Importing myhtpc-data into XLobby?

[Poru3]

Hi!


I am using a new frontend-solution for my movies as meedio went down...
However, a big problem for me might be that I have created so-called .my-files for each of my movies including the specifics about the movie (e.g. director, actors, duration etc.). Is there any way how I could import such .my-file information along with the cover-art included in the movie folder into XLobby? (I tried to do searches for the forum, but didn't find an answer)

Thanks for any info,


Poru3

[jowaldo]

what kind of format does this .my file save it in?

If its any type of xml, or clear text... it might be do-able

If it is, post a section of it here, and maybe we can figure out a way

[Poru3]

Yes, the way I have my movie on my hard drives, is that each .avi is included in a separate folder and the folder's name is the title of the movie "Movie Name". The folder includes also "Movie Name.avi"-file and a "Movie Name.my"-file. The .my-file is like this if I open it up in a notepad (I illustrate this with a movie entitled "Very Good Movie", it would then have in the folder Very Good Movie.avi -file and the name of the .my-file would be "Very Good Movie.my", the folder's name would be "Very Good Movie":

------------and here's what it looks like in the notepad -------------------
[1]
title=Very Good Movie
subtitle=Strange things happen in this very good movie
category="Director","John Doe"
overview=This very good movie tells a story about 2 cops, each with its own pros and cons.
produced=2006
duration=102
category="Genre","Drama","Romance"
review=9
rating=PG
people="Actors","John Doe","John Doe 2","John Doe 3"
images="Very Good Movie.jpg"
chain="Feature","very good movie.avi"
------there's nothing more included in the file according to notepad------


I cannot rewrite the descriptions, it would just not be simply doable with reasonable efforts... I truly hope there would be a way to import them. Thanks for any help!



Poru3

[dalanik]

You would have to write a script in order to export that data to XLobby's database. While this might be possible, IMHO, it would be easier to start fresh and reimport data into XLobby database - there are at least 2 ways, and they're pretty automated.

First one is to use XLobby spiders; unfortunately, I use the ther method so I can't give yu any advice on that, maybe someone else can.

Second one is to use Ant movie Catalogue and xAnt plugin.

both methods simply download all relevant movie info from the internet, i.e. director, actors, plot, year, genre, description, even cover.

D.

[art]

------------and here's what it looks like in the notepad -------------------
[1]
title=Very Good Movie
subtitle=Strange things happen in this very good movie
category="Director","John Doe"
overview=This very good movie tells a story about 2 cops, each with its own pros and cons.
produced=2006
duration=102
category="Genre","Drama","Romance"
review=9
rating=PG
people="Actors","John Doe","John Doe 2","John Doe 3"
images="Very Good Movie.jpg"
chain="Feature","very good movie.avi"
------there's nothing more included in the file according to notepad------


I cannot rewrite the descriptions, it would just not be simply doable with reasonable efforts... I truly hope there would be a way to import them. Thanks for any help!



Poru3

Are all those files the same, meaning you have 2 'category' fields - 'Director' & 'Genre' are there any other categories or only those 2, etc, etc?

[Poru3]

Yes, GetMy -application import the information from IMDB. So the director can be whatever, the genre is what IMDB tells as the genre being, duration, production year, rating e.g. "PG", "PG-13", review makes reference to the points given IMDB - all the information comes straight from IMDB, but I have handpicked the cover-pictures from IMPAwards to get some more resolution in them (GetMy usually only receives 7 KB thumbnails...). .my files have the categories "Director", "Genre", "Actors","Feature" automatically included. I never use such features for sorting, so I am not that familiar with that. What I like though, is to be able to read the additional information in a summary with the coverpicture.



Poru3

[art]

Well, I understand that values of categories can be anything, the question was if you have any other categories in your files, like category="screenplaywriter","bla-bla", anyway try downloading this file - click on 'Add' button and pick your 'drive\movies' folder (you can have multiple locations) and than 'Generate' button, prog should scan all folders and subfolders for all *.my files and create 'movies.xml'. Rename it if you want and place in your 'xlobby\databases' folder.

[tswhite70]

Looks like Art beat me to it ..... I wrote a little vbscript to do the imports, just run it at the commandline with the path to your movies as a variable:

myfile_xlobbyimport.vbs "c:\whatever"

It will output a movies.xml you can copy into the Xlobby\Databases folder. If Windows just opens the vbs when you try and run the script then do:

cscript //nologo myfile_xlobbyimport.vbs "c:\whatever"

http://home.comcast.net/~twhite644/spid ... Import.zip

Updates:
v1.1 - Modified code to only change bad characters in information fields, excluding the Parameter and Coverart fields.

If Xlobby won't load the XML file then chances are you have a folder or file name with an invalid XML character ',&,#. Open the XML with Internet Explorer and scroll to the bottom of the page - you should see the error there. You'll need to rename the file or folder on disk and then rerun the script.

good luck,
tsw

[Poru3]

Great news! Million thanks guys!
I will try the programs out as soon as possible.



Poru3

[Poru3]

Hi!

I Finally managed to do the tests.

Tswhite70´s vbscript works ok, but for some reason the .xml-file generated by art's program freezes XLobby when "setup"-text was displayed in the start of the program.

Thanks again guys, now I can start to further my hobby with XLobby!


Poru3

[bfauska]

I know that a "Start all over" aproach is not what you are looking for but just to see if you can get even beter results you might want to check out DVDprofiler. It will get more information for your movies than the getMY did. It is worth looking into because it loads into XLobby easily and you would not have to do any wierd multi-part processes to add NEW movies to you collection. It is also free unless you want really hi quality cover scans and no forced ads in the aplication. I used the free happily until I hooked my HTPC up to a projector and then I wanted better cover scans.

Worth a look at least.

Later,
Brian

[tswhite70]

Poru3 - Glad the script worked for you. The behaviour you describe from using Art's generated XML file is typical of an XML file with bad characters in it. You can test this by opening the XML file in Internet Explorer. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you should see the error. My script does some checking for bad characters which may NOT have been a good idea in this case.

Let's say you have a movie that exists at C:\Movies\Adam & Eve\

My script will replace the "&" (an invalid XML character) with "&". That's great because it lets the XML file load in Xlobby, but it also means that the Parameter field that has the link to the actual movie is now wrong!

Actual Path: C:\Movies\Adam & Eve\Adam&Eve.avi
Parameter Field: C:\Movies\Adam & Eve\Adam&Eve.avi


Below are the character substitutions I perform in the script:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Code: Select all

             XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,""",""",", ")
                XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"…","...")
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"—","-")
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"–","-")
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,""",Chr(34))
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"'","'")
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"ö",Chr(246))
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"é",Chr(233))
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"ë",Chr(235))
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"&","&")
                 XMLoutput_str= regrep(XMLoutput_str,"'","'")

On the one hand we want to make sure the paths are correct, on the other hand we need to make sure the other text (movie name, plot, director, etc) doesn't have bad characters in it without you having to manually parse through it. I'm going to change my script to NOT modify characters in the Parameter or Coverart variables. I'll upload it tonight.

tsw

[art]

... but for some reason the .xml-file generated by art's program freezes XLobby when "setup"-text was displayed in the start of the program...

Can you e-mail me this file art2crazyATyahooDOTcom.

[Naylia]

Why not catalog your movies using DVDProfiler? It's free and easy to use.

[tswhite70]

Updated the .vbs - see first post for link.

tsw