(This was initially posted this in the pyTivo thread, but given it's length, is reposted as a new thread.)
pyTivo is great. And the new metadata feature really makes this a complete video server solution for Tivo. My video files now have a complete set of content (description, title, actors and more) that display when paging through the movies on my Tivo (using pyTivo,, of course).
I did this with a terrific program for the Mac called DVDPedia that can automate (well, with a couple of extra keystrokes) the process of creating and transferring the metadata to pyTivo for all of your DVD collection. And it is a terrific movie/dvd/tv series management program too with automatic downloads of metadata (descriptions, ratings, titles, cover art, actors, reviews, awards and more) from IMDB, Amazon and a bunch of overseas sites I've never heard of. It can export html, auto upload to .mac, even play your movie on your Mac. Check it out at
here.
A couple of notes:
1) I am using mpg files only. If you use other file types, you will either need to change the export script or change the file extensions of the metadata files by hand.
2) As an aside, even though I use a Mac, my server is a windows xp system.
3) You can see the original
thread here on DVDpedia's support forum. And it's great support, just check it out. But don't use the attached files unless they have been updated- they have been modified and listed below.
4) I am using pyTivo dated around 11/22/2007. I expect that the version will change in the future which could alter it's handling of the metadata templates listed here.
5) The scripts could be modified to be used with the Tivo Desktop Server on the Mac (instead of pyTivo). However, it currently supports on title and description metadata.
My process (with a great assist from Conor at DVDpedia):
1) I renamed all of my movie file names on the server to equal the movie titles in DVDPedia. And the movies are in mpg format. Obviously any slashes or other special characters must be removed (:,/,\,?,* and more) from the titles. Dashes are your friend...
2) I entered all of movies into DVDPedia, using the automatic search (which worked great). Entering 150 movies took less than 30 minutes.
3) I installed the templates (listed below) in my Users/(your user name)/Library/Application Support/DVDpedia/Templates directory.
4) Now, open DVDpedia select the Tivo collection (create a new collection named Tivo if necessary and drag the movies to it you want to export); export using the template TivoMetaData.txt under the text section, create a folder named Export (case is important- note capital E) on your desktop to hold the files and select that as the destination for the export.
5) Look at the name of the first movie in the collection and by hand change the name of ~/Desktop/Export/Tivo.txt file to ~/Desktop/Export/the Movie Titlempg.txt (Because the first entry is different it can't be automated).
6) Delete the first movie from the Tivo collection (the one you just changed the file name for) and do a second export using the ChangeFileNameCommand text template.
7)Run terminal and change directory to the Export directory on your desktop (cd ~/Desktop/Export should get you there) in terminal. Then, change the text file to an executable (sudo chown +x Tivo.txt ). Then type ./Tivo.txt to execute.
8) Finally, copy the metadata files to the server directory where the movies are stored.
9) Go to your Tivo, browse your pyTIvo videos directory, smile smugly at your coolness while enjoying detailed movie descriptions... or just get a beer. ;-)
The export scripts are listed below. Note the file names in the post title. Copy and paste using your favorite text editor. Beware of TextEdit! If you do use it make certain that it is set to plain text. And the linefeeds (at the end of each line) must be linefeeds (vs. chr(13) or something else). Tivo is unix and wants a unix linefeed.
And although this may sound a little complicated, it's not. You get the full power of DVDPedia to manage your collection and all of the metadata (well most) displayed on your Tivo. It only takes me a minute or two to completely add the metadata using this procedure.
Best,
Lee
