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Welcome to the WDTV-Live-Meta-Gen wiki!
The name of this project comes from: "WDTV Live Metadata Generator"
I started this project after purchasing a WDTV Live (gen. 3) and loading it with about 350Gb of media. I noticed that the WDTV Live wasn't generating correct metadata for the media files (mostly TV Series and Films). This forced me to figure out how the WDTV was generating the Metadata, where it was getting the information from, and how it was being stored.
- Parse the filename
- Separate on "." characters
- Use all text before the SxxExx (see points 4 & 5) as a look-up string for the Show/Movie title
- Use the character sequence Sxx for the Season number
- Use the character sequence Ezz for the Episode number
- Use the information provided in the previous 3 steps to look-up Show/Movie data in Meta-sources.
The best way to expand on the basic steps is to use an example. The following is an example of a valid file name: House.S08E09.mkv
When parsing this file name, the WDTV will take House as the Show/Movie name, S08 as the season number and E09 as the episode number.
With that information, the WDTV will search through the database provided at http://thetvdb.com to find any/all metadata about this file. Returned metadata (if any if found) will be stored in an xml file with the file name House.S08E09.xml
The WDTV's parsing system seems to be able to ignore group names. The term "group names" refers to the groups of individuals who upload pirated versions of media to file sharing websites. Typically, a groups (or scene) release of a media file will have the group's name, in square brackets] before the Show/Film name.
For example: [A Group of Pirates]House.S08E09.mkv
Would be a version of the 9th episode of season 8 of House, uploaded/shared by the group "A Group of Pirates".
It is the fact that most (if not all) groups place their name, in square brackets, at the beginning of the file name string, that the WDTV is able to ignore group names. This is because of the, unofficial, rules surrounding XBMC naming convention - Examples can be found here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Adding_videos_to_the_library/Naming_files/TV_shows
The following is a snippet of an xml file that is used to provide metadata on media files by the WDTV.