MBS - Consolidated Genres Option

[godbodian 54]

Maybe someone already requested this and I haven't set my setup correctly or it was requested and shot down or doin' so would mess up some other great aspect of MBS.... but is there anyway to get an option or feature for MBS where the Genres can be consolidated?

 

For example, I regularly use MBS with MBC, WPMB and W8.1MB and in ALL OF THEM the action movies are sometimes in crime or in family or family animation movies are in animation but not family, in what I can only determine as whatever Genre is fetched first is utilized as the genre and/or whatever is in the XML file as the genre. (eg. <Genre>Comedy/Romance</Genre>) The genre being "Comedy/Romance" literally. So in addition to having all the normal genres, I have about 30 to 40 "sub-genres" that look like... "blank/blank"

 

My point and/or question is, is there a way MBS can just take either side and place the same movie in a list for both "Comedy" and "Romance" or in the example of movies with three or more genres, "Action", "Comedy" and "Thriller"?

 

Searching for a movie based upon genre or the type of movie mood I'm in, currently sucks. If I'm mistaken in anyway and there's a work around, I apologize in advance and THANK YOU.

 

Edited November 26, 2014 by godbodian

[Vidman 589]

There is a plugin called genre cleaner which may help you

[godbodian 54]

I seen that but I didn't know exactly how well it would work or if it would cause more chaos than assistance...

 

I looked at it and it's a good option but at the same time because we are all fetching certain information from third parties, there's certain movies that are listed as two genres, that I'd never consider as one of the two. For example both "The Babymakers" and "The Bucket List" are considered both Comedy/Adventure and neither of them would I consider an "adventure", although can understand technically.

 

Or since the plugin is already in place... would there be a way to add a secondary mapping field so that the same title can go to two places genre search wise?

Edited November 26, 2014 by godbodian

[Vidman 589]

TBH I have never used it... Perhaps @@ebr can chime in here to give you more info in the inner workings of the plug in

[The Baron 64]

I use it. It works well. Basically you define a master list of Genres.

 

Then you choose a particular genre, within that you can list other Genres that will be shown under the particular Master Genre you are referencing.

 

For example, you could choose 'Action'. In Action, you could add Adventure. Now any films with the <genre>adventure</genre> tag would be shown under the Action Genre.

[godbodian 54]

Yeah I understand and I'm utilizing it. It works and brings a solution to the table. I just thought it makes more sense (in my mind) that movies with two or more genres listed are applied to a multiple listings and indexes. As opposed to such a large grouping. You understand how I'm seeing it? (and I might be doing so in error but...) With the current solution the genres are categorizing the movies, yes but the movies technically are not categorized properly because in the event there is more than one genre provided, the movie essentially can only be considered as ONE of however many categorizations it is considered. So there is at it's core a lack of efficiency as depending upon how the third party (IMDB, TheTVDB, etc.) entered in the data (Action/Adventure or Adventure/Action) you have to make the choice of where to place not only one movie but in most instances multiple movies befitting the same issue, although you may feel certain movies out of that "Adventure" grouping should be "Action". I think the genre cleaner is more so a broom as opposed to a coin sorter and in my HUMBLE opinion the most viable solution is a coin sorter as opposed to a broom. The movies (eg. media and metadata) are the point to this whole thing. The ability to accurate sort, find and convey the information of our libraries is essential to the success of MB and right now, unless there are other solutions I'm unaware of... there are errors or misappropriations that while little and not as significant as other bugs, lend to the overall appearance, enjoyment and experience of MediaBrowser.

 

EBR provided a great thing, I think it needs to be tweaked to account for the actual movie as opposed to the genre. Now that I know his genre cleaner exists, I think he could do that by adding additional fields and options for mapping within the same consolidated Genre.

 

I hope I wasn't confusing.

 

Vidman, The Baron, thanks for your help... really. That's one of the things I tell people... the community of MediaBrowser is just as awesome as the software.


 

Edited November 27, 2014 by godbodian

[AdrianW 1030]

I have movies in multiple genres and it all works fine. It looks like your xml files are not correct.

 

For your example of Comedy/Romance - mine would look something like:

<Genres><Genre>Comedy</Genre><Genre>Romance</Genre></Genres>

Then that movie would appear under both genres.

[Vidman 589]

I just checked and can confirm I have the Indiana jones movies listed under both action genre and adventure genre, so it appears the issue is in your metedata

[godbodian 54]

Right. What do you use for your metadata? MB, MCM or something else?

[ebr 14019]

Yes the problem is your metadata is not in the correct format.

[Vidman 589]

I use MB