Video Gallery mode, V32/V33

For discussion related to MythTV which doesn't belong in another forum.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
white_haired_uncle
Senior
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:55 pm
Location: Safe outside my gilded cage
United States of America

Video Gallery mode, V32/V33

Post by white_haired_uncle »

Can anyone explain to me how the presentation of videos is determined?

I have several seasons of a TV series (Dexter) from DVD, and they display in the gallery just (about) the way I want. Each episode is presented with a picture that is a screenshot (automatically grabbed from the net), labelled by the episode (subtitle) name (truncated to blah bla..., like pretty much everything else in myth, which is why I say "almost"). Across the top of the screen is the title, subtitle, season, and episode. This is what I want.

Episodes of every other series are presented with the cover art for its season and the title name. I still see the info I really need at the top of the screen. Usable, but not what I want. And not consistent.

I've gone through the metadata in the GUI and videometadata in the table, confirmed that the images are all available and visible to the frontend, etc. I don't see any reason why it chooses to display episodes for one title differently than all the others. So, what are the criteria for determining what data is used in the gallery display?

[EDIT: updated subject to reflect "problem" continues after upgrade to v33]

[EDIT: I added a new series (Deadwood), and it acts "correctly". The only difference I can see between Dexter/Deadwood and all the others, is the one word title (something about spaces in the title causing "problems"???]

[EDIT2: I think I'm on to something with the one word title idea. Added a season of Eureka, it displays like Dexter/Deadwood. Added Bates Motel, it shows up like the other multi-word title episodes]


P.S. If I choose to assign, for example, a specific snapshot to an episode, how do I select the correct one using the GUI? I've got close to 100 of them just for one series, and the names ALL say "Dext...". I don't know which image goes with which episode by sight. It'd be really easy if I could see the file names, as they include episode/season, but I can't see how to do that. [I can do this easy enough in mysql, it's just bugging me that I can't figure out the GUI].

P.P.S. And while I'm thinking about it, where is the metadata for video directories stored/derived? Not a big deal, just frustrated that I can't figure it out.
Last edited by white_haired_uncle on Wed Jun 21, 2023 10:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
white_haired_uncle
Senior
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:55 pm
Location: Safe outside my gilded cage
United States of America

Re: Video Gallery mode, V32/V33

Post by white_haired_uncle »

[s]ANSWER: Looks like this is determined by the theme you have chosen.[/s]

Well, no, not so much.

I've since learned a bit about themes, and it doesn't look like this is a theme thing. The problem seems to be that different data is being presented to the theme depending on the file name.

I normally keep videos in a format like this:

Code: Select all

/export/share/video/burn_notice/burn_notice_s01_e02.av1
/export/share/video/psych/psych_s02_e16.av1
In this case, the theme is passed a differently formatted label for each of those two. Burn_notice is named "$title: $subtitle", and its icon shows the fanart for that season, while psych shows "$subtitle" and its icon shows a screenshot downloaded from the internet.

Now if I

Code: Select all

mkdir "/export/share/video/burn notice"
mv /export/share/video/burn_notice/burn_notice_s01_e02.av1 "/export/share/video/burn notice"
That one episode of Burn Notice ends up in a new folder, and the icon for the file is "correct" (labelled only with subtitle and uses screenshot) like all the episodes of Psych (or anything else with a "one word title").

So that pretty much gets me what I want. The only beef I have left is that the new folder is named "burn notice" (the name of the directory) and not "Burn Notice" (the $title of the files inside).

So, I suppose the simple "fix" is just to change my directory naming standards and quit whinning. But I just plain don't like files with spaces in them (also why I no longer use mythmusic, as I can't find a way for it to simply play my existing music like it used to without demanding to copy everything into a new, silly naming format). And mostly, I don't like having software act differently based on some obscure characteristic of how the files are stored.

I'm kind of at a loss as to where to look. At one point when I was messing around with themes I found the C++ code that supplied data to the themes for video selection, but if I made a note of where that is I forgot where I put the note.
Post Reply