View Full Version : What the best way of scraping/grabbing tv show info? Looking for some suggestions
For some reason just plainly using 'set content' isn't working anymore for my TV shows... Even shows that I have scraped before and XBMC used to grab the info automatically aren't working anymore and I'm kind of at my wits end. I don't know if something has changed recently or what but I'm looking for suggestions on the best way to grab the info for my shows and import that data into XBMC. I'm looking for the easiest, most user friendly, and most duplicatable way to do this as my library is large and I would like to get all my content in there as soon as possible. I know there is XBMC Media Companion and I've seen another mentioned briefly called MeDs Movie Management and I've also seen a newer one called Movie Info Plus... are there any other apps out there, what are you guys using to grab your info and import it into XBMC? ???
I have always used XBMC, but I have to say that the default choice (TheTVDB) was very slow or not responsive yesterday. Server problems?
digitalhigh
2009-01-14, 15:01
Movie Info Plus. It's pretty danged good for what you want.
PLUS, IMDB support has currently been removed from XBMC for licensing reasons. Therefore, scraping new movies (with a recent build) won't yield as good as results as in the past. Using a movie info program is probably the way to go...
So how does that work... the program would grab all the data and the posters and thumbs for me and then create and NFO file with the info... and then in XBMC I would would add the movie source in and instead of having it scan for info using 'set content' I would just import the NFO?
digitalhigh
2009-01-14, 17:28
So how does that work... the program would grab all the data and the posters and thumbs for me and then create and NFO file with the info... and then in XBMC I would would add the movie source in and instead of having it scan for info using 'set content' I would just import the NFO?
Halfway. The program grabs all data/posters/fanart, creates .nfo's...which you then have XBMC detect via the "set content" feature and "scan automatically".
But, if you've already scanned your collection once and it set a bunch of stuff to blank entries, you need to use the "scan for new content" option instead. If this still doesn't scan all the new .nfo's, you'd have to delete your movie database and scan everything again. That's only the last resort tho...
personally I use TVRename (http://tvrename.com/) to rename all my shows neatly then just run them all through Media Companion (http://www.billyad2000.co.uk/).
Much quicker than using xbmc's scrapers and has the bonus that a full library rebuild is easy and quick because all the nfo's are stored locally in the same drive as your media.
HTH
Ok I hear what you're saying... I'll play around with it when I get home. My question is this, when you use the program does it mark in the .nfo files where the movies/tv shows are locaated? What I mean is does it link the show to where on the network it the corresponding video files is? When you add it into XBMC how does XBMC know which source to look for the media on? Or when you choose set content for your folders and then do scan for update it looks for .nfo that match the file names that .nfo collected?
Halfway. The program grabs all data/posters/fanart, creates .nfo's...which you then have XBMC detect via the "set content" feature and "scan automatically".
But, if you've already scanned your collection once and it set a bunch of stuff to blank entries, you need to use the "scan for new content" option instead. If this still doesn't scan all the new .nfo's, you'd have to delete your movie database and scan everything again. That's only the last resort tho...
Not quite sure I follow. But the .nfo files (using the MediaCompanion/Movie Info Plus approach) are saved in the same location as the media file not in any xbmc dir.
So if your media files are saved in a network drive mapped to O: then the nfo files are stored there.
You tell xbmc where your media files are - and when it scans for info it checks in the location of the media file for an nfo first before querying the online databases.
That's why you can rebuild the libraries quickly. All my media is on network drives so I can do a complete format of my HTPC - reinstall windows and xbmc; point xbmc at my network drives and it will pickup the nfo's from there. No HTPC/XBMC backup required, no export/import of the library (or userdata) required.
Is that what you're asking? If not I apologise.
Yes that's exactly what I was asking hehe. Thanks.... sounds great... I'll give it a try. My only hangup now is, my media is on a Mac so I hope that I can scan my media using Companion or Info Plus using VMWARE... and have the nfo's created that way.