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[DocLotus]

I use a TV Guide-like program called Digiguide by GipsyMedia Limited to remind me with pop-up reminders of shows that I may want to watch right now (in the USA).

Digiguide can use Schedules Direct (along with several others) for its TV channel description data.

It uses a GipsyMedia "Channel Grabber" (version 1.0 build 26) to get the information from SD or other sites.
http://forums.digiguide.tv/topic.asp?id=21683&subject=READ+THIS%3A+DigiGuide+Listings+Grabber+v1%2E0

One of the neat features of their channel grabber is an Options screen that has (along with other things) the inclusion of IMDb "International Movie Database".
"ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.imdb.com/pub/"

I run the "Get IMDb Data" option (from the Grabber) about once every 6 months; it downloads to my hard drive the following data...

1: Movie Directors.
2: Movie Actors.
3: Movie Actresses.
4: Movie Genres.
5: Movie Ratings (1-5 stars).
6: Color Info.

The user can also specify just how many of each of the above items you want to show up in the Guide data in Digiguide such as...
Movie Directors 4.
Movie Actors 6
Movie Actresses 6
Movie Genres 10

There is a LOT of data; it takes a while to download it all. You never really see the data as the Grabber simply adds it into the information it gets from SD the next time you run the Grabber. The Grabber will use the same data you downloaded to your hard drive.  As the data does not change very often (mostly only when a new movie comes out) I find that updating it about once every 6 months or so to be just fine.

The end results is all 6 items above are added seamlessly into Digiguide along with the SD data.

What I want to know is... can IMDb data be added to MCTV in the future?

That would be simply FANTASTIC to have this very useful data in the TV Description.

[CountryBumkin]

MC will pull all of that data now (except "Color". Actors and Actresses are grouped together). It won't allow you to specify how many items are displayed (as far as I know) - it displays all of the data you set up in the Theater View setup under "Customize File Info panel".

[DocLotus]

Thanks for the info.

The impression I'm slowly getting is that Theater View shows more descriptive information then Standard View. Why is that? Why can't Standard View show as much info as Theater View? It's just text after all.

[DocLotus]

All my movies in Theater View are showing "Rating ? Stars".  I have Ratings for movies set to "Always Show".

Digiguide (pulling the same data from SD along with the inclusion of IMDb data) is showing the Stars Ratings for the same movies.

What can be causing this?

[CountryBumkin]

Standard View has the same data you just need to select what you want to see. I like to do my database maintenance in Standard View Video>Files then I sort by "date imported" to be sure the new recordings at the top. This view gives me all my Video on the same screen. In this view, you add fields to the view by right clicking on the column header and then selecting what to add/see from the popup list.

In Theater View, the info that is displayed is changed in the Options>Theater View>Customize File Info Panel. Note that in this setting area, there are separate settings for Movies, Shows, Video, etc. This is also where you select "hide if value is empty" or always show.

There are three types of ratings, the User applied rating "Rating" (your personal scoring), the "MPPA Rating", and "Critic's rating".

[DocLotus]

That may be part of my problem; I have no Standard View Video>Files. I do have "Video/File Type/Genre/Name" Is that the same? If not, how do I get "Files" to show up under the Video menu? I have tried the usual methods of adding menu items but none of them seem to work here.

There are three types of ratings, the User applied rating "Rating" (your personal scoring), the "MPPA Rating", and "Critic's rating".

Both "MPPA Rating" and "Critic's rating" show as empty in Theater View for Movies, Show all, Hide when value is empty un-checked. So why no rating stars? They do show up in Digiguide for the same movies.

[DocLotus]

Just figured it out... we are talking Apples & Oranges again. You are talking mostly about recorded TV while I'm talking about the TV Description Guide.

Standard View has the same data you just need to select what you want to see. I like to do my database maintenance in Standard View Video>Files then I sort by data imported to be sure the new recordings at the top. This view gives me all my Video on the same screen. In this view, you add fields to the view by right clicking on the column header and then selecting what to add/see from the popup list.

No wonder I don't have any Video/Files in my menu as I have not imported any of my TV recordings. I already know how to do what you are talking about as it is similar to setting up Audio which I've highly customized; that's not what I'm after.

I'm looking for enhancements to the existing Television Description Guide text. This is the area where Theater View shows more information then does Standard View (Genre, Ratings, Dates, Duration, Key Words, etc.). Why is this same information not available in Standard View Description?  

[DocLotus]

In Theater View, the info that is displayed is changed in the Options>Theater View>Customize File Info Panel. Note that in this setting area, there are separate settings for Movies, Shows, Video, etc. This is also where you select "hide if value is empty" or always show.

There are three types of ratings, the User applied rating "Rating" (your personal scoring), the "MPPA Rating", and "Critic's rating".

Just tried an experiment... added to Theater View the following (for Movie)...
* Rating.
* Critic's Rating.
* MPPA Rating.
* MPPA Rating Description.

I unchecked "Hide when value is empty" so I could verify they are actually turned on & I could see if there was any data in the above fields.

I then did a complete reset of the TV Setup so I was starting from scratch with all my TV channels & Program Guide data.

I did the setup (from a clean Reset) two ways using...
* Schedules Direct.
* MS Rovi.

After each clean Reset setup I checked Theater View Guide data for Movies...
There was NO data for any of the above four items; all the items were listed but were blank for all movies that I checked. Digiguide listed them all with 1-5 Star Ratings.

What this tells me is that MCTV mc2xml is not pulling Ratings data from either SD or MS Rovi while Digiguide (with the IMDb option selected) is acquiring the Ratings data.

Sooo... I ask again...
Can IMDb data be added to MCTV in the future?