EyeTV import excludes entries with no media file

[Oolfanska]

Until recently, when I dragged an EyeTV selection into DVDpedia, it imported whether or not I had deleted the mpg file from the episode package. In just the last few days, entries with no mpg file are no longer imported.

(This change may have been concurrent with the recent change to how episode names are imported, but I'm not sure.)

I hope this change was not deliberate and that the previous method can come back, since I'm using DVDpedia to keep track of episodes I've watched, whether or not I am saving the media.

[sjk]

I haven't checked for this problem here yet, but …

I hope this change was not deliberate and that the previous method can come back, since I'm using DVDpedia to keep track of episodes I've watched, whether or not I am saving the media.

Me, too!

I delete .mpeg files from most .eyetv recordings packages after viewing and/or exporting so it would be a shame for DVDpedia importing to reject those.

[Conor]

This shouldn't be the case. What is needed is that the file end in .eyetv. After that the .eyetvp and .eyetvr files inside are used for the meta data information and the .tiff for the cover.

[Oolfanska]

This shouldn't be the case. What is needed is that the file end in .eyetv. After that the .eyetvp and .eyetvr files inside are used for the meta data information and the .tiff for the cover.

I've left all the other files intact; just deleted the mpg files.

[sjk]

Just had a chance to test this here and DVDpedia 4.5.5 successfully imported EyeTV recordings (in .eyetv packages) with deleted .mpg files. What doesn't work is importing those .mpg-less recordings by dragging them directly from the Recordings pane in EyeTV; DVDpedia's Dock icon refuses to become a drag target but I'd normally normally do that -- just happened to check it after updating the Episode field for a few recordings.

What I'd really like is for DVDpedia to support importing folders of recordings dropped onto its Dock icon, saving much time over opening dozens of those folders on multiple volumes.

It would also be convenient being able to import into specific collections by dragging directly to them as an alternative to using the Dock icon and generic EyeTV collection.

Or, maybe there's already some way to do both those things that I've overlooked?

Wishful-thinking feature would be a way to select specific content (e.g. using a regular expression) from whatever EyeTV metadata DVDpedia is using to populate its custom Episode Name field. For example, I'd like DVDpedia to automatically remove the "##.## - " I manually prepend to program names in EyeTV's Episode field for their Season.Episode numbers. (Edit: workaround would be to do direct SQLite hackery). Even better would be if Elgato would extend EyeTV custom metadata support (as I've been suggesting for years) so things like Season# and Episode# could be kept separate from the Episode field (which would then normally only contain the episode name). Then other apps, like DVDpedia and iTunes, could possibly make use of that extra metadata. Using EyeTV's Episode field for storing extra metadata has always been a frustrating limitation, but presumably too few customers care enough about details like that for Elgato to do anything about it.

[Conor]

What I'd really like is for DVDpedia to support importing folders of recordings dropped onto its Dock icon, saving much time over opening dozens of those folders on multiple volumes.

You can do this by using the "Import Collection" command under the file menu and selecting a folder. The dock drop target does not allow folder but I'll look into making that an option.

Even better would be if Elgato would extend EyeTV custom metadata

I am amazed that they don't have a dedicates field for both season # and episode # since they deal with so many TV series.

[Oolfanska]

Just had a chance to test this here and DVDpedia 4.5.5 successfully imported EyeTV recordings (in .eyetv packages) with deleted .mpg files. What doesn't work is importing those .mpg-less recordings by dragging them directly from the Recordings pane in EyeTV; DVDpedia's Dock icon refuses to become a drag target but I'd normally normally do that -- just happened to check it after updating the Episode field for a few recordings.

That explains my original problem--I've been using the drag-from-EyeTV-app-window method of importing. After reading this I tried dragging a whole set of .eyetv files, some with mpegs included and some with mpegs removed, to the DVDpedia icon. They all imported very nicely, solving the import problem with the deleted-mpeg files.

BUT: Problem is, they ALL imported--even episodes that were already in DVDpedia . So this method doesn't filter out the already-existing episodes, as the drag-from-EyeTV-app-window method does. Or am I missing something?

[Conor]

Could you please send me a .dcard (drag from the table view to the Finder) for the two duplicates entries. DVDpedia should not import a file that would have the same URL in the links tab. I want to double check that the not identical, as this is what the skip criteria is based on. The missing mpg file should not be a problem as the link URL should be directly to the enclosing bundle .eyetv file.

[sjk]

You can do this by using the open command and selecting a folder.

Do you mean File > Import Collection… (Command-O)? I'm not able to test it right now, or the issue with duplicates Oolfanska is having.

The dock drop target does not allow folder but I'll look into making that an option.

I'm satisfied using Command-O if that'll work.

I am amazed that they don't have a dedicates field for both season # and episode # since they deal with so many TV series.

It definitely qualifies as one of EyeTV's puzzling omissions… with "TV" in the product name.

[Conor]

Command-O is what I did want to say. I have edited the original post to "Import" avoid confusion.

[sjk]

Cool. I'll give it a try later tonight.

[Oolfanska]

Could you please send me a .dcard (drag from the table view to the Finder) for the two duplicates entries. DVDpedia should not import a file that would have the same URL in the links tab. I want to double check that the not identical, as this is what the skip criteria is based on. The missing mpg file should not be a problem as the link URL should be directly to the enclosing bundle .eyetv file.

Am emailing the files.

There was an odd behavior when I dragged the .dcards to the desktop. The first one created a file on the desktop as expected. When I dragged the second one, no file was created. Instead, the first file blinked. I tried dragging them separately and as a pair. Both times, I only got one file. Finally I moved the first one into a different folder, and then I was able to drag the second one to the desktop. I have no idea if this is relevant to the duplicate-entry issue, but it seemed strange enough to mention.

[Conor]

Thank you for the files. It was only checking against duplicates that where still inside the EyeTV collection. I have updated Beta 7 now to locate duplicates in your entire database.

Both times, I only got one file.

Thank you for the report, this is a special edge case bug in that both files had the same title. Since the dcards are named after the title, the second drag would cause a replace of the first file.

[Oolfanska]

Thank you for the files. It was only checking against duplicates that where still inside the EyeTV collection. I have updated Beta 7 now to locate duplicates in your entire database.

Oh, I see. Yes, it should check the whole database because an item could have long ago been put in the Library and sorted into another collection. And since EyeTV is no help on this whole issue ( ) you guys have come to the rescue again.

Edit: I did some tries with Beta 7. Two things came up:

1) Although the app caught most of the duplicates, there were a few that still came in. Am emailing some sample files.

2) On the first try, I dragged the entire contents of my EyeTV archive folder from the hard drive onto DVDpedia. On that pass, one duplicate file showed up. It seemed so quick that I thought the whole batch might not really have been processed. So I tried dragging a section at a time--anywhere from 10 to 50 files at a time. This resulted in a more visible processing time for each batch, and most duplicates were eliminated, but a few more still showed up. In other words, when I dragged the entire folder contents they didn't really get processed. Is there some kind of limit on how many files can be dragged at a time?

[sjk]

I have updated Beta 7 now to locate duplicates in your entire database.

Good idea -- thanks.

Is there some kind of limit on how many files can be dragged at a time?

I haven't checked that but there didn't appear to be when running File > Import Collection… (with 4.5.5) on my main EyeTV folder (containing a combination of recordings, mostly sans .mpg files, and exports), which dutifully added 1665 and 2254 entries to EyeTV and Imported Links collections (in a previously empty database). It also consumed a larger amount of memory (excuse the sloppy column alignment):

Code: Select all

USER   PID  PPID %CPU %MEM NI      VSZ    RSS   TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
sjk   2629    93  88.0 62.1  0  2816852 1302580   ??  R     4:17AM  10:04.06 /Applications/DVDpedia.app/Contents/MacOS/DVDpedia -psn_0_1143063

… and 6 (ouch!) new swapfiles (for a total of 7) during the importing process on my recently restarted 2GB Early 2009 mini (which begged to be restarted again afterwards to reclaim memory). I hadn't considered the exported recordings being added until after importing started and would have liked to redo it with them excluded, but it couldn't be cancelled (should/could that be possible?) so I patiently waited until it was finished.

After that I interrupted to watch the iPadNote, imagining streaming video to that instead of my iPod touch.