Film rating plugin

[Obsidian]

Following up from my post in the support forum about the uk xmltv feed and film ratings (http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27140), I had an idea for a plugin. Any feedback on this idea would be appreciated, including whether something like this has been done before!

I was thinking that most xmltv feeds should give enough information to identify films correctly in imdb (title, production year should do it 99% of the time). Surely this means we could make a "movies" plugin, which allowed the next weeks films to be searched by rating/actor/director etc? For example, you could search for all films with a rating of 8 or higher in imdb, or all films starring Harrison Ford. You could then schedule recordings for these films. It could also download poster art and anything else available on imdb!

What does anyone think? I am a programmer myself (although I have no experience of writing plugins for gbpvr, I'm new round here), and if I can find the time I'd like to have a go at this. Any comments?

[McBainUK]

How would you know which shows shown in the TV Guide are films?

[martint123]

How would you know which shows shown in the TV Guide are films?

The prgdets postprocessor in xmltvgui still flags films with film: if you want.

[Obsidian]

Well, I don't know about other xmltv feeds, but the radio times one has a genre associated with it, so you'd just lookup anything marked as a "film". Is that not the case with other xmltv feeds?

Edit: Yes, what martin said too Either of those would be possible I think.

[JavaWiz]

The SearchWiz plugin already does some of this. For any item that has a genre of 'Movie', it will do an IMDB lookup if either Green button or Ctrl-G is pressed when focus is on an item in the Program list.

[Obsidian]

Ah, that's cool. I've been having problems getting SearchWiz to run on my setup, but knowing that I might give it another go! Is that value of "Movie" hard coded, as I think on my data they are marked as "Film"?

What do you think about making the imdb data searchable? For me, that's the killer feature, but I'm happy to have a go myself if you don't think it would fit well with your plugin.

[JavaWiz]

Ah, that's cool. I've been having problems getting SearchWiz to run on my setup

Sorry to hear that, I'd be glad to help if I can.

Is that value of "Movie" hard coded

Yes, it is hard-coded, but I will add "Film" in the next version.

What do you think about making the imdb data searchable?

That may be difficult, as I only make the IMDB call when the user selects the function. A call to IMDB for every entry will significantly slow down the processing. Currently SearchWiz does not store any data, it is all retrieved real-time.

[Obsidian]

Thanks for the reply. I'll have a play with SearchWiz at the next available opporunity (probably the weekend). The problem I was having was that I got was an "Object reference not set..." error when starting it when using the community MCE skin (not the widescreen one). I didn't have that problem with the blue skin. I think I may need to try an updated version of SearchWiz though, so I'll try that next.

I see your point about the imdb calls. Is this the API you're using(http://www.trynt.com/trynt-movie-imdb-api)? . I think maybe for my idea of searchable data it would need a separate plugin which runs the calls to imdb after an epg update, and stores the data for searching. I haven't looked into plugin development yet, but I assume it is easy to add your own tables etc?

[JavaWiz]

The problem I was having was that I got was an "Object reference not set..." error when starting it when using the community MCE skin

If you run into that error again, please send me the logs, I'd like to insure SearchWiz works with as many skins as possible.

I see your point about the imdb calls. Is this the API you're using(www.trynt.com/trynt-movie-imdb-api)?

No, actually I hit IMDB directly and parse the HTML responses.

but I assume it is easy to add your own tables etc

I believe as a rule plugin developers are not to add tables to the GBPVR.db3 database. If you have persistent storage requirements, I believe the best thing to do is create a new db and store your data in it.

[Obsidian]

Hi again JavaWiz

Is there any chance you could share your source with me regarding getting the imdb data? I'd be interested to see how it's done.

I've posted separately in the SearchWiz forums with a support question.

Thanks so much for your time.