Tools to create xml / metadata? And WDTVMetaDataEditor problem

Like a lot of people I’ve identified that it’s very boring and time-consuming using the WDTVLH to Get Content Info! Looking around here I see talk of:

 - WDTV Live Hub XML-Editor by “Frillen” - Creates movie metadata from scratch

 - wdtvlivemetadataloader by "the_roggy" - Gets its data from themoviedb.org

 - WDTVMetaDataEditor by "taranu" - Gets its data from iMDb / Amazon

 - WDTVHubGen by “NoSlack913” - Gets its data from MovieDB.org and TVDB.org

 - ThumbGen - Looks to be more graphics oriented but can possibly generate .xml too? (I don’t like installing stuff just to look-see).

 - Media Center Master - Apparently produces xml incompatible with WDTVLH

Apologies if I’ve missed some (stunning) tool by someone - I appreciate the time/effort that goes into such; thank you.

Anyway, basically I’m after something simple just to generate the .xml and .jpg - I’d prefer it to get data from iMDb. Hence I’ve installed WDTVMetaDataEditor. Note - not using iMDb isn’t an absolute show-stopper!

Q0 - What do you folks do - what do you find simplest, easiest, and just works?

Q1 - Can ThumbGen do what I want?

Q2 - Is there any (simple) tool that I’ve missed?

Q3 - My most important question! I’ve told WDTVMetaDataEditor which folders to search down, but it stubbornly refuses to list any movies. I’ve got both .avi and .mkv file types. There are no error messages; nothing. Has anyone else had this problem - how did you fix it please?

Q4 - I’ve seen a comment from “TonyPh12345” saying “User-sourced XML isn’t entirely imported into the Media Library” and “Using Get Content Info *does* import all the data into the Media Library”. If your user-sourced xml is in place and you “Clear Media Library” so it then re-builds, does this have the effect of importing all the user-sourced xml?

MTIA. Steve

Q0: I use WDTVHubGen. It’s simple and it works for me.

Q1: From what I hear, Thumbgen can do it. But I never can get Thumbgen to work for me.

Q2: Notepad will let you do XML but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking for.

Q3: I know that WDTVHubGen is picky about how files are named. If it’s not named a specific way it can’t find their information. I think it’s more of the DB’s it hits than a WDTVHubGen problem. I just rename my files to their plain name (like Avatar.avi not Avatar.Title2.avi) and then it picks it up.

Q4: Don’t know about that.

1 Like

Q4:   If you provide your own XML (through the use of any of these tools) the Hub does NOT import it into the media library.

In effect, the only place this XML is useful is in the Gallery View, where it is viewable.

It is not in the Media Library, so it’s not Sortable / Searchable / etc.

Clearing the Media LIbrary does not “force” it to import the XML data.  But it does wipe out all the data from the internal Media Library. 

1 Like

Many thanks ClintDavis and TonyPh12345.

Clarification re’ Q3. It’s not that WDTVMetaDataEditor won’t find a particular movie in any database, it’s that it won’t list any of my movies, full stop, i.e. I can’t even get to the point where I ask it to look up a movie in the database. I can’t get it to recognise (list within the application) any of my movie files, period, though I’ve played around with naming, etc. Thoughts?

Re’ Q4. So, the position as I understand it then is, display-wise, you can either have the title the Hub wants to give your film (as found via Get Content Info) and enjoy Hub searchability, or have it displaying as the folder name or file name (with suffix) without Hub searchability? No other options? Put another way, if the Hub retrieves and remembers “A Fistful of Dollars” under its original title “Per un pugno di dollari” I don’t believe I’m able to change it back to "A Fistful of Dollars" without removing it from the Hub’s memory and thus rendering it not fully searchable, am I? And films that don’t retrieve at all, I’m guessing can never be properly seachable, without me adding it to themoviedb.org I guess?

As always, MTIA. Steve

Q4:  You’ve got it!

1 Like

Aargh, annoying Q4 dead end - has me thinking about further investigating the Hub homebrew firmware I’ve seen mentioned somewhere, but even there I’m aware it voids warranty and screws up some Services :frowning:

Any more takers re’ Q3 please?

MTIA. Steve

I used HubGen, WDTVMeta Editor and Thumbgen. If you just want XML’s and Thumbs then you can use HubGen and WDTVMeta editor.

But, like you mentioned WDTV meta editor wont recognize all the media formats and even some files in correct format. And it is time consuming compare to “HubGen”. HubGen list all the files and you have an option process files automatically. It will group the unprocessed files and you can do a lookup and choose from the returned list or you can rename directly and search for correct titles. Even HubGen won’t recognize few file formats.

I use HubGen and create batch xml’s then I use thumGen and in the filter , I just chioose files without  info to list the missed one and generate the info for only the missed ones.

But if you want movie sheets, meta data (TGMD) you need to use ThumbGen. Hope this info will helpful to you.

1 Like