VAP Testing Version With Movie Metadata Search

[dlflannery]

Try substituting VAP test executable Ver. 1.42T3 (NOT AN INSTALLER) contained in the attached zip.
EDIT: Attachment deleted -- superseded by T4 version attached to later post.

It will attempt to use themoviedb.org (TMDb) searches to provide metadata for input files it thinks are movies. Two items (title and movie year) are needed for the TMDb searches. These may be obtained from metadata embedded in the input file (for WTV, TiVo and MP4 files) or by parsing the input file name with a suitable (user-supplied) template, provided the name includes the two required items. (The input file name parsing feature has already existed in VAP.)

Please provide detailed descriptions of any failures you experience including Windows error messages and log file entries.

I will be happy to assist you with input file name parsing templates if you provide samples of the file names.

 

[jachin99]

Thanks for trying this out, and I really appreciate your help. I'm not entirely sure what goes on the in the background when VAP does its thing but I want to make sure I understand it correctly. Before I try this update, I want to say that my current setup with VAP for commercials from works great, and I dont have any problems with TV or movie metadata. I get all of the original metadata, the video and sound quality are good, and there aren't any commercials so I have no issues there. Where I do have issues and have had issues in the past is converting MKV files to WTV, or DVR-MS files so they can be easily played on Windows Media Center Extenders. Enabling MKV playback on Media Center Extenders is a pretty involved process when there are a mix of movies with subtitles, chapters, HD audio codecs, etc.

So from my perspective there are two use case scenarios...

1. A user records a TV show or movie (This has just been in windows media center from my experience), and VAP cuts the commercials resulting in a file with its full original metadata. In this use case, VAP in its current form (Without any additional TMDB lookup) works great because the TV guide metadata, which is already embedded in the file, is sufficient.

2. A user records a MKV file with subtitles, or HD Audio, and that file cannot be reliably played on a media center extender. This is where your improvement will be extremely useful. In this scenario, it would be most helpful to have VAP convert the MKV to either a WTV or DVR-MS file with full metadata because there is no metadata lookup coming from the guide data as there is in scenario 1.

In scenario 2 VAP would have to perform its lookup, and embed a movie cover, and full metadata such as Synopsis, Cast & Crew, etc. A tool has already been built that can read and write WTV & DVR-MS metadata in the form of editdvr-msmetadata.exe. An overview of this can be found here https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/toub/2005/05/12/edit-dvr-ms-metadata/ and details can be found here https://web.archive.org/web/2006020...x?pull=/library/en-us/dnxpmce/html/dvr-ms.asp

So from a workflow perspective, I'm thinking

1. User creates mkv file, and configures naming convention to reflect movie name & year
2. VAP sees new entry in monitored folder, and performs metadata lookup
3. VAP performs necessary transcoding, and embeds metadata in new file

That is probably way too simple but I think it illustrates the point of what I am looking to accomplish. This would make things MUCH easier when adding new blurays or DVDs to one's collections because right now I have to wait on the movie to hit regular cable, and the record it to get a file that can reliably play on everything and has full metadata.

For file naming, it would be up to the user to name their MKVs appropriately but a typical name produced by a default configuration of Make MKV looks like this: DANCER_DARK/ts00/title1. Most titles are a little closer to something that can actually be looked up via TMDB but they will all have a trailing /ts00/title1in their names. I went with the movie/year because that seems to produce the most accurate results. I'll try your additions on some WTV files that I have converted to MKV to see how things turn out. Thanks again for your help.

 

[dlflannery]

New VAP does your 1,2,3 sequence. However Version T3 wasn't searching and embedding the cover art URL (WM/AlbumCoverURL). Test exe 1.42T4, in attached zip, now does that. It also has a checkbox to disable TMDb searches on the "Other" tab of the Advanced Configuration form. I've verified that output WTV files have the cover art URL embedded along with the other metadata looked up on TMDb. I don't seem to have any program that will display the cover art although I can verify the URL is embedded by dumping the metadata. And I can copy and paste the URl in a browser to see the correct poster image.

I would still appreciate a sample or two of your actual mkv file names.

EDIT: Attachment deleted. Superceded by later version.

 

[Gripweed]

While you're in that section, could you possible add a checkbox to disable Atomic Parsley processing. It's reeking havoc with the timing of my MPEG4 process automation. Since I'm using Filebot and really don't care about metadata, I don't need it run. Thanks.

 

[jachin99]

It's a busy night but I'll definately get you a variety of samples. Thanks for your help!!!

 

[jachin99]

I looked through my current library of movie movie files and they are simply named after the movie so Batman begins.mkv would be an example.

 

[dlflannery]

I looked through my current library of movie movie files and they are simply named after the movie so Batman begins.mkv would be an example.

Err ... I thought it was understood that the MKV file names will also have to have the movie year in them if the TMDb metadata lookup is going to work. (?).

For successful parsing, the title and the movie year need to be separated by something other than a space. The common case of putting the year in parens (e.g., "Batman Begins (2012).mkv") works fine. But the separator can be any character that would never occur in a title.

 

[dlflannery]

While you're in that section, could you possible add a checkbox to disable Atomic Parsley processing. It's reeking havoc with the timing of my MPEG4 process automation. Since I'm using Filebot and really don't care about metadata, I don't need it run. Thanks.

I can do that. I'm guessing your files are multi-GB size and Atomic Parsley can take a while inserting metadata into those because it has to re-write the entire file.

 

[jachin99]

It's easy enough to change my file naming and when I create a new movie file I already have to rename it. I should clarify that WMC movie library has the year and i have something of a backup library that just has movie names which is where I pulled that name from. My wmc library includes the year in parenthesis I'm sure but I'm not in front of the PC at the moment.
Including the year has been the norm with other wmc tools like YAMMM and I believe emby supports having the year also. Finally including the year will often result in more accurate matches in tmdb which is why I requested it in my initial thread. I hope that makes more sense. I'm going to try the new version tomorow and I can elaborate a little more about names if need be

 

[jachin99]

 

[jachin99]

I hope the pic above clarifies things a little. You can see that in my WMC movie library I have movie names and years included.

 

[Gripweed]

I can do that. I'm guessing your files are multi-GB size and Atomic Parsley can take a while inserting metadata into those because it has to re-write the entire file.

Exactly! Part of the automation looks to see if the file is finished being process by VAP and moved into the output folder. That works great for MPG but with MP4 just as soon as the automation program gets the signal that the move is done - BAM! - Parsley grabs it and I wind up with an error saying that the file is in use with another program (Parsley). I thought I had it outsmarted by adding in a 1 minute wait period. That worked one time but as you said, it is size dependent, and I found that I had to change it to a 4 minute wait to be on the safe side. That seems to work for 1 hour shows but I'm thinking it will fail again for anything longer like a movie. I'm only now running a test recording on that.

 

[dlflannery]

I hope the pic above clarifies things a little. You can see that in my WMC movie library I have movie names and years included.

Great! The input file parsing template you need is:

{title}({movieyear})

and of course put mkv in the Extension column.

Just FYI: You can have multiple templates for the same file extension. The first one that matches the file name will take precedence.

 

[dlflannery]

Test VAP executable (NOT AN INSTALLER) Ver. 1.42T5 is in attached zip.

This adds a checkbox on the Other tab of the Advanced Configuration form to disable Atomic Parsley metadata embedding in .mp4 (or .m4v) output files. AP will still read embeded metadata from .mp4 or .m4v input files as this operation goes very fast.

 

[jachin99]

I'm guessing I have set this up to read my MKVs correctly but I want to provide a sceenshot just in case

 

[dlflannery]

I'm guessing I have set this up to read my MKVs correctly but I want to provide a sceenshot just in case

View attachment 2407

Good thing you checked .... the template string you have in the Match String column should go on the MetaData Templates tab in the lower section, "Templates for parsing metadata from input file names", in the Template column . The template tags have no special significance in profile match strings, which are interpreted literally.

I assume you want to match all MKV files so enter ".mkv" in the match string column, and in the "Ext" column enter whatever output file extension you want, e.g., "wtv" or "dvr-ms" ,but do not include double quotes (") in these entries.

 

[Gripweed]

I just ran 4 MP4s through my automation process with Atomic Parsley turned off. What a difference! Thank you so much for adding that switch in.

 

[jachin99]

I'm still trying this out for my MKVs but I believe I have ran into a recurring issue with these files. Windows Media Center will only display a cover from the WM/Picture field, and it will has to be stored in a byte array. I'm not done testing yet but I have tried file, and web locations, as you did, in the WM/AlbumCoverUrl as well as the WM/Picture field. I'm looking at some documentation on the WM/Picture field right now, and I'm going to point you to what I find if your willing to take a look. I'm also not sure how the review field gets filled in by a native WMC recording but I don't see any fields named review in my editdvrms metadata program. Thanks again as always for the work your doing.

 

[dlflannery]

I'm still trying this out for my MKVs but I believe I have ran into a recurring issue with these files. Windows Media Center will only display a cover from the WM/Picture field, and it will has to be stored in a byte array. I'm not done testing yet but I have tried file, and web locations, as you did, in the WM/AlbumCoverUrl as well as the WM/Picture field. I'm looking at some documentation on the WM/Picture field right now, and I'm going to point you to what I find if your willing to take a look. I'm also not sure how the review field gets filled in by a native WMC recording but I don't see any fields named review in my editdvrms metadata program. Thanks again as always for the work your doing.

First, are reviews very important to have in your files?

Second, googling the W/Picture deal I came across this: https://damian.fyi/2008/04/28/bulk-fetching-images-for-dvr-ms-files/

Of particular interest:

You can make a thumbnail be displayed [in Windows Media Center] by downloading the appropriate cover art jpeg image, and name it the same as the film’s file, but with the “.jpg” extension, instead of “.dvr-ms”.

This sounds promising although the page is pretty old (2008). Comments?

Creating that side-by-side .jpg image should be easy for VAP. Could you try an experiment to see if this works? Not sure if there are size specs for the poster images in WMC. I also wonder if this works the same way for .wtv files? Here is a link to download a sample poster image as provided by TMDb:
http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w185/43ddKmYjzNrvS7xvHVwtq03N6xP.jpg
Just bring it up in a browser, then right-click and select "Save picture as" to save it as a .jpg file. Then rename to match one of the .dvr-ms video files in your WMC library, place it side-by-side, and see if the thumbnail appears.

I haven't found anything helpful as far as how to make VAP actually embed the WM/Picture data.

 

[jachin99]

Hopefully that works but I'm not sure it will. I have more info to share, so when life slows down a little, hopefully in a day or so, I'll try this out and get back to you. I have tried something similar, and it showed cover art but I could never get cover art AND full metadata. There has always been a compromise. I'm not too concerned about reviews at the moment because if I can get covers then I'm mostly there. If we are so successful that I can focus on reviews then that will be a good thing. Thanks again, and I'll keep you posted.