Add ability to add External ID

[AzraelDC 0]

I think all in all we're very flexible with what we support. We made a point to research all the conventions used by other apps and add support for all of them, in order to make it as easy as possible for people to try us out.

 

Oh, I'll use MB, it's about as close as one can get to having a one stop shop for most of what I want. At least you have a lot of conventions for editing media that XBMC lacks. What's not there, well...it's on github, I'll get the source and look into hacking in what I want and need at some point. 

 

The Android app looks solid enough that I'll buy it, as well as some plugins. But, I have no intention whatsoever of, in some cases renaming hundreds of files. (Entire run of Doctor Who sorted by actor who played the part followed by production number) or some of the obscure TV stuff I have (The State, ripped from my DVD set) in order to meet some folder/episode convention. That's not a dig at you, mind you. It's just the fact that I have terabytes of stuff, organized in a way that suits me, and the way it's laid out over multiple NAS devices. The ability to make a one to one correlation to correct something that's not identified correctly would be a nice feature. If you don't implement it, as I said...I'll see about getting it hacked in myself for my own benefit. 

 

As I said, if you feel adding it would be a ticket fountain, I get that. Disregard my request. I'll attend to it for my own benefit.

[AzraelDC 0]

I am evaluating Mediabrowser as a HTPC frontend.

 

As I have been going through various frontends, it came as a surprise that MB seems more customizable and option laden than most others such as XBMC, etc. Except for one thing. 

 

The ability to add an External ID for an item.

 

If something is not recognized as a movie, or tv show...I have no desire to rename or otherwise change my NAS structure to suit what a program expects. I simply want to add a link to the proper TVDB or whathave you, and have MB pull the appropriate data from there. This feature is lacking in every frontend I have evaluated thus far, it would be nice to have here.

 

 

[Luke 42077]

can you describe the file structures you're using that we're not recognizing? if there are conventions that we missed that people are using, maybe we can support them.

 

the problem with this type of request is what will the external id accomplish? it will only put a pretty face on the problem, and then you'll be filing more tickets about the issues you run into after that. This is why all of the media apps behave in this fashion. There have to be some kinds of standards in place. What would having tv series metadata accomplish if we then don't recognize your season and episode structures?

[Beardyname 198]

Also you can add an external ID in the edit section. But i'm guessing you want the ability to do that from the front-end ?

[AzraelDC 0]

can you describe the file structures you're using that we're not recognizing? if there are conventions that we missed that people are using, maybe we can support them.

 

the problem with this type of request is what will the external id accomplish? it will only put a pretty face on the problem, and then you'll be filing more tickets about the issues you run into after that. This is why all of the media apps behave in this fashion. There have to be some kinds of standards in place. What would having tv series metadata accomplish if we then don't recognize your season and episode structures?

 

I don't expect any developer to write for every single edge case. Certainly not when you're designing around structures that depend on Folders and Filename assumptions. The ability to simply go to a top folder, and tell MB "This is what this is", and then continue fleshing it out from there...would be quite useful for managing my media.

 

Regardless, this response answers a lot of my questions about MB. Thanks for the response. Feel free to disregard my request. =)

[Luke 42077]

I think all in all we're very flexible with what we support. We made a point to research all the conventions used by other apps and add support for all of them, in order to make it as easy as possible for people to try us out.

[Tim Hobbs 91]

It would be a good idea to provide the type of structure you have (as Luke asked in his first reply) so that we may be able to possibly build in the functionality to support it. It certainly would not hurt.

 

As for the daunting task of renaming, there are a couple of indispensable tools that can make short work of such a task that you may want to possibly look at:

• FileBot - uses folder/file names and various online db's (tvdb, moviedb, etc.) and will rename files/folders based on naming format you provide or a default naming convention. This tool could likely solve your current problem.
• Bulk Rename Utility - does just what the name says - bulk renames based on lots of settings. UI won't win any awards, but it is super-powerful.

 

Not to say that you should rename your files or anything, but if you did decide to, these tools will make it super easy.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Tim Hobbs