Why Boxee Box scrapping by Title when <id> is specified in .NFO?

[Buhric]

Hi, just wondering why the Boxee software, that tries to identify shows or movies, still uses the title as its main way of finding a movie/show when an ID is provided via a .NFO file?

I mean, if I created a .nfo with the ID tag, should'nt Boxee be using it to find the movie/show, instead of still relyinn on the title/path?

Reason:
Boxee Box is setup in english
but I have some movies/shows in a different language than English,
And I would like to have the title of the movie/show displayed in the language I have it...

Example: TV Show Les Mysterieuses Cite d'Or
With no .NFO --> Boxee Not able to find show files are unidentified
With .NFO specifying <id>78783</id> --> still not able to Identify
With .NFO specifying <title>Les Mysterieuses Cite d'Or</title> --> Boxee creates a show with the correct name, but does not identify the episodes
With .NFO including title in french and ID --> same result as before...

If I change the title to "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" boxee then Identifyes everything correctly.


I beleive Boxee should use the following priorities when searching for a match
ID (inside .nfo)
Title (inside .nfo)
filename
parent folder (with exceptions for shows that have "Season" folders)
parent's parent folder (for those shows with "Season" folders")


Also it would be cool if we could specify a different language inside the .nfo
Like have the movie/show info returned to us in a different language, on specified in the .nfo

[yoos]

In previous testing/posts we identified that it's important to put the ID at the BOTTOM of your nfo as boxee will use it's own info for some things if it finds the ID in the nfo in its database, but if you have ID at the bottom it uses your nfo stuff up to the point of the ID in the nfo instead of its own stuff. I hope that makes sense... In short, put your ID as the last tag in your nfo and try that.

[dieterblomme]

In previous testing/posts we identified that it's important to put the ID at the BOTTOM of your nfo as boxee will use it's own info for some things if it finds the ID in the nfo in its database, but if you have ID at the bottom it uses your nfo stuff up to the point of the ID in the nfo instead of its own stuff. I hope that makes sense... In short, put your ID as the last tag in your nfo and try that.

That is a load of horse crap, not your statement, but the way boxee handles this. If there's an nfo, it should use as much of the info in there as possible, if you're going to restrict the order of elements, without providing a decent nfo creator and go off the path all other media centers walked before ... (can't even finish the sentence and remain civil )

Thanks for the info though

[drunkwithpower]

That is a load of horse crap, not your statement, but the way boxee handles this. If there's an nfo, it should use as much of the info in there as possible, if you're going to restrict the order of elements, without providing a decent nfo creator and go off the path all other media centers walked before ... (can't even finish the sentence and remain civil )

Thanks for the info though

Lol! We all share the same opinion as you, so definitely I wouldn't have taken offense if you had finished your sentence. The main issue with the way Boxee uses information before the ID tag is that there are no NFO creators that allow you to choose the placement of the ID tag. And obviously, like you stated above, why the heck don't they just use the NFO as is, and leave items blank if there are not present in the NFO?

Someone suggested they allow users to select the type of scraping Boxee does:

- 1. Always use the user NFO and don't add any information
- 2. Parse the user NFO and fill in the missing information for us
- 3. Ignore the NFO (don't know why we would need this anyway)

I use NFOs and only supply the ID tag and title as I want Boxee to fill in the information. Of course, it doesn't seem to matter as I still have about 30 files it can;t seem to identify even with an NFO present. To em this means the NFO is only used as a last resort, and there are condition in which it is ignored. So much for letting us dictate the movie information we want to see.

I believe there are jira tickets with the suggestions above, but I was too lazy to search for them. Obviously nothing has been done anyway...

[drunkwithpower]

Ok..so I got motivated and searched for the jira tickets, but could not find one that fit the bill. I went ahead and opened a new one to see if something can be done about it.

Unfortunately the ticket is EA accessible only, so most won't be able to view or vote on it:

http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-12596

Ticket Request Info:

Can we add a drop-down menu somewhere in the UI to allow users to select how they want Boxee to utilize their NFO files? As a suggestion, here are some possible selections:

- 1. Always use the user NFO and do not add any missing information
- 2. Parse the user NFO and fill in the missing information for us

This request stems from the fact that it seems Boxee uses everything before the ID tag in the NFO file, and then everything else is ignored. I also think the identification process would be quite a bit faster if Boxee just used the NFO files and didn't try to access the online media database. We should have the ability to choose how we want Boxee to identify our content.

If anyone has any other good suggestions for selections, please post here (and I will add to the ticket), or post to the ticket directly if you have access.

Thanks!

[Buhric]

In previous testing/posts we identified that it's important to put the ID at the BOTTOM of your nfo as boxee will use it's own info for some things if it finds the ID in the nfo in its database, but if you have ID at the bottom it uses your nfo stuff up to the point of the ID in the nfo instead of its own stuff. I hope that makes sense... In short, put your ID as the last tag in your nfo and try that.

Actually, the ID is always the last entry in my NFO

Here's some test I did with only 1 show to speed up detection....
The show I Selected is "Dark Angel"
and heres the file structure I have:
\TV-Series\Dark Angel\Season 1\01x01 - Pilot.avi
..... (total of 21 eps)
\TV-Series\Dark Angel\Season 2\02x01 - Designate This.avi
..... (total of 21 eps)

And heres the tests I did - file "tvshow.nfo" was placed
\TV-Series\Dark Angel\tvshow.nfo

No .NFO --> Boxee found a show named "Season 1" and 21 unidentified
Show "Season 1" contained the 21 episodes from folder Season 1
21 unidentified where all the episodes from Season 2

Sample NFO - Only IMDB id

<tvshow>
	<id>tt0204993</id>
</tvshow>

Results, same as no .NFO at all

Sample NFO - Only theTVDB.com id

<tvshow>
	<id>76148</id>
</tvshow>

Results, same as no .NFO at all

Sample NFO - Only the Show Title

<tvshow>
	<title>Dark Angel</title>
</tvshow>

Results, A show named "Dark Angel" with 2 seasons but all episodes where also named "Dark Angel"

Sample NFO - Show Title and IMDB id

<tvshow>
	<title>Dark Angel</title>
	<id>tt0204993</id>
</tvshow>

Results, Perfect ID of all episodes. same thing if I put the id from theTVDB.com

So why did it not detect the show with only the ID in the NFO ?

This was done with a English show...

With a french titled show I was never able to get the correct information, no matter how setup my .NFO file.... best I get is a show named in french with all episode named like the show...

[Buhric]

Ok..so I got motivated and searched for the jira tickets, but could not find one that fit the bill.

BOXEE-12210

I think this one "fills the bill"
We Need Votes... lots of them in this one

[drunkwithpower]

BOXEE-12210

I think this one "fills the bill"
We Need Votes... lots of them in this one

Ok, that's funny - I already voted on that one! I will leave the new one so maybe we can get some more attention that way. This needs to be changed asap!

[dieterblomme]

BOXEE-12210

I think this one "fills the bill"
We Need Votes... lots of them in this one

That's the one I opened up, because I became so frustrated with the current set-up. And I didn't even know about the order thing. It's a good thing I'm having a beer now, that calms me down

[painkiller]

As I found out by myself from my TV serial ID issue jira.

1. If <ID> tag is persent in nfo, boxee ignore ALL information in nfo,scrap everything from boxee ID server(Terrible for TV serial and privacy issue).

2. If <ID> is NOT present in nfo. Boxee will fill the information from NFO without access Boxee ID server(Which have far less trouble if you scrap TV/Movie with something like Ember then remove <ID> from NFO file)