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[kensn]

Having the year automatically put in the Season, if no Season data exists, seems to be blocking the automatic lookup by description for recorded TV shows.

If I remove the Season, which currently contains 2015, then the lookup will work properly.

Can the Season and Episode be left blank if there is no data so the new lookup by description can take over?

Ken

[RoderickGI]

That sounds like a good idea. The Season = Year workaround is no longer required. Or perhaps only required if the lookup to TheTVDB fails to find a match. But for me, not required at all, although I know some people specifically requested it.

Do note however that some series actually have a year recorded in TheTVDB as the Season number.

[Hendrik]

Having a value in Season should not prevent the lookup, as long as Episode is still empty. It would only not use the description if an Episode is set.

[CountryBumkin]

I posted this in another thread but I think it is more relevant here.

I hope you will also consider adding some look-up logic to deal with the issue I have which is that I'm not always getting "Season Number" from the EPG data source, a lot of times I get "Season Year" and in that case the lookup feature doesn't work since a four digit Season number (year) is not valid. I do get the correct Episode Number.

Perhaps you could also add some programming magic to have the MC look-up process ignore the "Season" field if it is four-digits, and use that field if it is two-digits.

So for Series="NOVA", Season="2013", Episode="13", Name="Metor Strike" the look-up fails.
But for Series="NOVA", Season="40", Episode="13", Name="Meteor Strike" the look-up works.

This assumes that the TV Series episode metadata can still be found with just "Series Name, Episode Name, and Episode Number".

[Hendrik]

Perhaps you could also add some programming magic to have the MC look-up process ignore the "Season" field if it is four-digits, and use that field if it is two-digits.

There are series which use the year as a season, though.
Maybe we can make it re-try without the season if the lookup failed the first time though.

[kensn]

Yes my Episodes are correct and populated most of the time, it is just the Season gets populated with the Year if a value is not found. If the Year is correct for a particular show then the lookup by Season - Episode should still work for it. The Season can be populated if a correct value is found. I was just suggesting not populating it with the year if a value was not found.

Ken

[RoderickGI]

I was just suggesting not populating it with the year if a value was not found.

I agree. I'm sure there was some logic in the CARNAC code somewhere that put the year in the Season tag if the Season was unknown, and there was a year in the file name or something. I recall a discussion on it some time back.

I would actually suggest that if a match is found based on Series and Episode names, and that the Season field already has a different value in it, maybe just the year or maybe any value, that MC overwrite the existing Season number tag with the match it found on TheTVDB.
EDIT: I just did a test and an incorrect year value in the Season number does get overwritten when a match from TheTVDB is found. So all good there.

I know MC doesn't usually overwrite tag values in these situations, but I think it should in this case.

PS: We okay discussing this in the public forum?

[kensn]

PS: We okay discussing this in the public forum?

Yea... thought about that after the post was up for a while already......

[imeric]

Having a value in Season should not prevent the lookup, as long as Episode is still empty. It would only not use the description if an Episode is set.

Testing this it seems the behaviour is the other way around ie it should go like this:

Having a value in Episode should does not prevent the lookup, as long as Episode Season is still empty.

[imeric]

There are series which use the year as a season, though.
Maybe we can make it re-try without the season if the lookup failed the first time though.

If this is the case where the year is the correct season number how would TVDB lookup behaves? Shouldn't it return something or it just doesn't like having four digits for the Season? (or anything populated? for that matter?)

[kensn]

Has there been any more thought on this???

[RoderickGI]

Testing this it seems the behaviour is the other way around ie it should go like this:

Having a value in Episode should does not prevent the lookup, as long as Episode Season is still empty.

Based on my testing yesterday, if either the Season or Episode tag is empty, MC will look up TheTVDB based on Series and Episode names.

If this is the case where the year is the correct season number how would TVDB lookup behaves? Shouldn't it return something or it just doesn't like having four digits for the Season? (or anything populated? for that matter?)

Based on my experience with EPG Collector, when MC queries TheTVDB about a Series, the site returns a zip file that contains all current Episode information for that series. MC then extracts the data from the zip file, and looks up the Episode data locally. The Series name match is the key to getting data from TheTVDB, unless MC already knows the value of "TheTVDB Series ID", in which case it finds the series based on that number. As I said in the other thread, you can see that data cached in "C:\Users\[UserID]\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Cache\TheTVDB\Series".

If a year is stored in the Season tag, and the Episode tag contains a valid value (I think it needs to be numeric, but I'm not sure), MC will look up the data locally based on the Season and Episode numbers. It does not care if the Season is a four digit number. The correct information will be returned if MC finds a match to the Season and Episode numbers.

If the lookup based on Season and Episode numbers fails, MC could try a lookup based on Series and Episode names, from the cached Series data, as long as MC does cache Series information for unsuccessful episode lookups. It should. Otherwise MC would have to lookup TheTVDb again, which could considerably increase the load on the site. That may not be a good thing.

[CountryBumkin]

In my testing - it matters if there is a year (yyyy) in the Season field because the Get Movie &TV info tool converts it to SyyyyExx. If you then delete the Season Year (Standard View>Video>Files) when you do a Get Movies & TV Info lookup, MC puts a "0" in the blank Season field. This stops the lookup from working. If you are in the "Get Movie & TV Info" process where it now says No Results Found, and you go to the search window and remove the "S0" the lookup will work (based on Name and Episode Number).

So the question is - "why is MC putting a "0" in a "blank" Season field? Can this be stopped?

[RoderickGI]

In the above situation, if you delete the Episode number instead of the Season (year) number, the lookup will work.

MC never does a lookup based on Series Name and Episode number. If there isn't a valid Season and Episode number in the tags, it looks up the data using Series name and Episode name.

I'm pretty sure Hendrik said why the "0" was put in the lookup instead of leaving it blank, but I haven't searched for what he wrote. Regardless, the real answer is in this post.

[imeric]

I just tried it and I see the exact same behavior so you're both correct!!.


SO, for my Good Wife guinea pig it goes like this: 

S2016E12 does not work
S0E12 does not work
E12 Works
S0 Works
S2016 Works
The Good Wife Alone Works

Thx RoderickGi.

[RoderickGI]

Of course CountryBumkin is correct. He is our USA (and Canada) EPG source expert and tester!

What I meant was, if you delete the Episode number instead of the Season (year) number, there is no need to modify the "Get Movie & TV Info" search criteria. The lookup will work without criteria change, so it is one less step.

I was trying to keep my posts shorter...

[kensn]

So back to my original question...

Can the default behavior of putting in the Year as a Season number, if no Season number is found be changed??

Ken 

[imeric]

And I second that motion  !!!

[CountryBumkin]

So back to my original question...

Can the default behavior of putting in the Year as a Season number, if no Season number is found be changed??

Ken 

+1

[Yaobing]

I just tried it and I see the exact same behavior so you're both correct!!.


SO, for my Good Wife guinea pig it goes like this: 

S2016E12 does not work
S0E12 does not work
E12 Works
S0 Works
S2016 Works
The Good Wife Alone Works

Thx RoderickGi.

For this particular series, does S0E0 work?

[CountryBumkin]

No matter what you do there will always be someone who wants it another way.

IMO, I think it is best to let the fields "fill" when there is data available for that specific field, and leave the field empty when there is no data.

[Yaobing]

I made a change so that automatic Movie & TV Info look up will retry, first setting episode to 0, then if still no result, setting season 0.

So, for example, if S2016E12 does not work, we try S2016E0.  If that still does not work, we try S0E0.

[imeric]

Hi Yaobbing. I'm afraid that won't work...(With my experience with Rovi anyway)

The episode is usually available and accurate from the Rovi EPG. The season is the culprit so that is what I would take out Entirely ONLY IF the returned values from the EPG is either null or the year...  

I've never run into a case where the year is the season number so it would make more sense to keep the episode and get rid of the season entirely...
And if there is a case where the year is the season number and it was taken out by the suggested implementation, TVDB will still be smart enough to find it based on this new feature:

Searching by series name and episode name is actually a very recent addition to MC.  Previously we required season number and episode number.

If you use an EPG source providing the correct Season and episode then it should be passed through and used for the search as this will work as per here from my tests:
The Good Wife S0E12 does not work
The Good Wife S2016E12 does not work
The Good Wife E12 works.
The Good Wife S7E12 Works
The Good Wife S07E12 Works
I know that the season alone works but I would favor the episode over season since it's available with the native mc2xml (Rovi) in MC.  So yes...
The Good Wife S0 also Works so does
The Good WIfe S2016.

To summarize what I would do is keep the episode number and take out entirely any season numbers (if Null or >99) from the EPG.

Thanks for following up on this and if you need clarification don't hesitate to ask I'll gladly help!!!

[imeric]

I made a change so that automatic Movie & TV Info look up will retry, first setting episode to 0, then if still no result, setting season 0.

So, for example, if S2016E12 does not work, we try S2016E0.  If that still does not work, we try S0E0.

May I suggest the following logic which is more simple and IMHO would work based on my tests?

"I made a change so that automatic Movie & TV Info lookup will retry by getting rid of any season info"

That's it. Nothing else.  No change on the episode number and if the TVDB didn't return anything the first time due to an invalid or Null Season Number just get rid of it ENTIRELY for the retry. 

[Yaobing]

Three comments:

1. Wait for the next build and try it.
2. A specific scheme may work for a particular show, but may not work for all shows.  So it is hard to generlize.
3. I do not see you listing "The Good Wife S0E0".  Does it work or not if you enter that in GUI mode?

[Yaobing]

According to Hendrik, passing episode number without season number does not make sense.  It confuses the server at the best.  It might have worked on some specific series of shows, but may not always work on all shows.

[imeric]

There are series which use the year as a season, though.
Maybe we can make it re-try without the season if the lookup failed the first time though.

Just looking at Hendrik's post and he's suggesting the exact same logic I am proposing.

And I also tried this with 4-5 shows and always had the same results back from TVDB.

Yes I can do that Yaobbing no problem. But having either S0 or S2016 + EXX  never worked for me.

[imeric]

Yaobbing I just tested The Good Wife S0E0 and this works!! (Doesn't make sense to me but it works!!!)

[RoderickGI]

I made a change so that automatic Movie & TV Info look up will retry, first setting episode to 0, then if still no result, setting season 0.

So, for example, if S2016E12 does not work, we try S2016E0.  If that still does not work, we try S0E0.

That sounds brilliant Yaobing, and should work in all cases where there is data available on TheTVDB.

Thank you.

According to Hendrik, passing episode number without season number does not make sense.

I agree.

[Hendrik]

Just looking at Hendrik's post and he's suggesting the exact same logic I am proposing.

Not quite, my comment of course implied that not passing a Season number would also mean not passing an Episode number.
Season/Episode really only make sense as a pair. Just Season alone + Episode Name could be useful to improve accuracy of the name match, but just Episode # without Season is not something the lookup supports.

Please be aware that the only syntax the lookup supports is "Show SxEx", any variations of that (like skipping either the S or E  part) will cause the lookup to do something unpredictable (I think it uses the full string to search for the show, instead of splitting off season/episode info).
In consequence that means that "Show" and "Show S0E0" will do the same thing, lookup without season/episode info.

[imeric]

Thx Hendrik for taking the time to provide this very detailed explanation.
It goes a long way and this type of feedback helps us help you with the development and making the tool better!!!
(Instead of just making false assumptions or a trial and error approach because I don't understand how the tool works...It can help us test with focus )

Very much appreciated!!
Now that I understand the logic in the tool it all makes sense.  

I'm now convinced what Yaobbing has implemented will work

Thx folks.

[muzicman0]

Something I have wondered...when does this lookup happen?  If I look at details in the guide from theater view, will season and episode info show, or is it not until recording?  If it is at recording, is it early enough that the filename will be formatted with SxxExx filename?

[Yaobing]

Something I have wondered...when does this lookup happen?  If I look at details in the guide from theater view, will season and episode info show, or is it not until recording?  If it is at recording, is it early enough that the filename will be formatted with SxxExx filename?

Right now the look up is done only for video files, i.e. already recorded, not on EPG programs.  No the look up happens after the recording is done.  So the filename will not be changed.

[CountryBumkin]

So, this how it works - please jump in if I got this wrong somehow. 

1) You record a TV Show. The Show's metadata (name, description, series, season, episode, etc.) comes from the EPG data source.

2) After the recording is finished, and when
         (i) you have the Auto-Import tool set up to watch the recording folder, and when
         (ii) the "Get Movie & TV Info tool" is told to run on imports, MC will use the metadata provided from the EPG source to look up the TV Show and add any missing data (and overwrite any existing meta data - including replacing Season Year with Season Number) using  the data from "TheTVdb.com".

If you don't have the "Get Movie & TV Info" tool set to run on import, the process stops at step 1.

[muzicman0]

Thats cool.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for my work flow, so I will continue to use the SD EPG data.

[RoderickGI]

Thats cool.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for my work flow, so I will continue to use the SD EPG data.

That is also why I am still using EPG Collector to gather and then enhance EPG data from TheTVDB. The enhanced data really needs to be available in the EPG.

Right now the look up is done only for video files, i.e. already recorded, not on EPG programs.  No the look up happens after the recording is done.  So the filename will not be changed.

However, I would still like to see the ability to run the "Get Movie & TV Info" function against [Media Type] = "TV" and [Media Sub Type] = "TV Show" so that at least for individual programs I could fix the EPG data using TheTVDB lookup where I see problems, before it goes to air. Although maybe the next EPG data load would overwrite the corrections. I'm not sure on that, as changes I have made manually seem to persist. But I haven't tested thoroughly.

Of course that could lead to other functionality like doing the lookup for any program selected to be recorded, or for all programs in the Guide after the EPG data was loaded...