Metadata

[Arr MiHardies]

Boxee has the same problem that Plex and everything else based on XBMC has. It completely ignores all the metadata in my video files, instead preferring to search external sources for information that is, more often than not, incorrect. I have spent a great deal of time properly tagging all my video files with correct tags and artwork. To have them ignored completely is a slap in the face. While I like some of the interfaces and features all these xbmc based projects have; until they read my metadata, and handle them properly (that means, if a file is tagged as being a tv-show, then it should not show up under the list of movies. And no, my files are not all dumped in one folder, they are sorted by Movies or tv show, and then further by what show it is) I can not see myself using any of these projects seriously, except when I'm bored and want something to fiddle with.

In short, read metadata from my video files, and sort accordingly. If no metadata is found, -then- it is ok to pull the data from external sources.

[marcel]

hi Arr MiHardies

thanks for the report .We use the metadata as well as other issues to try and solve the media content ,some mistakes are made ..You can try to manually recognize the files ..i know this is a hassle ,however we are always trying to improve this issue in future releases.

cheers:)

[Arr MiHardies]

From what I can tell, my metadata is not used anywhere. (Im talking about video files here, not audio files). Why bother going to external sources to look up description, rating, video type (movie, tv-show, music video), cast, director, etc. when all that is already available inside the file? If you use the data already inside the file, if the data is incorrect, the user only has themselves to blame.

[marcel]

agreed ..you might have everything organized but others might not ..also maybe there is updated info etc...

[marklight]

I'm really wanting "internal" meta data to be used as well. It's really the only thing keeping me from using Boxee as my main media software. Front row and Apple TV do such a great job of accessing meta data. It's extremely important to me (and many others) as we've taken a ton of time to tag hundreds of files and make custom album artwork. Many of us use MetaX to fine tune and customize info. If you could add this feature - maybe have boxee first check if there's meta data on the file and if there's not then, secondarily search the internet database for it, I would totally be committed to Boxee.

[samcan]

I'm really wanting "internal" meta data to be used as well. It's really the only thing keeping me from using Boxee as my main media software.

I too have had issue with my accurate metadata being ignored and will take a wait and see approach to Boxee until metadata is used primarily. I'm not OCD but when I add media to iTunes/appleTV I make sure all the metadata is there and accurate (with programs like metax).



Front row and Apple TV do such a great job of accessing meta data.

Although they are good at reading the metadata I hate the way multiple seasons of the same TV show are displayed (Same show listed for every season :-( ). Menu organization used to be much better in Front Row and Apple TV. Hopefully those features will come to Boxee soon.


Thanks team!

[shaug]

agreed ..you might have everything organized but others might not ..also maybe there is updated info etc...

Part of the problem with this is, even if I indicate that the information boxee/xbmc associated with my file is incorrect, it won't even bother attempting to use the metadata I've associated with the file.

This is especially painful with TV shows episodes. I've spent a good amount of time ensuring all of my files have appropriate information, but boxee completely ignores it, and more often than not associates the wrong metadata with my files. When I indicate that this information is incorrect, it asks me to enter show name, season, and episode number in. But this information is already on the file. Why should I have to use the painful text input system to provide information that is already there?

Deferring to tagged metadata seems like it should be the default behavior, going out to the internet only to fill in the missing gaps. Claiming that the 'information might have changed' seems to be disingenuous. These are static shows -- how dynamic is the information for my copy of 'Band of Brothers'?

[marcel]

hi guys

thanks for the reports
we are always working to improve the indexing of boxee ...manually recognition should be used only if boxee has found the incorrect media content and i agree that it can be exhausting ...boxee checks the file name (split with . ) and season and episode as example X-Files.S01E01.Pilot.avi..however we will look into this issue :)

[shaug]

Part of the issue here, I believe, is that many of us are trying boxee after having gotten our system set up for use with AppleTV or Frontrow, which means our movie files were managed by iTunes. So that typically means we've allowed iTunes to organize and name our files. Most video formats don't support (or haven't utilized) metadata, putting the onus on file names for capturing information about the movie or tv show. But iTunes uses metadata extensively, and has a fairly weak naming convention, because it can. I think as xbmc/boxee attracts more and more AppleTV/Frontrow users, it's going to see more of this kind of frustration. Hopefully either support for iTunes shares or file metadata will be implemented by these projects, but until then, neither is an adequate drop-in replacement, since too much work is required to re-categorize and/or re-name all of my files to accomodate xbmc/boxee's limitations for identifying movies and tv shows.

[marklight]

Although they are good at reading the metadata I hate the way multiple seasons of the same TV show are displayed (Same show listed for every season :-( ). Menu organization used to be much better in Front Row and Apple TV. Hopefully those features will come to Boxee soon.




While Front Row is lagging far behind Apple TV's interface, Apple TV does a better job now with handling multiple seasons where it shows up as one item, and there's a divider between episodes that shows where new seasons begin/end. Before this I used to Label shows: Lost S01, Lost S02, Lost S03... such a pain in the butt...

now it's just Lost - and all the season/episode information is located in the metadata.


I'm just REALLY hoping that Boxee will add a feature that first checks metadata located on the file first. I think this would really cut down on bandwidth as well and make the experience much more smooth. Maybe an option where you could toggle Boxee to use the files metadata, or to pull it from the internet.

[agentlame]

while i have no real idea, i think it's reasonable to assume the support for reading metadata will come to xbmc/boxee, at some point.

now that xbmc is running on the appletv, i would imagine that the xbmc community is requesting the same functionality, in equal or grater numbers.

but, considering xmbc is currently working on finalizing of xbmc atlantis (the final release of xbmc for mac/linux/windows), i doubt they are adding new features.

[shoesy]

Any news on this front? I just tried to import my tv shows and it is going to take me forever to sort out the mess they are in.

Why must Seth Mcfarlane name all his family guy episodes after old movies? He is really not helping.

I joke of course - but itunes has stored all this stuff for me once already- maybe an import xml data function or some such wouldn't go amiss for the beta...

[iBog]

Sadly, the new version (build 0.9.3935) doesn't seem to improve on the handling of metadata.

As previously mentioned this is what I'd like to see:

1. Read metadata in the file
2. If incomplete metadata (or missing key information), identify the content by information in the meta data and if that isn't adequate parse the filename to identify the content. Look it up. Prompt the user for missing information or to select the correct information from a list. Once verified or confirmed by the user, write the metadata to the file.
3. If no metadata, parse the filename to identify the content and look it up. Prompt the user for information or to select the correct information from a list. Once verified or confirmed by the user, write the metadata to the file.

There could even be a preference setting for this and how much involvement or interaction I want when indexing or cataloging information.

This is becoming very frustrating because Boxee is incorrectly identifying media that I have obsessively tagged. Compounding the problem is that once a file is incorrectly cataloged I can't seem to find the original file to see what he problem is.

I like Apple TV, Front Row and iTunes because it hides file names and directory structure. When browsing for content I do not feel like I'm searching for a file or folder. Too many media centers still focus on showing files and folders. I hope Boxee continues to move towards handling metadata and hides the underlying file and folder structure (unless I'm in an advanced "file" browsing mode).

[Remulus]

I just want to add a little something here. it is not only metadata, but i have a diverse library and at least a third are not recognized in the Boxee database at all. So they don't even show up in the library. I go to recognize and i put in the data manually but the albums are just not listed. In fact, not one classical CD made it. And we are talking mainstream stuff like Beethoven Symphonies.

Maybe the lookup has to be super specific. If that is the case then the search function should be more robust.

So for so many CD's i have to go to the manual source. And there is no way to search by music type, or composer. So i end up back at front row. I think at a minimum you should just be able to add music to the library manually.

Otherwise, it is coming along quite nicely. It will be a major player.

PS, is there anyway to change or remove the background graphic, it is a little busy for my tastes behind all the thumbnails

[Gamester17]

Boxee has the same problem that Plex and everything else based on XBMC has. It completely ignores all the metadata in my video files,...

...In short, read metadata from my video files, and sort accordingly.+1

You can read my own suggestion on how to possibly implement that feature via the "MediaInfo" library here:
http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=558

MediaInfo's author, Jerome Martinez (a.k.a. Zenitram), have even said that he would be willing to work with any volunteering XBMC/Boxee/Plex C++ developer(s) in order get MediaInfo library working in XBMC/Boxee/Plex, (his e-mail address is "zen at mediaarea dot net" if a C++ programmer would like to contact him about this).


Could Boxee integrate MediaInfo (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net) metadata reader code and use it when scanning video files into the database?

MediaInfo supplies technical and can read tag/atom information about a video or audio file containers.

MediaInfo is coded in C++, is cross-platform (Win32, Linux, and Mac), open source code (GPL/LGPL dual-license), and can be compiled into a .dll (Dynamicly Linked Library) on Windows, .so (Shared Object) on Linux, .dynlib (Dynamic Library) on Mac.

What information MediaInfo will get from looking at a container:
General: Title, Author, Director, Album, Track Number, Date, Duration, and much more.
Video: Codec, Resolution, Pixel Aspect Ratio, FPS, Bit-rate, and much more.
Audio: Codec, Sample Rate, Channels, Language, Bit-rate, ReplayGain, and much more.
Text Language of Subtitles (SRT, SSA, ASS, SAMI, and many more).
Chapters: Number of Chapters, List of Chapters (names).

Examples of just some of the supported formats:
Video: AVI, MKV, OGM, DV (RAW), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-TS, MPEG-4, WMV, MOV, IFO/VOB (DVD-Video), CDXA (VCD/SVCD), Blu-ray and HD DVD files, and more.
Audio: MP3 (Id3v2), OGG, WAV, PCM, RA, AC3, DTS, AAC, M4A, AU, AIFF, WMA, APE/MAC, FLAC, and more.


about integration of metadata in MediaInfo, my goal is to have all the
metadata available in a file, so if data is present, what is request ("Right
now it allows for the following atoms (new atoms can be defined as well) Show
Name, Episode ID, Episode Number, Season Number, Cast Members, Producers,
Directors, Writers, Original Air Date, Original Network, Long Description (Plot),
Artwork, Video Kind (TV Show, Movie, Music Video) Rating, Genre.") is
easy to have.

Checkout the MediaInfo website for more information:
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net

Source code (and SVN):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mediainfo

PS! MediaInfo could also be used to read tags in audio files but that is not what I am requesting here.

You can follow the dicussion about this in the XBMC forum here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=12721 :)

[DGMurdockIII]

Gamester17 please stop hijacking threads

[agentlame]

Gamester17 please stop hijacking threads

calm down...

he has a much right to post as anyone... frankly, he has more; considering his contributions to the whole of the xbmc-project.

unrelated to his standing: simply as a poster, his posts of an extreamly high quality.

man what's with everyone around here, today?


lastaly, credit where credit is do, please... if anyone around here could be considered 'hijacking threads', it's me. :)