Simpler scheme for movie import

by **cooldog** on Tue Jun 06, 2006 1:33 pm

Since this got no attention in the Support forum, I'm reposting it here:
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Update: Another advantage of incorporating an optional "import control file" into the import scheme is that it provides a way to make the DB info *persistant* across DB deletes and re-imports. It's all well and good to have the ability to manually edit the imported data in the DB itself, but it's not much use if you have to re-edit in the case of a major change.
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Is there any way (preferably *easy*) to allow xlobby to handle movies in a deeper and more complex directory structure than just X:/movietitle/movietitle.ext ????

I'd really like to be able to have these examples all work, and have "buttons" that have the directory names as the legend, which, when selected, will show all the movies under that leaf of the tree.

X:/Movies/The Jerk/The Jerk.ts
X:/Movies/The Notebook/The Notebook.ts
X:/Movies/XXX/Island Dreams/Island Dreams.ts

X:/Kids/Animation/Toy Story/Toy Story.ts
X:/Kids/Animation/Toy Story 2/Toy Story 2.ts
X:/Kids/Animation/Shrek/Shrek.vob

X:/Kids/Adventure/The Rocketeer/The Rocketeer.ts

X:/Nature & Science/Giants of San Benedicto/Giants of San Benedicto.ts

**Note that the number of directory levels is NOT always the same.**

I know that I need to add the .ts extention into the import setup, but the directory layout still seems to scew things up completely.

Is there any way this can be made to work???

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Ok, I've gone back and read more of the various posts on the subject of video "movie" directory structures, and I can see that it is possible to add more levels, and "containers". But what I'm not sure about is this - is it possible to have a tree structure with branches of unequal length?

What I want, in essence, is this: any directory containing a file with a recognized video extension is a "Movie", and any directory that does NOT have a video file and has subdirectories is a "container".

A container may have a jpeg for display. It would also be a pefect place for a control file that could be entered into the DB for movie rating, password, being applied to everything below it.

Steve, if you could rewrite the import to do a recursive-descent parsing of each listed directory, you could easily get rid of all these import issues.

All that's needed is a list of video file extensions, and a list of directories. With this scheme, I doubt there'd be any need at all for the regular expressions, and at the same time it's far more flexible, and completely data driven without any need for the complex metadata.

Simplicity rules!

by **dalanik** on Tue Jun 06, 2006 2:07 pm

I don't get it why would you want to keep animated films in animations directory - for that you can set the GENRE field of the database and filter on that field... looks much simpler to me :-)

by **cooldog** on Tue Jun 06, 2006 2:56 pm

Because if I do it that way, then if the DB needs to be deleted and the files reimported, then I have to reset the Genre on ALL movies again.

Operating systems handle tree-structured directories very well - we should use that, and they don't like having thousands of files in one directory.

by **dalanik** on Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:40 pm

cooldog wrote:Operating systems handle tree-structured directories very well - we should use that, and they don't like having thousands of files in one directory.

Not according to Micro$oft :-)

Just joking...

by **Marbles_00** on Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:53 pm

Maybe I'm missing something, but why don't you use something like Ant Movie Catalog or (I suppose) DVDProfiler to catalog your movies, that way the database is built based on those catalogs. Genre, plot, ratings, cast, director, length, cover art is all saved within the catalog. I personally use Ant with the XAnt plugin and you can even define online/offline movies and online file locations and it will be saved within the Ant catalog.

That way if the DB is deleted, the next time Xlobby is reloaded, the DB is rebuilt based on the Ant catalog (feature of the XAnt plugin) and the XAnt moviestemplate.xml file.

Hope this was helpful.

by **S Pittaway** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:16 am

Or if you can code knock up a little progarm that "rips" the info out of the movie database and save it next to the film, so if the db is deleted you can re-import any info you have added.

This is what i do, in each of my film for every parameter in my movies database there is a corrisponding xxx.xml film with the film info in it. every now and then i "export" them and if i have to delete the database i "re-import" them.

Personally i could not be arsed using dvd profiler, xlobby seemed to do every thing i wanted...

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 9:30 am

Yo, Pittaway, dude

Could u release that utility? i have to need to code that, and i believe lot of others too. So could be easier if we all wouldnt have to "invent more gunpowder". Now im not sure if your is specificly tailored your needs or generic, but even in first case i believe it could be eaier to make suit each individual needs than code new one from scratch. And if u feel like doing comminity service u could turn it generic first

by **S Pittaway** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:43 pm

its generic, but its not very well writen

all i do is treat the movies.xml file as a big text file and "cut" the bits relating to each movie and "paste" them in a file next to the file, i call it xml, but its not

I could tidy it up and ask dgemily to stick it on the french server...

Out of interest is there an easy way of adding plugins to the main download page? do you email them to steven or something like that?

Sean.

by **briands** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:15 pm

Sounds like a good database utility would pull the file details from a co-located filename.xml. This would work for my Sage recordings that I can generate .xml files for. Might also work to get some picture details into the database to allow managing large photo libraries.

by **dgemily** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 5:49 pm

S Pittaway wrote:Out of interest is there an easy way of adding plugins to the main download page? do you email them to steven or something like that?

you need to get "engineer" and "writer" ranks... ask steven for that....

by **P3rv3rt B3ar** on Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:41 pm

S Pittaway wrote:its generic, but its not very well writen

I could tidy it up and ask dgemily to stick it on the french server...

That would be great. Thanx man

by **S Pittaway** on Fri Jun 09, 2006 1:53 pm

Thanks to dge, there are two more plugins in the plugin forum -

xSleep and xDBImportExport.

Sean.

by **dgemily** on Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:07 pm

just to imform you, M51 from the french team are building an application ( xscan amelioration) this application let you also store information in cover (using IPTC) so this application will be able to save and scan information on IPTC, there will be also an IPTC editor and Ant Movie Catalog communication.
you need only to preserve your covers...

by **S Pittaway** on Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:31 pm

Just read up on that... sounds good.

But i have to say that writing a serious plugin like that must soak up lots of time - it took me a day to knock up and test xDBImportExport! :wink:

My only request is that they stick the source code in, the more code knocking arround the easier it is for people (espically those who dont programme) to write there own.

Plus, if you do programme its always nice to have a look at how something works

Sean.

by **cooldog** on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:25 am

Looks like there's an *enourmous* amount of interest in this general problem/topic ... which makes me think there's a need for some sort of general solution built-in.