New Firmware Release - Version 2.03.24 for the WD TV Live Hub (12/30/10)

Community Archives WD TV Live Hub Firmware
41

Folks,  they didn’t BREAK metadata.   It just works entirely differently now.

The release notes should have explained it, but it doesn’t.

The old “metadata” folder is not “hidden,”  it’s GONE.   There’s no need for it any more.

All metadata now resides WITH the content.  

This means it’s now possible to create Metadata using third-party apps that can also create NFO files.  

I wrote a program to get Metadata from TheTVDb.com for all of my TV shows.   It works perfectly.

There’s a couple of minor issues remaining (like the show TITLE is not displayed on the gallery view; the filename is what is shown) and user-provided metadata isn’t SEARCHABLE, but that’s about it.

42

TonyPh12345 wrote:

I wrote a program to get Metadata from TheTVDb.com for all of my TV shows.   It works perfectly.

 

There’s a couple of minor issues remaining (like the show TITLE is not displayed on the gallery view; the filename is what is shown) and user-provided metadata isn’t SEARCHABLE, but that’s about it.

Hey Tony, sounds great! Been hoping for something like that.   You gonna share that here?  Thanks.

Also would love an xml writer for movies that can handle it from the computer side so don’t have to do the get info for each movie.  Is that around somewhere.  Sorry to go off topic.  (I’m busy backing up my WD drive before I do this mildly controversial firmware upgrade)

Johnny

43

There’s a few programs out there already, so I don’t know if I’ll post mine.    MINE requires the user to have a bit of knowledge on how to run PERL scripts.   I’m an OLD-SCHOOL programmer;   I write programs to do the BARE MINIMUM to get by…  No pretty Gui…   No Self-Installers…  Very little error correction…   It’s a Kludge.

Go search for “NFO creators”  (note no I in NFO)   

NFO files are what XBMC uses.

The Hub can use them almost without modifcation.     The only thing that needs to change is:

the PLOT tag needs to be changed to OVERVIEW.

44

The METADATA Is broke, regardless of where it is stored on the Drive

It doesn’t show METADATA outside folders, nor does it show coverart outside folders anymore, has anyone figured out how to fix this yet?

And is this happening to everyone who upgraded the firmware, or just a select few?

45

Thanks Tony.  You’re right, I don’t even know what Perl is, so I better find somethin more for dummies.  I used (and loved) the “MetaGenerator” program for tivo that would make tivo metadata files for all TV shows and movies and I got spoiled I guess.  I wonder if there is or will be anything like that to write WD compatible XML files. 

46

Try to clear the Content Media Library: Setup/Media Library/”Clear Media Library” .  Let the device re-run it’s content aggregation (Media Library).

47

Okay so clearing out the media library doesn’t “DELETE” the files from the hard drive? it just re-compiles all the files in the media library as if i turned it off and on?

and you think that this will fix the not showing of cover art or metadata?

i have turned the box off/on multiple times and let the library re-compile and that didn’t work

but i’m scared to use the clear media library until someone tells me 100% that  it wont erase my movies as i dont have them backed up anywhere else and i’d be devastated if i lost 1 TB worth of movies

48

Clearing your MEDIA LIBRARY will NOT delete the media themselves, nor will it delete the XML or Thumbnails.    It only purges the Hub’s internal index of those files.   I *Think* it also deletes the Partially Watched status of files, but I don’t remember.    And it also appears to break the binding between the TITLE and a FILENAME…   When I did this,  all my displays went back to FILENAME.EXT  instead of just the Movie’s title as fetched from the database.

All the XML is still there…  Including the mysterious tags, but the Hub appears to IGNORE the TITLE, unless you do GET CONTENT INFO AGAIN.   That is annoying;  but for me, all of this is a step FORWARD, not a step back.

When you do this, it will re-compile, but it is starting from scratch instead of comparing it to the existing index.

It’s sort of like what happens if you manually delete the .wd_tv folder on the Live/Live+'s external HDs.   It does tend to fix some issues.

49

Omy-hundro wrote:

Try to clear the Content Media Library: Setup/Media Library/”Clear Media Library” .  Let the device re-run it’s content aggregation (Media Library).

It’s actually SETUP / SYSTEM / MEDIA LIBRARY / CLEAR MEDIA LIBRARY

50

Hi Pulazki, sorry for the confusion…PsychoTHC theme will not still fix the metadata not working outside the folder…thats my biggest bugbear with this firmware…

What he fixes is the icons on his theme all these got messed up with the firmware…Basically theming is definately dependant on the firmware…as things changed alot internally on the legacy theme.

Whilst Tony is correct in saying that things just work differently now, as the xml and movie.jpg are kept in the same folder as movie (much neater) this firmware totally messes up the movie info if you have your movies in individual folders as it will only show when you go into the folder as opposed to the older firmware which showed on the outside if the folder name and movie name were EXACTLY the same…now it doesn’t matter it still doesn’t show up…

Other than that all seems good apart from the surprising omission of Flingo and Deezer ??

Also at some point in the future it would be nice if the firmware would allow you to use your own moviesheets as some people may not have their Hub always connected to the internet at all times…This would allow you to customize the look of the Hub alot more just like you can with themes.

51

Okay just finished clearing the media library, and no it does not fix this issue

I still only see the album art when the scroll bar across the bottom when flipping through your movies, all of the cover art next to the meta data is empty, along with all the metadata outside the folder

It will make for one un-organized folder if you have to place all your MKV’s and MP4’s in 1 folder then have all XML files and folder.jpg’s and cover art . jpg’s all scattered throughout a single folder

Otherwise it looks hideous because you just have a bunch of empty metadata outside your folder with a big ugly graphic where the enlarged DVD cover should be.

So far nobody knows why the metadata doesn’t appear outside of the folder or why none of the coverart shows up outside the folder with the metadata?

52

I updated fine, metadata is still here, tho i cleaned it myself

Thony any chance you can share your prog ?

I’d like to give it a try after what you said ;L

53

Believe me i tried everything and nothing works…

You now need to have 2 jpg for things to work properly…

folder.jpg AND moviename.jpg

you can replace the moviename.jpg with the same jpg as your folder.jpg, otherwise you will have a different picture showing on the outside of your folder and a different one showing when you enter the folder…also it will only use the moviename.jpg for the larger thumbnail inside the movie information not your folder.jpg …

Don’t get me wrong i still like the box its just i wish the movie info worked as before or better still allows you to use your own custom moviesheet…that would solve the issues for me personally.

54

So would the overall consesus be that i should just start clearing all of my movies out of there individual folders and place them all in a single folder? Does it seem as though there is absolutely no way to get the metadata to appear outside of a folder?

Even my genre icons dont show up except in the scroll part

On the old firmware if you placed a folder.jpg within a folder, it would appear next to the metadata

Like i have all my Movies broken up into categories, so once i click on Videos I see

Blu Ray  -  DivX   -  Tv Shows  -   Home Movies  -  Kids Movies  -

and i had a folder.jpg within each of those categories of folders that would show up obviously in the scroll/select across the bottom of the screen, and then a larger image would should up next to the empty metadata… But it seems as though it’s not possible to get an image other than the ‘blank video’ image to appear there now?

55

Personally i wouldn’t put all my movies in one folder …yukkk wayy to messy…

I am just waiting for WD to fix this issue as if it worked before i see no reason why they cannot fix with a future firmware upgrade.

56

I mean especially since they now place all the metadata information in the folder that you keep your movie, you basically are forced to put each movie in it’s own individual folder.

Without placing each movie in it’s own individual folder, you would have a single folder that is completely cluttered with XML’s and 2 Jpg’s for each movie, so if you have 100 movies, you’ll wind up with 400 files in a single folder?

Is it possible to revert back to the old firmware? is this advised against? does anyone think that Western Digital will release another firmware in the IMMEDIATE future to resolve these issues?

What were they thinking releasing a firmware that places all the movies metadata in with the movie itself (this idea i really do like) But then not allowing that metadata to be viewed outside that folder? i mean, thats just mind boggling stupidity… i cant even phathom it

57

Folks, this may sound confusing.   

With regard to METADATA and  Coverart ICONS not appearing at the FOLDER level instead of the FILE LEVEL:

In *MY* opinion, it *WAS* broken, and that behavior, while desirable to SOME FOLKS, was broken before and is now working as designed.   There were LOTS of people reporting the bad behavior I’m going to describe next.

Here’s what WAS happening.

The INDEX to metadata was based solely on the XML TITLE, without concern as to the FOLDER or file that represented it.

So if you had TWO versions of a movie (Say, “The Fugitive,” which had two releases):

If you did GET CONTENT INFO for ONE version, it would actually apply it to that single file.

Then you go do GET CONTENT INFO for the OTHER version, now BOTH FILES will use THAT data, since the TITLE of both movies is “THE FUGITIVE,”   That’s a database “Collision,” where two records are represented by the same key.   The database wasn’t able to resolve it.   WHICH movie is “THE FUGITIVE?”  The Hub knew that there were TWO of them, but since the TITLES were identical (according to the metadata) it thought it was just two copies of the SAME movie.

It wouldn’t matter WHERE on your drive they were…  Single Folder, Separate folders:   They would BOTH inherit the same data.

Now the XML is placed WITH the file, and obeys the FOLDER structure, so that each one would gets its OWN unique metadata, and that problem should NOT happen now.   So this is fixing a big issue for some people.

But now, since it’s obeying the folder structure, you have to go INTO the folder to see the metadata.

So, the question becomes, if you’re like me, and you have MULTIPLE movies in ONE folder,  which movie’s metadata should be shown when you’re “Highlighting”  a folder?    For example, I have a Folder called “Star Trek,” and inside that are all eleven movies.   WHICH of those should be shown when I select the folder?   I think it’s correct in that it’s showing NOTHING  (although it SHOULD show the folder.jpg inside that big black ugly box.) until I go into the folder.

So we have a structure that provides for separate FOLDER icons versus MOVIE icons…  I would propose to WD that we be able to do the same thing with XML.

If you have ONE movie in a folder, then perhaps a “folder.xml” file could be promoted so that IT shows when you’re hovering over a folder.

58

The only time it’s “Messy” is when you’re browsing it with the computer.   How often do you do that?   

The HUB is going to show the list of movies whether you have them in their own folder or not.

I would think that ya’ll would want to change your view to ALL instead of FOLDERs if you don’t want the FOLDER-based view, no?

59

Guys,

I’m so glad that I read this forum prior making any moves on my Hub.  After reading a few posts, I have become pretty paranoid about flashing this new firmware and then loosing the metadata in the process.  I have spent hours getting my Hub to the way I want it and the cover-art and information generated by the metadata is one of the most important features.  From what I understand now with the metadata folder becoming usless, the data is now stored inside each movie folder individually with the new firmware.

But my questions is this…  if I flash this new firmware, will i be able to use third party software on my PC to generate metadata automatically and have it work on the HUB?  If this is possible, then I may consider the new firmware flash! Actually…  This was the feature I was hoping WD would adopt with an upcoming upgrade. But unfortunatly there is no mention of a featue like this in the release notes…

60

Yes, you can use third party tools to generate the metadata.

There are limitations though, and you’ll have to check the XML structure to see if it matches the HUB’s.

For instance, XBMC NFO uses “PLOT,”  the HUB uses OVERVIEW for the same field, so that would have to be modified.

Also the TITLE is ignored right now.