Media scraper for nPVR

[Hairy]

For me the most attractive feature of nPVR’s new UI is it’s use of meta data and images. I’ve struggled to find a simple way of getting that info. My number one wish list item would be for a simple media (mainly video) scraper specifically designed for nPVR.

Something along the lines of:

• A utility, I see the attraction of a plug-in but I personally prefer the extra control of an external app.
  
• The ability to insert the scrapped meta data into nPVR’s database and reference and place art in nPVR’s media folder. Currently nPVR is set up to handle meta and art this way. sub is gonna drive himself crazy trying to accommodate all the different file formats out there. I think having this information centralized would help sub, skinners (consistency of what information is available and what is desired by users) and would be much neater overall.
  
• Some kind of smart referencing for artwork, e.g the ability to have a single image for say “The Simpsons” and then use that image in the recordings screen and the video library (including seasons and episodes). This gives the basic meta data gloss but cuts down on the need to have, and/or hunt down, loads and loads of images.
  
• The ability to automatically seek a couple of minutes into a video file and take a screenshot, mostly for the reasons above.
  
• The ability to scrap individual files, i.e a file formatted something like this [show title][season number][episode number][episode title].
  

What would people like to see in a nPVR specific media scrapper?

[7ore]

One way is to build some kind of tool from scratch. But that usually means that someone needs to update the code when the sites that is scraped changes format (like IMDB does frequently).
Another way to go is to use a tool that does most of what you need and build an addon to that tool for importing in to nPVR.

I like Ember media manager and I think it would be a smart move to create an addon to Ember instead of doing something from scratch.

[Hairy]

I don't really know the level of coding involved, but I was kind of angling for a specific scraper tool from scratch for nPVR. A lot of modern media centers have some sort of specific scrapper or related scrapper project. If we had something simple for nPVR, we could match it's output to how nPVR already handles meta - rather than sub doing the opposite.

Personally, the main problems I've had (with all the scrappers that I've tried out - including ember), is that you need all your files in specific folders. No good for transient miscellaneous files. They also tend to be overkill for what I think most peoples needs are and can be cumbersome to set-up. The best one I tried was Wiz's "MetadataGrabber" for gbPVR. It's simple and can search for individual files. If we could update and enhance that for nPVR I'd be a happy bunny

[-Oz-]

MediaPortal does scraping on its own for Moving Pictures and MPTV-Series; both are detecting files that aren't in individual folders. It seems to do it automatically but still have a config backend that allows you to tweak as required. On top of loving what the plugins do I am really happy with how automated it is.

That is what I would like.

[Azimuth]

I have managed to get Wiz MetadataGrabber to work with NPVR's metadata display in the video library. http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Utility/WizUtilities (midway down the page)
It does have some requirements from the old GBPVR install. I'm not sure exactly which files, so after it stopped working when I uninstalled GBPVR, I copied a backup of the entire GBPVR folder back over to it's default directory. Everything works again.
You also need Microsoft Visual J# for TheTVDB lookup to work.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...laylang=en