Feature Request: Searchable TV Metadata

[babsonnexus]

Not sure if this would violate your license with Gracenotes, but would it be possible to open up a search into the TV metadata so we can see what order/season they are listing episodes? Trying to get something like Hulu Stream Links to agree with Channels -> Zap2It -> Wikipeida -> TVDB has been a massive headache. I don't mind (that much) creating my own Stream Links, but when I have to redo them because of a metadata episode order/season disagreement, it it a massive pain.

Take for instance something like Cupcake Wars. The order and even what season things are in are not necessarily aligned between any of these sources. I'm fine with using whatever Channels says it is and making the link go there, but I cannot tell ahead of time. A show like this is particularly difficult because my partner watches episodes out of order, depending upon what she is interested in. If I don't align this correctly, I cannot cut over to Channels and drop TiVO.

Teen Titans Go is an even worse example where Seasons 1 and 2 have the 2 "half-episodes" combined in Gracenotes, but seasons 3-5 are separated. But Hulu has all seasons with the half-episodes combined, and some items listed as "specials" that are part of Season 5. To figure all this out, I had to create empty stream links for the massive possibility, figure out which episodes to fill in and in what order to match the metadata, and then delete/purge the ones I didn't need followed by refreshing the entire metadata set. It took forever and could have been a lot quicker if I just knew what to expect!

[tmm1]

Can't you search for the show on zap2it and look at the seasons/episodes there?

[babsonnexus]

It's not always a perfect match for some reason, and it is not the easiest thing to search through. There seems to be a lot of excess garbage stuff mixed in. If you think it is the best source, I can at least narrow in there and avoid the rest.

[babsonnexus]

OK, this is why I'm going insane trying to get this correct.

Here we see what Hulu is saying for "House Hunters International":

Great, two things are called Episode 1 in Season 139. All right, let's track these down in Zap2It:

Fine, seems straightforward, add those episodes and it should match. But no, they do not...

And if we just take this forward, the title now showing in S138E13 shows elsewhere in Zap2It:

But I have that episode, too, and so now that one is wrong:

There are 152 episodes available. How am I going to match these all one-by-one without any knowledge about what Channels is going to spit out?

[Macnbaish]

I’ve run into this too, with a series my son watches. The episode data from IMDb didn’t match what Channels had at all. Since Channels is more important I ended up changing the file names to match what Channels said and moved on with my life. I figured it was a fluke with that series but apparently not.

[tmm1]

Thanks for collecting those screenshots.

It does seem like zap2it is somehow out of sync with the gracenote database.

I found a random gracenote demo site via google, and there it does seem to match what your DVR is showing: http://showcase.onthedemo.com/newyorkcity/en/program/185817

I'm looking into this to see how we can expose this information in the DVR web UI so you don't have to rely on other sites.

[babsonnexus]

Just to not let this die, here's an example where what Gracenote has and what Channels/Zap2It have are not in sync.

Netflix has a show called "Lupin" watched by an estimated 70 million households. In other words, popular. Trying to match it in Channels has no luck:

Fine, let's get the TMSID from Zap2It. But it doesn't show up there, either:

So, does that mean Gracenote does not have it? Nope, using the demo app from above shows they do have it:

[Blue]

Locking video metadata to Gracenotes or any provider is the most serious flaw that I see in Channels DVR. While a high percentage of movies and shows were matched by Gracenotes or The MovieDB, those few missed are annoying. There should be a way to create and edit the metadata held in the Channels database. It is just a database, not some super secret stuff. We store the database within our server. Why not allow Channels DVR users to edit it? That way, we can “fix” the annoying miss matches.

[babsonnexus]

@Blue

There should be a way to create and edit the metadata held in the Channels database.

Are you thinking global database accessible by others, or just the local copy? If the former, my only concern is that some users can be... shall we say... untrustworthy with what they put in user-driven databases.

[Blue]

Only the local database on the user controlled Channels DVR server. Channels DVR is a single user interface, from what I have learned on this forum. Editing the local database should be possible and then all the furor over matching should cease. Or not!

[racameron]

The limitation on what Channels finds when searching for matches could be limited by their license with Gracenote. The full spectrum of content across various streaming providers may not be available to Channels.

(This is speculation, but does have a ring of truth IME.)