Manually Correct Wrong TV Shows/Movies (Like we could in Alpha?)

[CorneliousJD]

Why was this feature removed? I think it was very handy when you run into something that shows up wrong, you could go to more info and tell it "Wrong Movie?" and you could imput text and select it from a list.

Why has this feature been removed? Are we likely to see it come back?

[NomadDNA]

This feature was disabled only during beta pre-release.

http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-3320

[CorneliousJD]

Oh good, I think I can manage until then ;) Haha.

Beta looks great though, just intalled today, hope the team keeps up the amazing work.

[KSU_ToeBee]

So... this didn't make it in to the January 7th release :(

[agentlame]

So... this didn't make it in to the January 7th release :(

Correct, but you CAN submit missing/incorrect movies and TV shows:
http://forum.boxee.tv/announcement.php?a=4

[darcilicious]

So... this didn't make it in to the January 7th release
Correct, but you CAN submit missing/incorrect movies and TV shows:
http://forum.boxee.tv/announcement.php?a=4

Which does get things fixed. I've noticed that over time, mis-identified shows that I've reported are getting identified correctly now.

[kikkegek]

but will it stay like this? or will the feature to manually change the movie return for the users?

[cmendill]

While I appreciate boxee presenting some sort of solution for missing TV shows and Movies, this spreadsheet method is completely impractical. Boxee flat out misses 44 of my movies. I don't have the time or desire to first try to figure out which 44 those are, and then report them one by one. We need a better solution.

[agentlame]

Relax it will return.

This is Beta software, and will be for the next year. Things will be missing from time-to-time.

Also, the spreadsheet is a better solution. I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather report these issues once, and have them fixed for good. Manual recognition has the down side of requiring you to do it each time you re-install Boxee. 44 x 1 = 44... 44 x ∞ = ∞.

[cmendill]

Relax it will return.
Also, the spreadsheet is a better solution. I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather report these issues once, and have them fixed for good.

Yes, but this requires a lot of work and time, and it is unclear to me why it is necessary. I'm sure there is not a unique reason why each individual missing movie is not recognized. There are probably a few different categorical reasons why boxee might miss a movie (assuming the user is following the correct naming convention) and they undoubtedly have to do with how the software searches IMDb. That seems to me like a problem the developers could fix with a few different test files, not thousands of painstakingly submitted filenames. I'm also sure that the developers and mods have huge movie libraries themselves that aren't 100% recognized. Those should provide enough test cases to get the algorithm working.

If the current naming conventions for movies and TV are not unique enough, then we should have more informative naming conventions. How about adding the IMDb index number to the file name. I would prefer doing that if I knew it would guarantee the movie would be recognized.

[StevenR]

I would hope that they are working on a solution which combines the advantages of the old manually resolve feature and the current spreadsheet solution. By that I mean that we should be able to manually resolve or correct our movies and TV shows to get immediate corrections, but also be prompted to automatically submit our correction to Boxee so the central data can be checked and modified as required so other people will get corrections.

[darcilicious]

That's a great idea!

[cmendill]

Perhaps after allowing you to manually resolve the title, boxee could offer to change the filename to something it knows it can parse correctly. That would save you from having to repeat the process in future versions of Boxee.

[agentlame]

Perhaps after allowing you to manually resolve the title, boxee could offer to change the filename to something it knows it can parse correctly. That would save you from having to repeat the process in future versions of Boxee.

This is unlikely to happen. For the same reason there is no delete option, Boxee does not edit your files, ever.

[cmendill]

Ok, then maybe instead of manually resolving the file and changing its listing in Boxee, it could recommend a new filename that you can copy and use to rename the file back out in the OS.

I just don't think there should be a hybrid of manual and automatic file recognition, and as you said, you should be able to solve the problem for future versions of boxee. If the boxee team doesn't think they will be able to get to a fool-proof parsing/searching algorithm, then maybe we should add IMDb ID numbers to filenames. At least that would give us a workable fallback.

Also, none of this applies to movies that are flat out skipped by Boxee. Maybe you force boxee to include everything and just name the unresolved files "Unknown Movie". Then you could go thru and fix each one. I never used local files in the alpha, so I don't know how the manual resolving used to work.

[Fuzzgtp]

Also, none of this applies to movies that are flat out skipped by Boxee. Maybe you force boxee to include everything and just name the unresolved files "Unknown Movie". Then you could go thru and fix each one. I never used local files in the alpha, so I don't know how the manual resolving used to work.

I think you should post this on getsatisfaction. Looks like a good idea to me.

[majesticix]

The manually resolve worked fine for me in Alpha. I don't imagine in the future users will be required to completely uninstall Boxee and reinstall for updates. I should hope not anyway, there should be an auto-update for this system like any other quality piece of software.

I think the manual option is a must in the very least since trying to require all users to conform to a file naming convention is impossible. I like the idea of submitting a file name to the Boxee database through the Boxee app, but that allows for a lot of poor naming conventions being submitted.

The only way this is going to work from the way I can see it, is a well developed algorithm that recognizes a few of the most common naming conventions (Movie Title, Movie Title (YEAR), Movie.Title.YEAR). Use of the IMDB number would be fool proof, so why not add that as a possible naming convention).

Then, if you're movie isn't properly cataloged, through Boxee, you can manually edit this information. Assuming you never have to erase your user data and can update the Boxee application, you're set. It would even be nice to have the ability to backup your user data just in case you ever have to completely reinstall the software fresh.

I think as a Beta user, we could recognize that at this point, we may have to completely reinstall the system and loose this manual data entry, but assuming the Boxee team comes up with an auto-update in the future, I don't see the problem.

One effective way for users with lots of movies, is upon completion of a folder scan, it tells you which file names it could not associate a movie/tv episode for and then you can go through these manually and edit the info. That way you don't have to hunt down which movies are missing as you do now with Beta.

NOTE: The Alpha algorithm was better than Beta though, because it recognized all my movies (maybe not correctly for all, but it did pick up all of them). As it stands currently, all of my movies are named [ Movie Title (YEAR) ]. I also have an .NFO file associated to each of them after using Ember Media Manager to correctly identify and name all of my movies. This is going above and beyond what most normal users would do, and there are still 3 movies I cannot get recognized:

1408 (2007)
Family Guy Something, Something, Something Dark Side (2009)
The 'burbs (1989)

[guitmusic11]

I'm particularly annoyed by the inability to manually edit information and am incredibly disappointed that this was not included in the January 7th release.

For instance, this does not work where I have the pixar short films dvd, seperated into each film. I end up with the same cover showing up 11 times in my movies database where i could potentially set them as a tv show or at least differentiate between covers.

Also I have about 20 movies that are not recognized, and rather than fill out a spreadsheet requesting them it would be MUCH more convenient for me to add them manually.

[Fuzzgtp]

The manually resolve worked fine for me in Alpha. I don't imagine in the future users will be required to completely uninstall Boxee and reinstall for updates. I should hope not anyway, there should be an auto-update for this system like any other quality piece of software.


You do realize that the reason there is no 'auto-update' is due to the fact that they want to test this stuff and make it better. If everyone's libraries hadnt changed since alpha, then it would be impossible to get any kind of results for fixing the scraping.

[hutmacher]

what about something simple like searching the current directory for xml w/ a matching name and using that information? then a user could manually create an xml or text file in a pre-defined format which will override the internet searching? OR have the file contain the URL to the IMDB 'movie to use'. then you could have settings that describe what order to search for stuff (matching xml first then internet etc)....

[scottdye]

what about something simple like searching the current directory for xml w/ a matching name and using that information? then a user could manually create an xml or text file in a pre-defined format which will override the internet searching? OR have the file contain the URL to the IMDB 'movie to use'. then you could have settings that describe what order to search for stuff (matching xml first then internet etc)....

That's what XBMC (the open-source software Boxee is based on) does - they are called .nfo files. They are either an xml file with the metadata in a particular format, or they are just a URL to a page on thetvdb.org.

I don't believe Boxee is using nfo files, unfortunately. I believe they are not using thetvdb database either, and instead are using IMDB.

I don't particularly like having to create nfo files when using XBMC, but if that guarantees that my files would get displayed properly then I'm all for the option. Also, I have some video files that I have created (or even some obscure shows) that I would like to force to be shown in the TV Shows area, even though IMDB would not want anything to do with it. Having something like an nfo file allows this to happen.

I'm curious to see how Boxee handles this situation - for me it's going to end up being a make or break on me using the Boxee box when it comes out. I would love to just get the Box instead of building my own XBMC-based machine, but I do want to have all of my local data accounted for properly.

[kurzweil]

What a wonderful idea.

I got a bunch of learn-to-play guitar videos off the internet and would love to be able to whip up a quick XML to be able to make them into a 'show'. Complete with artwork, show info, and the like.

The automagic stuff is great but I'd really, really like to override some stuff. Probably the poster like most people.

And didn't the TV show info in Alpha look a million times better or am I mistaken. I seem to remember some full-screen backdrops and other slick elements.

[nivv]

That's what XBMC (the open-source software Boxee is based on) does - they are called .nfo files. They are either an xml file with the metadata in a particular format, or they are just a URL to a page on thetvdb.org.

I don't believe Boxee is using nfo files, unfortunately. I believe they are not using thetvdb database either, and instead are using IMDB.

I don't particularly like having to create nfo files when using XBMC, but if that guarantees that my files would get displayed properly then I'm all for the option. Also, I have some video files that I have created (or even some obscure shows) that I would like to force to be shown in the TV Shows area, even though IMDB would not want anything to do with it. Having something like an nfo file allows this to happen.

I'm curious to see how Boxee handles this situation - for me it's going to end up being a make or break on me using the Boxee box when it comes out. I would love to just get the Box instead of building my own XBMC-based machine, but I do want to have all of my local data accounted for properly.

This would be the absolute best thing. It's easy to know when you need to override the default scraping. Just add an .nfo in the same folder as the movie and name it the same as the video-file. I'd rather KNOW that I'm getting the correct information than relying on some abrakadabra magic to do the search. Please add this feature.