Support for TinyMediaManager TV show structure

Hi,

I am having some trouble making Mezzmo use the files/folders structure created by TinyMediaManager to work. I have attached a screenshot of the folder where the TV show is stored. The main show poster is there twice: poster.jpg and folder.jpg. Each episode has its own screenshot/preview image. And, TV series folder has a unique name (YEAR - SHOW_NAME). And I have attached Mezzmo metadata settings, where it is set to use folder.jpg for preview. But that is not working. For the entire show, Mezzmo uses a preview image from the first episode of the series. How to make it use poster.jpg or folder.jpg or how the poster should be named for Mezzmo to use it? Mezzmo uses the NFO file.

Milan

If you haven't already, you might try taking a look at this link under the section on XBMC nfo files. It has the naming structure needed for NFO episodes.


Jeff

I know that, and for movies it works fine, problem are TV shows that ave multiple episodes using XBMC format where Mezzmo ignores both folder.jpg and poster.jpg files for the TV show. Does anyone know how to properly name TV show for Mezzmo to pick up the TV show poster? And, once again, for episodes for TV show Mezzmo picks correct episode artwork.

I checked and have all of my TV shows with each season in a separate subfolder when I rip them or all episodes in a common series folder when doing OTA recordings. I leverage poster.jpg and fanart.jpg. Mezzmo picks them up for the artwork. I don't use a folder.jpg file. For some seasons I use a series.xml file when the episode names don't exactly match TVDB or there are multiple series with the same name.

It's been awhile since I used Tiny Media manager and NFO files but have you looked into the NFO file to see what artwork directives are being assigned. I believe with the NFO metadata setting enabled Mezzmo will follow the NFO artwork directives over the normal file naming convention. If you want to be sure you might try try removing the NFO file and see what happens with the artwork discovery. That will tell you if it's the NFO file or a file naming issue with Mezzmo


Jeff

I already tried without NFO file, folder/poster doesn't get picked and TV show info is broken (I have disabled getting info from the internet). So, if you managed to make it work, it can be, but something in Mezzmo needs to be set up correctly for it to work, and in my case, I am still missing something.

What do your Playlist/Folders metadata retrieval settings look like ?


Jeff

Enabled external files and XBMC, and artwork based on contents of folder. If I disabled that last one, Mezzmo doesn't set any preview image.

Peter is going to have to look at this. I have getting info from the Internet enabled and there may be a tie in there in the logic. I do believe that if you have the Internet retrieval enabled but have poster, fanart files and NFO that they will take precedent. At least that's how it is working for me. You might try that. What version of Mezzmo are you running ?


Jeff

Running latest Mezzmo (always updated), and I experimented a bit yesterday: disabled the option to generate folder artwork based on the content, and I ended up with even stranger results: approx 10% of tv shows now have posters used, and the rest still don't, and I have lost previews for folders that contain the tv shows (I use active/smart playlists). So, something is definitely wrong with the way Mezzmo generates previews.

I added a poster.jpg file in a series folder for NCIS New Orleans\Season 03 as a test then right-clicked on the video in this folder in Mezzmo and selected to Maintain Files. The poster was found and added as the poster for this TV episode. I tried the same with the file named folder.jpg. This is with the default settings for metadata retrieval

Is there a way I can reset the database without loosing the playlists I created? Maybe if all the data Mezzmo collected is removed, it will correctly do this.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a glitch in Mezzmo. I also use TMM to generate .nfo files for TV and Movie files.

It works almost perfectly for movies (except when there is a <colon> in the movie title).

However, Mezzmo just doesn't seem to want to cooperate about 20% of the time when it comes to TV Series and playlists. I have been fighting it for many, many months. These are the settings and setup that I find work best, but there is still a lot of hit and mess. On the playback end, I use playlists exclusively:
Attachment 1272
Attachment 1273
Attachment 1271
Attachment 1274

My screenshots show a few extraneous files like <banner>, <logo> and <clearlogo> on the Series Level and the<xxxxxxxxxx.thumb> on the season level. I don't put them in there anymore but the folders that still have these files have never been affected by their presence.

The quirkiest thing I have seen is that Mezzmo will initially populate the playlist and generate the correct poster for a season, until you actually play an episode. At that point, Mezzmo deletes the existing season poster and replaces it with a thumbnail from one of the episodes in that season. Once you set it back manually, it will stay. I believe this occurs 100% of the time but I haven't paid enough attention to say there aren't instances where it doesn't occur.

If you reset your database, you will lose your playlists and any manually entered changes (speaking from experience). But that's a big reason I use locally stored art and .nfo files. If I do have to nuke it from orbit I have to recreate the playlists but the metadata and artwork populates automatically and rather quickly. Then all I have to do is poke around and do a little deep cleaning.

My TMM settings:
Attachment 1275

I am still using the TVDB and pay the annual fee. There are a few things that I do to get everything set right but I have finally settled on a system. It's been a big learning curve with TV Series. It takes a little extra work and vigilance but it works most of the time and I can usually predict when it won't so that I know what to go in and manually change to get what I want.

I think this issue is slightly different to what the OP is reporting in that the posters for their files are not set as the folder.jpg or poster.jpg where your issue is that the poster for a playlist/folder is being changed from a poster to a screenshot from the files within the playlist/folder.

Resetting the database will remove any playlists you have created. Try going to Metadata Retrieval Settings and click the default button on the Video tab and then click OK. Then go to one of the files that is not getting the folder.jpg or poster.jpg and right-click and select to maintain the file and change the settings to update artwork and update all files and this should replace the screenshot with the folder.jpg or poster.jpg.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

I think this issue is slightly different to what the OP is reporting in that the posters for their files are not set as the folder.jpg or poster.jpg where your issue is that the poster for a playlist/folder is being changed from a poster to a screenshot from the files within the playlist/folder.

Resetting the database will remove any playlists you have created. Try going to Metadata Retrieval Settings and click the default button on the Video tab and then click OK. Then go to one of the files that is not getting the folder.jpg or poster.jpg and right-click and select to maintain the file and change the settings to update artwork and update all files and this should replace the screenshot with the folder.jpg or poster.jpg.

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Yeah, it's not the same. TV Series and Playlists have been such a fickle beast for me that I wanted to share exactly what has worked for me and wanted to warn him about the one quirk I hadn't solved, yet. TV Series and playlist management seems like it is far more complicated than movies and it has been frustrating at times while I tried to figure it out.

From his screenshots, I would suggest putting all of the Season 1 specific files in their own Season 1 folder. I am wondering if Mezzmo isn't discerning whether the folder and poster files pertain to the series or the season. Also, I would turn off getting metadata from the file path and .xml sources. I have learned through a lot of trial and error that less is more.

You may need to uncheck the box in Metadata Retrieval Settings for Playlist/Folders 'Create Artwork based upon contents of folder/playlist' so that Mezzmo does not take the thumbnail of an episode and use it for the playlist poster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

You may need to uncheck the box in Metadata Retrieval Settings for Playlist/Folders 'Create Artwork based upon contents of folder/playlist' so that Mezzmo does not take the thumbnail of an episode and use it for the playlist poster.

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I did that, and after full maintenance, few tv shows indeed got the correct poster, but the rest did not. That's why I asked about the way to reset all data Mezzmo collected without removing the playlists I have set up.

It may be that the rest already have a thumbnail image set in the database so if Maintain library is run with the setting to only update files with missing information then they will not be updated. Try selecting the files then right-click and choose maintain files then select to update all files to see if this updates the artwork.

Yeah, that's what I did. Problem is I have no idea why for some shows Mezzmo uses correct poster, and not for the rest of the shows, because all the shows have same structure of files, same naming schema, everything is the same, but for some shows it uses correct poster.

It could be in the nfo or xml file included in the folder. For a show that does not use the correct poster please have a look in the nfo file to see what image it refers to for the poster. You can also try unchecking the box in Metadata retrieval settings to get metadata from nfo files then run Maintenance on the file to see what poster Mezzmo detects for the file.

I have tried all combinations, spent a week on maintenance nonstop to test, and nothing works. You need better settings in relation to the metadata and artwork used by Mezzmo to avoid confusing priorities order Mezzmo uses to determine what to use, because right now, we are just guessing how it works, and that is no good UX, and even you as an author are not sure what is going on and how Mezzmo decides on what to use.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GDragoN

I have tried all combinations, spent a week on maintenance nonstop to test, and nothing works. You need better settings in relation to the metadata and artwork used by Mezzmo to avoid confusing priorities order Mezzmo uses to determine what to use, because right now, we are just guessing how it works, and that is no good UX, and even you as an author are not sure what is going on and how Mezzmo decides on what to use.

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Truth. I love Mezzmo but the metadata retrieval settings are a downright mystery and getting the correct art to show up for a TV Series takes a lot of work and a generous helping of luck.

Did you check which image file the nfo file references for the poster?

Mezzmo prioritizes metadata files on disk so the nfo file will be the priority to get metadata then the folder.jpg/poster.jpg, then an internet lookup and then getting the screen capture from the movie.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

It could be in the nfo or xml file included in the folder. For a show that does not use the correct poster please have a look in the nfo file to see what image it refers to for the poster. You can also try unchecking the box in Metadata retrieval settings to get metadata from nfo files then run Maintenance on the file to see what poster Mezzmo detects for the file.

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Hi Peter. I am hoping you can point me in the right direction with this. What would be the ideal boxes to check in the <Metadata Retrieval Settings> to make the correct artwork appear.

#1 - The Mezzmo Library
Attachment 1281

Almost everything in my library is displayed via Active Playlists with a few Smart Playlists thrown in there where appropriate. In this case I have "Homeland" in my "Currently Watching" Active Playlist. The posters aren't populating for the series or the Seasons but it is pulling up thumbs for the episodes.

Attachment 1282

Attachment 1283

#2 - Folder/File Structure
This is the folder structure for just about every TV Series that I have. I have circled in RED the posters that I want to have show up in the playlist(s).

Attachment 1284

Attachment 1285

I have tried several different combos of settings for picking art/posters and just can't quite seem to get something consistent or permanent. As you can see, I have the poster in every folder so I don't want art pulled from anywhere but these files names <poster>. The exception is the Episode art that always pulls up correctly based on <episodetitle.jpg.

Based on this information, what settings should I be using?

I recall we added some code to handle this in the past, I went back and looked at the code and you should enable 'Create artwork based on contents of folder/playlist' in http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?...val_settings&s[]=metadata&s[]=retrieval#playlists_folders_tab

The code will loop going up one folder from the location of the files each time and look for a poster.jpg or folder.jpg in this location. So it will look for a poster.jpg or folder.jpg in the same folder as the files then if not found it will go up one folder and so on until the top of the folder structure is reached or a folder.jpg or poster.jpg is found.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

I recall we added some code to handle this in the past, I went back and looked at the code and you should enable 'Create artwork based on contents of folder/playlist' in http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?...val_settings&s[]=metadata&s[]=retrieval#playlists_folders_tab

The code will loop going up one folder from the location of the files each time and look for a poster.jpg or folder.jpg in this location. So it will look for a poster.jpg or folder.jpg in the same folder as the files then if not found it will go up one folder and so on until the top of the folder structure is reached or a folder.jpg or poster.jpg is found.

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So, ONLY <Create artwork based on contents of folder/playlist>?

I shouldn't also choose <Get artwork from external files>?

I ask because after I ran the <Maintain Playlist> I got this:
Attachment 1286

and this

Attachment 1287

For season 1, instead of picking 'poster.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' it picked the episode thumb titled 'Homeland S01E09 Crossfire.jpg'
For season 2, 'Homeland S02E02 Uh... Oh... Ah....jpg'
For season 3, 'Homeland S03E02 Uh... Oh... Ah....jpg'..... Incidentally this is the thumbnail it picked for the Series poster, too.
etc.

Get artwork from external files is only for the files themselves and not for playlists/folders. I have a folder structure the same as yours for testing so I will do some more testing to see if I can reproduce this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

Get artwork from external files is only for the files themselves and not for playlists/folders. I have a folder structure the same as yours for testing so I will do some more testing to see if I can reproduce this.

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I can confirm this. For TV series I have the external files option checked and add a poster.jpg and fanart.jpg file to each folder with the TV episode files. Mezzmo will use these two local files for the episode artwork and then uses the one of episodes to populate the folder artwork. I don't bother trying to set the folder artwork directly with nfo or local artwork files. Setting the episodes with poster and fanart files works fine for me. If I have the the occasion to set a specific folder artwork I do it manually via the GUI.


Jeff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter

Get artwork from external files is only for the files themselves and not for playlists/folders. I have a folder structure the same as yours for testing so I will do some more testing to see if I can reproduce this.

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Welp, did some puttering around on this. Maybe I misunderstood something but I can definitively say, with 100% repeatability, if I haven't selected <Get artwork from external files (<filename>.jpg......)> then I get No Poster art at all.

This doesn't work, ever:
Attachment 1290

This is what I have been doing and it works the majority of the time:
Attachment 1291

Yes I found the same just now when testing with Breaking Bad, I had to have Get Artwork from external files checked.
For the playlist to get the right poster from the series folder I had the default settings on and the active playlist for Season 1 showed the season 1 poster.