Mac/PC App to get metadata (posters, backdrops, actors...) for Movies and TV series

Hi,

I just uploaded a simple Mac app to retrieve the metadata ( xml file ) and posters (jpg flies) from the net, so that the WD TV Live Hub can display a rich content making it much more pleasant to use.

The app is available here:  http://tobogan.nozonenet.com/WDFlow

I tried to use PC apps but I had to use virtualization software, but the apps were rather clumsy and somewhat difficult to use. Being a long-time Mac user, I expected more. Most of the time there are Mac equivalents or PC software, but thsi time not. So i decided to develop one,WDFlow.

You’ll find a complete user guide and a FAQ list. Please note that you need the last version of java (1.6). PC and Linux versions of WDFlow could be released in the coming months, if there’s an interest.

In any case, I’ll try to keep the app simple. I appreciate that an app doesn’t both me with many checkboxes and option and is not asking a lot of resources from my computer. WDFlow achieves that, I believe. Hope you’ll find it interesting.

Chris,

5 Likes

Thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as I have the time.

Just downloaded this and love it so far. But the app seems to not download data for movies.

Example: I do a search for the movie title, choose the correct one from the list, and click poster. The poster comes up and then I click save and choose the folder on my WDTV I want to save it in. The progress bar fills like a quarter of the way, then it says Done. When I check the folder on my WDTV Live Hub for that movie, all that is in there is the movie. No XML or poster jpg.

Works great for TV shows.

Does the name of the file have to match what was found in the search “EXACTLY”?

And thanks! Been waiting for something like this for Mac.

~MobbyG

Thanks for your feedback.

The Movies and Series mode operate differently.

  • For series , you’re right: you have to indicate the folder (directory) containing all the episodes belonging to a same series. WDFlow will start a batch process and identify each episode belonging to the folder you selected.

  • For movies , it’s different. Here you have to select the movie itself, not its directory. No bacth process exists , you have to locate the movie  (click on it) and WDFlow will add the required jpg and xml files next to it.

WDFlow does not need to have an exact match between the movie’s title as displayed WDFlow and the filename you select. It does not matter.  Any filename is OK as you are the one deciding which file WDFlow would consider for generating the xml and jpg files. Just make sure that you select the filename and not the directory.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Chris,

Thanks for the reply.

When I just tried that, the movie name was greyed out and wouldn’t allow me to click on it. Here is a screen shot of what I am seeing. Could there be something else I am missing?

Strange, I can’t reproduce this.

Is your folder (TRON) writable? Do you have the admin rights?

Chris,

P.S: I reproduced it. Will correct the bug in the next version.

Ah cool! I like when I find a bug. :slight_smile:

Thanks. I’ll be watching for next release.

Hi MobbyG,

Thought it was a insidious bug, but finally it was simple enough to solve: version 1.0.2 is online.

http://tobogan.nozonenet.com/WDFlow/

Should be Ok now, unless there’s another bug… :wink:

Chris,

Downloaded and it’s working. Thanks for the fix!

Hi,

Just released version 1.0.3.

Nothing fundamentally changed, just cosmetic changes: bigger buttons, bigger font, bigger image.

http://tobogan.nozonenet.com/WDFlow/

Chris,

This program is great. I have been looking around for a great mac app to scan my TV shows. I am having a small problem with it. I have all the episodes from How I Met Your Mother and Ive selected it to run through the whole folder and its generated files for the majority of the shows but there seems to be about 15 out of 140 shows that didnt get .jpg or.xml files for certain episodes. Is there a way to fix this or create ones for the shows it missed. Thanks again for this program

Hi,
My guess is that those episodes did not comply with the naming rules.
Make sure that the season appears First, followed by the episode number. They must be separated by a “x” or be identified as S…E…, where dots represent a number. So, 01x22 or S01E22 represents season 1, episode 22. This can be anywhere within the filename. You can use “x” or “X”, but you have to use capital S and capital E.
Just send an example of the filenames that were not identified, maybe there’s no match in the online database (episode not existing, maybe too recent, errors…). Could be helpful also to test if there’s a bug. Thanks.
Chris,

thanks for the help. I have all the files label S01E01 but the ones that didnt get files were the ones that had lower case letters so Ill fix that and it should be good to go

Thanks for the feedback.

Next version will implement lower cases for the S /E naming rule. 

Also, I noticed that the Western Digital maintains a series of invisible files (starting with a dot) that induces an erratic behavior with WDFlow when the batch procedure is launched by selecting a folder on the media player. Should be an easy fix.

Chris,

What a great job !! This is really awesome - kudos to you!!

Thanks , happy to see that this app is useful.

Version 1.0.4 is on line.

  • Corrected: lack of runtime for TV series
  • Added: new naming rule: small caps are OK, s01e02 is now identified a season 1, episode 2
  • Corrected: a bug linked to the WDTV invisible files (unix stuff  I guess).

http://tobogan.nozonenet.com/WDFlow/

Chris,

Nice work!  Can you add support for m4v files?  I notice for my TV series, the app doesn’t recognize m4v.  But if I change the extension of one of the files to mp4, then it retrieves the metadata and produces the xml.

Thanks for helping out,
Eddie

You’re right, I didn’t implement m4v files.

Will do in next release (soon).

Thanks for the feedback.

Chris,

Hi, 

Version 1.0.5 is on line.

Added: m4v files are now supported.

New: This is the first release of the Windows version, same functionalities, nothing more, nothing less. 

Our unfortunate colleagues who don’t have the benefit of using a Mac  :smiley:  can run WDFlow now.

As a reminder, WDFlow is a solution to get both Movies and TV Series data (xml and jpg files) on the WDTV Live hub.

It took longer than the Mac version to develop because the Windows platform is somewhat less robust than the Mac. 

I tested on a Windows XP PC; shouldn’t behave differently on Vista or Windows 7, but I cannot guarantee this.

Chris,

http://tobogan.nozonenet.com/WDFlow/

Hi Tobogan,

Love your tool - makes life easier for sure !!!

I have a little request for a future update, if you find it possible.

Is it in anyway possible to also make WDFLOW recognize not just 1x01, S01E01, but also 101? I find that a lot of series, especially where many seasons are involved name the files thus. Seinfeld for example, where S03E12 would be named Seinfeld_312_“episodename”.avi. 

I know, its pretty easy for me just to throw an x between the 3 and the 12, 312 = 3x12, but just an idea to make the tool accept one more season-episode format, and become slightly more ■■■■■-proof :-)