[ajc5166]

Struggling for hours with this, and can't seem to get anywhere.

I'm trying to transfer some videos from my Mac to my Tivo (Bolt, Series6), and would like to attach metadata to them, and well as group them together. These videos are recordings of billiards tournaments, so I assume they would work the same way as someone's home movies or whatever. There seems to be lots of info about the grouping, though I can't seem to really get my head around it. However, I can't even seem to get the metadata working correctly.

What I can do is get pyTivo working, and my Tivo can see the share folder and the videos inside. I can select and transfer these files, and they play. I can also verify that the Tivo is seeing the metadata files that I created, because the title is being displayed ("Billiards"). However, nothing else from the metadata file is showing up on the Tivo.

Here are the contents of the file:

title : Billiards
seriesTitle : Billiards Series
episodeTitle : Sang Lee vs Joseph DeAmato
episodeNumber : 1
isEpisode : true
description : Sang Lee vs Joseph DeAmato at The Carom Cafe

Any idea why I don't see the episode title, or description on the Tivo? Or how to make that happen?

My second question is about the grouping. I know it's been covered over and over, but I can't seem to piece it together. Is there a definitive up to date guide/post somewhere for that? What the seriesId format should be, can it be an arbitrary id, or does it have to match a show in the guide? And how do I get a seriesId (I have a Mac, and it doesn't look like MetaGenerator has a Mac version)?

Thanks for any help!
Anthony

 

[ajc5166]

My second question is about the grouping. I know it's been covered over and over, but I can't seem to piece it together. Is there a definitive up to date guide/post somewhere for that? What the seriesId format should be, can it be an arbitrary id, or does it have to match a show in the guide? And how do I get a seriesId (I have a Mac, and it doesn't look like MetaGenerator has a Mac version)?

Well, I answered my first question (sort of). I have done whatever kind of voodoo is necessary to get the basic metadata showing up on the Tivo. Made a few changes based on a sample I saw somewhere.

However, still no idea on the grouping. I tried giving both files the same seriesId, but that didn't help (not surprisingly, since I have no idea what that seriesId should be). I've seen some talk of programId, but I don't know what that is or where to find it, or what it does and how to use it.

Can anyone point me to anything definitive about how to get transferred shows to group?

Thanks,
Anthony

 

[cherry ghost]

Are you using a default.txt file?

Metadata - pyTivo - Wiki

I have one instance where I did what you're trying to do, but it's been a while since I set it up.

I have seriesTitle and seriesId in the default.txt file and episodeTitle in the normal .txt file. When I pull from that folder on my PC to my TiVo everything groups together.

 

[ajc5166]

Are you using a default.txt file?

...

I have seriesTitle and seriesId in the default.txt file and episodeTitle in the normal .txt file. When I pull from that folder on my PC to my TiVo everything groups together.

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't using a default.txt file, but I just tried it out, and it works as explained in the wiki. However, I still don't get the grouping behavior.

Here is my default.txt:

seriesId : SH079169
seriesTitle : Billiards
isEpisode : true
isEpisodic : true
tvRating : TV-G
vProgramGenre : Sports

I am using (I think) the seriesId for "Seinfeld", because I read somewhere that you have to use a seriesId of something that is in the guide data. I have also read that you can or should create your own seriesId that doesn't match anything (though I think maybe that was for push?). And then I have read that you need to use programId, but I don't see any info on that.

When you got it to work, were you transferring your own videos (that do not have their own seriesId, like home movies or whatever)? How did you figure out which seriesId to use? And does the seriesId have to match with the seriesTitle?

Thanks!
Anthony

 

[cherry ghost]

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't using a default.txt file, but I just tried it out, and it works as explained in the wiki. However, I still don't get the grouping behavior.

Here is my default.txt:

seriesId : SH079169
seriesTitle : Billiards
isEpisode : true
isEpisodic : true
tvRating : TV-G
vProgramGenre : Sports

I am using (I think) the seriesId for "Seinfeld", because I read somewhere that you have to use a seriesId of something that is in the guide data. I have also read that you can or should create your own seriesId that doesn't match anything (though I think maybe that was for push?). And then I have read that you need to use programId, but I don't see any info on that.

When you got it to work, were you transferring your own videos (that do not have their own seriesId, like home movies or whatever)? How did you figure out which seriesId to use? And does the seriesId have to match with the seriesTitle?

Thanks!
Anthony

I'm using seriesId : TS9999999999

Not sure how I came up with that. Might have been suggested here somewhere. Give it a try.

Try only using seriesId and seriesTitle in the default.txt for now. If/when you get grouping working you can try adding other stuff.

When I set this up, push was still available. After push went away I tried it with pull and it still worked even though I didn't think it would.

 

[powrcow]

I'm using seriesId : TS9999999999

Wow, I tried that seriesId and it grouped! I tried many others without success. Thanks! This has annoyed me for quite a while.

If anyone wants to recreate, here's the minimum for something useful that allows grouping from my default.txt:

seriesTitle : Home Movies
seriesId : TS9999999999

Grouped folder title comes from seriesTitle and the magical series ID is what allows the grouping.

And each dot-file for each video file has:

title : First Birthday
episodeTitle : First Birthday
description : A first birthday party

title is required to show something in the SD browsing TiVo GUI and episodeTitle is used in the TE3 HD GUI along with putting it in quotes at the beginning of the description.

I also use 'originalAirDate' and 'time' for each video file with the format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ.

 

[ajc5166]

I'm using seriesId : TS9999999999

Yep! That did it!

And I used TS9999999998 (I just changed the last digit) and it still worked, so there must be a range of ID's that work.

Thanks!

 

[HerronScott]

And I used TS9999999998 (I just changed the last digit) and it still worked, so there must be a range of ID's that work.

I seem to recall the TSxxxxx numbers might have been for podcasts when TiVo supported those.

Metadata - pyTivo - Wiki

seriesId

Usually starts with "SH" and followed by 6-8 digits. TiVo uses this to allow for grouping once a program is transferred to a TiVo, provided the TiVo is set to grouping in the NPL (Now Playing List). Leaving this field blank or omitting doesn’t seem to cause any problems, except when it comes time to group when transferring to TiVo. Will not group without a series ID.

SH is for general TV shows.
MV is for movies (e.g. Amazon Unbox).
SP is for sports.
TS is for Tivocast content.

I'm pretty sure that using real show id's would not work these days as it tries to match the other content of the metadata with what it already knows of the show (title etc).

Scott

 

[powrcow]

I'm pretty sure that using real show id's would not work these days as it tries to match the other content of the metadata with what it already knows of the show (title etc).

That's correct - the trick of using a series ID for a show that was in the guide but you weren't recording stopped working a while back. The TS9999999999 works great now. Even better if it never matches with anything.