Loading Profile...
Boxee Media Scanning/Recognition/Categorization Utopia!?!?
Problem: Boxee has proprietary filename scanning process for its library. As a result the disparate filename formats users have are in many cases not recognized when scanned or are improperly indexed in TV Shows and Movies.
Concept: I am NOT proposing a utility/editor that modifies filenames/tags or a media server, rather it interprets your existing filename structures/tags for improved scanning/media categorization to TV Shows and Movies. This "Lightweight Media Mapping/Translation Utility" could be extended to handle music tag scanning/categorization as well.(again NOT editing, use your own editor for now :)
Boxee has an inherent and somewhat opaque method of file recognition, scanning, indexing and display....keep it in place(option to disable), BUT extend/supercede it with User-Defined filename format definitions for media recognition.
Solution: Create a 'client' utility that hooks to Boxee DB or Expose a new UI Section under Media Sources called 'Scanning' allowing Boxee users to add self-defined filename formats to improve media recognition and categorization. Allows for a modular approach and future extensibility as new file formats, conventions and extensions are added.
Not Covered: is the required programming logic, database modifications and validation required to implement, but this should be 'do-able' by the talented C++ developers. DB and UI designers at Boxee. This is simply a conceptual mockup of the idea not fully fleshed out. There are MANY nuances to parsing, multiple formats per filetype, choking the scanning engine with misuse, validation required, identifying conditions to properly recognize a TV show from a movie, so this is meant to put the power in the community's hands and off load that lift (but for developing the module from Boxee.
Please reply with additional comments, considerations and/or concerns.
FYI: Agentlame(moderator) has a kickass overview of Boxee recognized filename formats for TV shows and Movies in this thread . Kudos A.L.!
Key Elements: A button for 'Scanning' and related UI page(s) under 'Settings / Media Sources'
Settings / Media Sources
New Option: Scanning...click
Settings / Media Sources / Scanning
Button: Force Rescan
Button: Add TV Show File Format
Button: Add Movie File Format
Checkbox: Disable Boxee Native Formats
List Box below on screen:
Label: Scanning File Formats
Columns: Format Name(user defined string), Format Type(TV, Movie), Extension, View, Edit, Delete icons for each entry, a checkbox to 'enable/disable' for scanning
Boxee's default recognized formats displayed, but not editable
User clicks Edit on MS-DVR entry...(see screenshot attached for TV Show example)
User then selects the appropriate elements from one or more filename parsing methods(Delimited, Positional, Tags)
Missing element: I haven't mocked up a conditions section at top to treat different media types with same extension appropriately like:
Conditions:
Apply if: Combobox (Any / All) conditions are met
Condition 1: filename 'contains' S##E## for Extension: 'avi' ==> Map To: TV Shows
Condition 2:....etc
I know the UI mockup below shows it within Boxee UI, but this could also be an external utility...
Similar approach to Movies, also this could conceptually be applied to allow user to user defined mapping using tags for MP3 library that the Boxee community would go completely ape sh#t over
Example:
My prime example right now is a wealth of MS-DVR files that will play in Boxee if I manually browse to that smb share, but don't get picked up by the native media scan to TV shows. My little util. would 'add a record/filename definition' to the core Boxee logic to pick them up and categorize. I wouldn't have to manually (or batch) rename them to get them recognized as TV shows.
I actually tried to unit test renaming a MS-DVR file to the standard TV show formats and 1) still doesn't get recognized by Boxee and 2) VMCE throws a disk error when I try to play back same file...arggghhh! Can't win
If I had my magic utility create a small XML file of new format types that the scanning engine could read and include in scanning routine that would be sweet.
Concept: I am NOT proposing a utility/editor that modifies filenames/tags or a media server, rather it interprets your existing filename structures/tags for improved scanning/media categorization to TV Shows and Movies. This "Lightweight Media Mapping/Translation Utility" could be extended to handle music tag scanning/categorization as well.(again NOT editing, use your own editor for now :)
Boxee has an inherent and somewhat opaque method of file recognition, scanning, indexing and display....keep it in place(option to disable), BUT extend/supercede it with User-Defined filename format definitions for media recognition.
Solution: Create a 'client' utility that hooks to Boxee DB or Expose a new UI Section under Media Sources called 'Scanning' allowing Boxee users to add self-defined filename formats to improve media recognition and categorization. Allows for a modular approach and future extensibility as new file formats, conventions and extensions are added.
Not Covered: is the required programming logic, database modifications and validation required to implement, but this should be 'do-able' by the talented C++ developers. DB and UI designers at Boxee. This is simply a conceptual mockup of the idea not fully fleshed out. There are MANY nuances to parsing, multiple formats per filetype, choking the scanning engine with misuse, validation required, identifying conditions to properly recognize a TV show from a movie, so this is meant to put the power in the community's hands and off load that lift (but for developing the module from Boxee.
Please reply with additional comments, considerations and/or concerns.
FYI: Agentlame(moderator) has a kickass overview of Boxee recognized filename formats for TV shows and Movies in this thread . Kudos A.L.!
Key Elements: A button for 'Scanning' and related UI page(s) under 'Settings / Media Sources'
Settings / Media Sources
New Option: Scanning...click
Settings / Media Sources / Scanning
Button: Force Rescan
Button: Add TV Show File Format
Button: Add Movie File Format
Checkbox: Disable Boxee Native Formats
List Box below on screen:
Label: Scanning File Formats
Columns: Format Name(user defined string), Format Type(TV, Movie), Extension, View, Edit, Delete icons for each entry, a checkbox to 'enable/disable' for scanning
Boxee's default recognized formats displayed, but not editable
User clicks Edit on MS-DVR entry...(see screenshot attached for TV Show example)
User then selects the appropriate elements from one or more filename parsing methods(Delimited, Positional, Tags)
Missing element: I haven't mocked up a conditions section at top to treat different media types with same extension appropriately like:
Conditions:
Apply if: Combobox (Any / All) conditions are met
Condition 1: filename 'contains' S##E## for Extension: 'avi' ==> Map To: TV Shows
Condition 2:....etc
I know the UI mockup below shows it within Boxee UI, but this could also be an external utility...
Similar approach to Movies, also this could conceptually be applied to allow user to user defined mapping using tags for MP3 library that the Boxee community would go completely ape sh#t over
Example:
My prime example right now is a wealth of MS-DVR files that will play in Boxee if I manually browse to that smb share, but don't get picked up by the native media scan to TV shows. My little util. would 'add a record/filename definition' to the core Boxee logic to pick them up and categorize. I wouldn't have to manually (or batch) rename them to get them recognized as TV shows.
I actually tried to unit test renaming a MS-DVR file to the standard TV show formats and 1) still doesn't get recognized by Boxee and 2) VMCE throws a disk error when I try to play back same file...arggghhh! Can't win
If I had my magic utility create a small XML file of new format types that the scanning engine could read and include in scanning routine that would be sweet.
I’m excited
14
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
-
Inappropriate?This sounds really good. My main concern is that the wording would be less technical, so a majority of users could take use of it.
I’m confident
-
Inappropriate?Hrm, even a little web interface allowing you to modify/update/re-categorize teh items in Boxee would be nice. the manual fixing of wrongly categorized items in boxee is tedious.
1 Comment
Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
In reality, what they have now for fixing incorrectly labelled items works, it is just slow & clunky. Would like to select a number of items at once to fix, then be able to fix them all (ie: if 4 episodes of Weeds are mislabeled, then control click them and choose "fix".. then specify the show, and verify the season & episode.
Also, i should not have to wait 3-5 seconds for the section to reload & it should not take me out of my context. If i want to go back to the show's section, i'll navigate to it. Or maybe offer a fix & follow option.
Rich, your idea sounds cool, but is a bit heavy handed for most "home" users. Too much "thinkie". ;) -
Inappropriate?This is very similar to my concept idea here:
http://getsatisfaction.com/boxee/topi...
More forum discussion about this:
http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?...
I’m confident
-
Inappropriate?"Also, i should not have to wait 3-5 seconds for the section to reload & it should not take me out of my context. If i want to go back to the show's section, i'll navigate to it. Or maybe offer a fix & follow option"
Yes!! Please fix this! I also like the idea to select a number of items and fix them. -
Inappropriate?I think just making the existing system work the way it's supposed to would be a huge leap forward.
Boxee regularly only recognises a handful of the episodes in a directory, despite the fact that they all share the same SHOW 01x01 EPISODE.avi name format. Indeed, when manually adding one of the episodes and typing the show name in exactly as in the filename, Boxee will correctly identify all episodes. Very strange behaviour.
2 people think
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
not only that, but episodes will show up a lot of the times in "Movies"... its really annoying to be going through my movies list and see random episodes of Seinfeld scattered around!
-
Inappropriate?avi metatags exist already, and can be added by many free utilities. Maybe READ them would be a good start? Seems simple enough to me. At least they could be read by a number of boxee PC's on the network ( a limitation of the database currently used) A database is not required to do this if you read on the fly? My tags include the disc cover art, etc. already. Use the existing methods... why create a new (broken) method?
I’m confident
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
the way boxee works right now is it reads the physical filename and queries it against a database (imdb for movies and thetvdb for shows). If the name is different, it won't be able to recognize it, and if its not on one of those DB's, it won't find it either. http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?...
What I think Boxee needs to do though, is it should take all that data that it finds and write it onto the file as metadata. This way, Boxee can move to reading metadata as well, and our files can have all that info in it.
