Actor / Actress Image Artwork

[jbinkley60]

I've uploaded version 1.0.5 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker. This version has few key
new features including adding TMDB image retrieval, addition of a statistics display
and a number of user friendliness enhancements.

Features and fixes:

v1.0.5

- Added TMDB image fetching. The Mezzmo Addon Checker will check for missing
artwork at TMDB first and if not found will then check IMDB if an IMDB API
key has been entered in the config.txt file. IMDB checking requires an
IMDB API Key which is available at: https://imdb-api.com/pricing
The first 100 IMDB checks per day can be done with a free key. TMDB image
checking is free with the already supplied key in the config.txt file.
*** Do not modify the TMDB API Key information. ***
- Added checking for existing images in the IMDB and TMDB folders. If an actor
/ actress image file exists (i.e. hasn't been copied to the Mezzmo UserPoster
folder yet) it will be detected and skipped vs. being overwritten.
- Improved IMDB artwork matching for records further down in the IMDB API response
- Made all command line arguments case insensitive
- Bad image option can now include file extension or not. (i.e. john-doe or
john-doe.jpg are both good and case insensitive too.)
- Added statistics display at the end of running the Mezzmo Artwork checker. The
stats are a way to gain quick insight without running a CSV export.
- Added UserPoster match "no" status rechecking to see if file pointing to no
Mezzmo actor was removed / renamed.


Managing bad images from IMDB / TMDB is much simpler now. Just drag the bad image
to the "bad images" folder and then run the checker with the bad command line argument.
This will mark it bad in the tracker database. If you later find a good image copy it to
your UserPoster folder, delete it from "bad images" and the tracker will pickup the change
the next time it is run.

Hopefully the statistics view is helpful. It pops up after the Mezzmo Artwork Checker
completes. Here's a sample output:


************ Mezzmo Artwork Checker Stats *************

Last time checker ran:	2022-03-22 04:43:08
Mezzmo actors found:	68663
Mezzmo Poster files found:	48361
Mezzmo Poster files without actor:	10877
Mezzmo UserPoster files found:	5002
Mezzmo UserPoster files without actor:	0
Mezzmo actors with Good Image:	41984
Mezzmo actors with Bad Image:	156
Mezzmo actors with no Image:	26516
Mezzmo actors with no Image found:	1733

Installation and suggested usage instructions can be found here on GitHub.


Please let me know if you have questions, find bugs or have recommendations
for improving this tool.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

I've uploaded version 1.0.6 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker. This version has few key
new features and performance enhancements.

Features and fixes:

v1.0.6

- Added detection and marking of actors / actresses which have been removed
from the Mezzmo database. They will be marked deleted in the actorArtwork
table mezzmoChecked column but they will not be deleted from the table. If
they are later added again to Mezzmo, they will be detected. Mezzmo deletions
will be seen in the statistics display at the end. You can get the specific
details with a CSV export.
- Image fetching for TMDB and IMDB will no longer check for images which are
already found on Mezzmo. This will reduce the time required to cycle through
missing images.
- Increased the maximum TMDB / IMDB config file query counts from 500 to 1000.
- Added an IMDB server busy detector to stop fetching after 3 consecutive server
busy responses.
- Minor cosmetic improvements with error messages and the statistics display.

I hope you find the updates helpful and more user friendly. With my own Mezzmo
actor database of over 68,000 entries, I have realized just how handy this tool is.

So far I have added over 6,000+ new images to my Mezzmo instance in the
UserPoster folder. I am 6,500 entries away from my first complete cycle of the
Mezzmo actor database entries. The fist time through is taking awhile to review
the images which have been fetched., I expect the second pass to go much faster
since far fewer images would have likely been added to TMDB / IMDB in the past
couple of weeks.

One enhancement I am considering is the ability to force fetching artwork for
specific actors / actresses. Right now the tool queries TMDB and IMDB by the
actor / actress which has the oldest (or never) last checked update time. I am
thinking of adding the ability for you to create a file, maybe called: "images.txt"
where you can add an entry per line by filename or actor name and the tool would
detect the file and check for artwork for those entries. This would allow quickly
checking a set of actors / actresses without having to check manually or wait
till the tool cycles through the database.

Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.7 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has few key new features and minor fixes.


Features and fixes:

v1.0.7

- Fixed issue where newly added Mezzmo actors would get marked deleted on
the first run of the Mezzmo Artwork checker after being added and then added
on the second run. Now new Mezzmo actors are first to be queued for missing
artwork.
- Added statistics for the current run of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker, in
addition to the overall statistics. The current run statistics will be
shown fist.
- Added an images command line option to override the config.txt settings
for TMDB / IMDB query count. Now you can specify how many actors to query
on the command line. Otherwise the Mezzmo artwork checker will use the
config file values.

Example command: mezzmo_actor.py images 100 (100 actor image query)


These last few tweaks and minor modifications I have found very handy after
running over 70,000+ image checks against IMDB and TMDB. I hope you find
these enhancements useful.


Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[martyd]

It's a great little utility, Jeff. Thanks for making it available to us all.

One thing thing I think may be a bug, though. In the summary after an image search, it always lists IMDB queries as 30, even when it has skipped a number of them due to already having found the image on TMDB.

And a suggested feature, although I don't know how easy it would be to code: create a list (csv) of similarly named actors so we can pick up duplicates due to misspellings. I have found some actors with diacritics (think Michael Bublé) sometime listed without (Buble). Sometimes a middle initial, sometimes not, etc.

[jbinkley60]

It's a great little utility, Jeff. Thanks for making it available to us all.

One thing thing I think may be a bug, though. In the summary after an image search, it always lists IMDB queries as 30, even when it has skipped a number of them due to already having found the image on TMDB.

And a suggested feature, although I don't know how easy it would be to code: create a list (csv) of similarly named actors so we can pick up duplicates due to misspellings. I have found some actors with diacritics (think Michael Bublé) sometime listed without (Buble). Sometimes a middle initial, sometimes not, etc.

You are correct on the stats for the current run of the utility. The query count for both IMDB and TMDB are simply the count from the configuration file or the command line, if you entered a command line value. I'll give it some thought as to changing it to reflect a true query to IMDB or TMDB. Right now it reflects how many actors were checked and not necessarily API calls / fetches to IMDB / TMDB to do a true image check.

I like your idea on the actors. You can actually do this somewhat now by doing a CSV export and then filtering the actorArtwork table checkStatus column on "No actor match" and then sort the actor column in ascending order. That will get close.

I've been looking at the "No actor found at ..." and missing image results. These are almost all source issues from TMDB which are either typos, differences in spellings etc. except in situations where there are no real images available. There is an ability for accepting results from IMDB / TMDB which are "close matches" of the actor name for the misspellings and similar. Right now the utility does a strict match on the name spelling and role (i.e. actor or self). What I have been pondering is the best way to resolve the source errors. Ideally it would be fix the source at IMDB / TMDB. Next best is manually update the Mezzmo metadata which would require reverse mapping to the Mezzmo entry, updating and then locking it so that a future maintenance activity wouldn't update from the source or creating a user poster entry with a copy of the actor image but with the improper name to match what is in Mezzmo.

I've done the last option a couple of times so far as a test and it's worked. Removing the strict checking (or making it an option) would do the same thing in that the resulting image file would be aligned to the misspelled name which came back from IMDB / TMDB with the image. For the reverse mapping I'd need to pull more info from the Mezzmo database and map it back to the Mezzmo entry to add the data to a CSV export. The other option I have used for testing is simply do a search in the Mezzmo Kodi client for an improper actor name.

I am open to ideas and suggestions. The challenge here is the accuracy of these Internet databases. The good news is this tool can help find the errors.


Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.8 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has few key new features and minor fixes.


Features and fixes:

v1.0.8

- Fixed issue where images for actors deleted from Mezzmo were still being
fetched from TMDB / IMDB.
- Improved current run counters to show number of queries requested vs.
number attempted.
- Added statistics to show Mezzmo actors not found on TMDB/IMDB. These are
often typos and bad data from TMDB/IMDB for specific movies / episodes.



Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.9 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has a major new feature to help manage your Mezzmo data.


New Feature:

v1.0.9

- Added "noactor" command line option which will provide the Mezzmo data
(i.e. movie title and file name) for any actor / actress which isn't found
on IMDB and TMDB. These are typically typos, improper spellings, other
name variations and similar. Actors deleted from Mezzmo are not included
in the CSV file.


Now you can easily backtrack actors / actresses in Mezzmo to the video / audio
files which have their metadata and decide how you want to resolve.


Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.10 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has a minor enhancement to address the recent higher than
normal failure rate from IMDB which would cause processing of images to
stop prematurely.


New Feature:

v1.0.10

- Added retry setting in the configuration file for IMDB. Previously the
default would be to stop fetching images after 3 consecutive failures. The
new default is 5 retries and can be set as high as 10.


I've been using this utility for a few months now and have fetched over
12,000 additional images from TMDB / IMDB for actors and actresses.


Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.11 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has additional enhancements to help manage when higher than
normal failure rates from IMDB occur which would cause processing of images
to stop prematurely or skip actors / actresses.


New Features v1.0.11:


• Changed retry setting to be per actor / actress based vs. session based to
improve image retrieval success rate when IMDB is busy.
• Added IMDB query success rate calculation to quickly see how busy IMDB is
for a retrieval session.


I've been using this utility for a number of months now and have fetched over
13,000 additional images from TMDB / IMDB for actors and actresses.


Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff

[jbinkley60]

Version 1.0.12 of the Mezzmo Artwork Checker has been uploaded to GitHub.
This version has a minor bug fix for the IMDB success rate feature change in
version 1.0.11. It was possible to get success rates higher than 100% with
the previous version.


New Features / Fixes in v1.0.12:


• Fixed IMDB success rate calculation


I've been using this utility for a number of months now and have fetched over
14,000 additional images from TMDB / IMDB for actors and actresses.


Feedback is welcome.


Thanks,

Jeff