How well does the info function work on new TV Live

Also what other info does it give you, access to trailers?

Anyone?

On mine, I have to push the option button while on the movie screen display, to display this list:

View Backdrop Photos

View Info (this is just a larger view of the movie description)

Remove Info

Rescan Info

Watch Trailer from Youtube (I think this depends if there is one on Youtube or not)

Add to Queue

Rate (5 stars total)

Favorite

Move

Copy

Delete

Upload to Facebook

Select Multiple

Hmmmm interesting.

I am considering upgrading from the previous version just so I can gain access to story synopsis’s. I gather it is also dependant upon how well the files are named?  

bobinatcat wrote:

Hmmmm interesting.

I am considering upgrading from the previous version just so I can gain access to story synopsis’s. I gather it is also dependant upon how well the files are named?  

Keep in mind that, at least for now, this function *ONLY* works on USB-attached drives.    Not for NAS yet, and NEVER for DLNA Media Server access.

Yes, it is dependent on how the files are named.

If you use the AUTO Content Collection, it’s even more dependent on the name.   If it cannot find a UNIQUE match for the name, it will not do anything.

If you use MANUAL Content Collection, if it cannot find a unique match, it will give you a choice of close matches, or let you type in a name to go search.

For me, it’s far easier just to look up the information online first, then make sure the filename matches the movie name on the database at www.themoviedb.org   or, for TV shows, www.thetvdb.com

All good as I use USB based anyway; I gave up with NAS’s. 

What do you mean by Auto Content based? 

bobinatcat wrote:

All good as I use USB based anyway; I gave up with NAS’s. 

 

What do you mean by Auto Content based? 

Auto Content collection:  The SMP will get the Thumbnails / metadata automatically.

Manaual Content Collection:  It will do it only if you do “Get Content Info” from the OPTION menu.

Awesome, thanks for all your help everyone.

So now I wonder, given that the new one does RSS and this info mode, is it a worthwhile upgrade? 

Hi bobinatcat,  I was in the same boat and decided to get the SMP two days ago.

It’s definitely a lot fancier and has some cool features over the previous generation.  I find the content info function works really well and as you’d expect.  I used the manual lookup for mine and It’s found most of my titles.  Some required me to manually edit the search term picked, but as Tony said you might be better off naming the files to specification first (I didn’t).  I didn’t use the auto feature because I’ve got a heap of home videos and music videos that wouldn’t be found and might even get mapped incorrectly.

The TV show content info is also really effective and helps me track which episode I’m up to because it shows the episode synopsis.

I haven’t tried the RSS feed yet, but I’ll be looking at that soon.

The interface is really nice and makes use of widescreen displays better than the previous incarnation (tiling of thumbnails, listview columns etc).

I’m still new to the device, but my initial impression is really positive.  I’m still looking at how best to manage my media library settings (rescan settings etc), but looking at this forum I think it sounds like I should be able to make it stop rescanning the library every boot up.

I think custom themes is another cool feature that will keep people interested in this product, another benefit over the Live+.

You can create a queue which “kind of” functions as a Now Playing list builder.  What I mean is you can add different sets of albums to the queue, but you can’t do these at the folder level, just file level.  Thankfully there is a “select multiple” option which you can choose to select all files and have them added, it’s just a bit tedious to get to that menu option.  Hopefully this will be improved in later firmwares, but it does actually get you the end result.  This can also be done for a separate video list as well.  You can’t mix videos with audio in a single list though.

So to answer your question, “is it a worthwhile upgrade?”, I say yes.  It’s early days yet but I’m glad I made the leap from Live+ to SMP.

If you’ve got any other specific feature questions, let me know and I’ll see if I can answer them.

I’m wondering what is the best way to name your TV show episodes in order to find the content info?

Because I’m having some trouble finding the info when I press options followed by “get content info”.

For instance: Family Guy - S01E01 - Pilot.avi or Family Guy - 01x01 - Pilot.avi or maybe without the dashes…?

I’ve noticed when it comes to movie titles that themoviedb.org uses colon instead of dashes. So if your file is called Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen.mkw the content info won’t be found, whereas if you change the dash to a colon in the search field then there is no problem. The only thing is then that it’s not possible in Windows to include a colon in the file name… :S

I don’t know ALL of the TV naming formats, but one that works 100% of the time for me is:

Series Name.SxxEyy.ext

xx= TWO DIGIT Season

yy= TWO DIGIT Episode

(use a leading zero if you need to.)