating a tvshows db imported as music, I edited
the music item on the music page to point to the tvshows db instead
of music. This gave me roughly what I want. However, when I go
and clone the music page and musictracks overlay, I can get the
new tvshows page looking right, but when the new tvshows overlay
opens, the list of tracks is empty. I can't figure how this list is
populated. Anyone able to help me out?

[erikt]

OK, I figured out a way of doing this, but it isn't pretty...

I manually created a database which contains a list of television
shows that I keep stored. This database does not contain the .avi
files, only a list of the shows and their associated cover art. Each
entry (show) is assigned an event:
set category: cat=epinfo, db=<show name>
goto screen: episode_list
Since the list of shows I keep doesn't change too often, this won't be
too painful to maintain.

Then, I created a database for each show which points to the directory that
contains the .avi files for that show. My episode_list screen has the epinfo
category, which will change based on the event used to get to the screen.

Is this the best/only way to do what I want? The functionality I want is
there, but I'd really like to get rid of having to manually edit the show
db everytime I get an episode of a new show. I'd also prefer having
all of this in a single database, the functionality is already there in the
way music databases are handled. There must be something I'm
missing...

erikt

[C-moi]

We use Ant Movie Catalog with the Xant plugin (created by badubo)
It is the best way to catalog television shows !

[lar282]

Hi,
I'm sure someone else has already done this, perhaps I could get
some hints. I have episodes of various TV shows stored on my HTPC
in the following way, for e.g.:
C:\My TV Shows\CSI\S01E01.avi
C:\My TV Shows\CSI\S01E02.avi
I've also stored a .jpg in that directory for the particular show.

What I would like to do is have a TV screen that has a list of shows,
that uses the .jpg I've stored in the show's directory. Then, if I select a
show, I would like it to goto a screen/overlay listing the episodes I have
for that show. I don't really need it to parse the season/epsisode
number, a simple text list of the .avi files in that directory would be fine.
Then, of course, I would like to select one of the .avi files and have it
played in ZP.

I managed to import a "TV Shows" database using:
\\(?<name>.*?)\\(?<episode>.*)\..*
and a custom import type and the folder as a container. This gives me a
database with the correct cover-art and db elements for each episode.
However I'm lost trying to get the database to display in the way I
described above.

Any hints would be really appreciated.
erikt

EDIT: Immediately after posting this, I realized that this is exactly
how the music database works. I'll have a look at how this is displayed
and see if this doesn't give me the clues I need.

EDIT2: Using jowaldo's latest skin and the latest XL exec, I tried an
experiment. After creating a tvshows db imported as music, I edited
the music item on the music page to point to the tvshows db instead
of music. This gave me roughly what I want. However, when I go
and clone the music page and musictracks overlay, I can get the
new tvshows page looking right, but when the new tvshows overlay
opens, the list of tracks is empty. I can't figure how this list is
populated. Anyone able to help me out?

Check theese screens out. Is this what u want?

http://hem.passagen.se/lar282/tvshow/

//Lasse

[erikt]

Check theese screens out. Is this what u want?

http://hem.passagen.se/lar282/tvshow/

//Lasse

Yes, the screen layout is what I want. Would you mind explaining how
you accomplished this? I'd prefer to have all of the episodes in a single
directory, but if separate directories is what I need to do, so be it.

erikt

[lar282]

Check theese screens out. Is this what u want?

http://hem.passagen.se/lar282/tvshow/

//Lasse

Yes, the screen layout is what I want. Would you mind explaining how
you accomplished this? I'd prefer to have all of the episodes in a single
directory, but if separate directories is what I need to do, so be it.

erikt

do u want the screens or do u wanna follow the screenshots and try it first?
the key is to have the .avi in sep dirs and to import as the screenshot says.

Almost 98% of my movies is IMG files (iso) and if u follow the folder structure there to that will also work. The key is the . in the directory name. Just try it exactly as they are in the screenshots and let me know.

the META mask is

\\(?<name>.*)\..*
\\(?<name>.*?)\\.*?
\\(?<name>.*)



//Lasse

[erikt]

Thanks Lasse, I got it to work. Even better for me, I managed to take your
example and make it work without having a separate directory for
each episode. Instead of using movie as the import type, I used
custom and Folder is container.

One further question if you don't mind. Is the screen that gives the list
of episodes, screen2.jpg, the same screen as screen1.jpg? In my
case, they are. What I would like is to have the list of episodes a text
list, i.e. have a different category layout (e.g. nocover default) for screen2
than screen1. Since they are the same screen, I don't know how to do this.
Any ideas?

Thanks,
erikt

[lar282]

its the same screen.its category so I dont think u can specify what u want since that will cause all your movies to look like that.

Glad u got it to work.

[a06lp]

@erikt:

I am having problems with a setup similar to yours.
Could you help me out?
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=27350#27350

Thanks!