[jkleslie]

I was fortunate enough to be an alpha/beta tester for the upcoming Meta 2.0 application and wanted to announce that I will be releasing an extensive preview of it on Friday at my site, theHTPC.net .


If you're not familiar with Meta, then I will repeat what its developer states about the current version from his site, www.themetabrowser.com :

"Meta is an all-in-one solution to retrieve metadata for Movies and TV shows through the available APIs of themoviedb.org (TMDb) and thetvdb.com (TVDb). It was primarily created to provide metadata for what I believe is one of the best Vista Media Center plugins created, Media Browser, but can be used by any application that utilizes MyMovies.xml for movies or Series.xml and corresponding metadata folder for TV Episodes."
Meta 2.0 will throw out some of the limitations the current version imposes, primarily, what front-ends it provides metadata and images for.


I will save everything else for Friday, but will say that even unfinished, it is an amazing application.


If you use Twitter, Follow Me and you will get notified as soon as the preview is released. Otherwise, just check www.theHTPC.net on Friday.

 

[CFC]

Thanks for the heads up, loooking forward to it.


CFC

 

[DraZtiK]

Looks like it now can use IMDB for the meta data? I'm still using http://www.mediacentermaster.com/ because TMDB has great backgrounds but that's about it, I can't stand the genre bloat they have.

 

[whiteboy714]

Looks pretty sweet. Wonder how long before we can get our hands on it.

 

[ogormask]

at first I was laughing at whiteboy saying I wonder when we can get our hands on it but then I realized I dont know what he means by the word preview. As in preview here this is what it does but you cant use it or preview as in here is a copy.


I was actually planning on updating all my metadata today. I still can never find a single good application. But then I was thinking its not that they dont do a good job the problem is the naming of the files and folders. They are hardly never named exactly as they appear on imdb or whatever database you use. For instance I dont like using "the" in my titles because when you have 100 movies that start with the all the sudden it gets really hard to find a movie. So all mine I removed The and alphabetize like that. I guess it would have been cool to keep then named like THING, THE but that was more work and I said screw it. But I have literally tried every metadata app I can find and they all work great if you are lucky to have exactly the same title as the database but the minute there is any extra lines or a period or a dash or something in the title and it doesnt work. Then it comes down to whose metadata app has the best manual lookup. I actually find the salami one to work pretty good for manual stuff because it can access a few different databases. I have a lot of foreign movies and obscure movies and most of the other apps dont find as much as that one does. I came across this this morning and was trying that out but the websites it accesses are getting scripting errors. Then on top of that when I try to save the file I get another script error within the app itself. It did have a nice manual lookup though. I guess I sort of laugh at the description of most metadata apps because they almost always use automated or something to that effect to describe it which is true if your folders are literally the same as what imdb uses. The problem is what is easier to go back and rename each one to match perfectly assuming that all databases use that exact naming method or just manually look up the stragglers that dont get picked up. I am curious as to how this stacks up. I guess that is if we would get to try it friday or not otherwise I should get back to work here.

 

[ogormask]

yeah I was just playing around with some of these to see which ones I remembered worked the best. The problem with the current build of metabrowser is that its TOO automated. I ran it through my movies and within the first 10 it had 2-3 wrong. Which is nice it gets so many correct but the ones that are wrong now I have to fix. Its much easier to use salami and yes its slow but at least you are the one manually entering the data so you can use your brain to see if its correct. For instance it said this movie called I am the Cheese was some completely different movie although that is the exact title on imdb. Its even worse trying to correct the meta data because you might not know its wrong until you try to play the movie. I am not trying to complain but merely pointing out the problem. I realize a new build is coming so I am curious how it works.

 

[CFC]

I'm pretty sure with the current build of metabrowser, you can set it up to confirm the movie selection before it applies the metadata do it.


CFC

 

[ogormask]

yeah i think I was doing a batch where you could do each one individually anyways.

 

[pheare]



Quote:
Originally Posted by CFC /forum/post/18242447


I'm pretty sure with the current build of metabrowser, you can set it up to confirm the movie selection before it applies the metadata do it.


CFC

Yep you can.

 

[jkleslie]

Review has been posted. Refer to first post for link. Enjoy!

 

[bighick]

I will stick to the free version

 

[tycoonheart]

Yep, as will I.

 

[VampyreGTX]

I've begun using MediaCenterMaster and currently prefer it over metabrowser 1.0. There does not appear to be anywhere near enough benefit in metabrowser 2.0 to warrant a switch back, especially for $20 a year.

 

[ogormask]

Yeah that was a pretty big let down. Not only that if its a pay app then it should be open to everyone to pay now and use it if they like it. To have a closed beta is strange anways. I never understood any benefit to that. You would get more people testing it if it was open.


From what I read it seems to be trying to mimic my movies. I dont like that app either. If a single meta data app actually just did meta data well that would be very much needed. Instead it seems like a hodge podge is needed because some do certain things well but not everything. I just did a few hundred movies with salami and once you get a rhythm you can go pretty quick. It sucks having to go to a few different databases but thats the databases fault not the apps.


It would be nice to at least try it to see how it compares because I have a lot more movies to update the meta data for.

 

[Iteki]

What bothers me about it is that it actually loses some functionality (TV) and charges. A one time fee I would be ok with, but an annual subscription? It would need to be much lower for me to consider it. Guess I'll stick with the current version or look at an alternative.

 

[dbone1026]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Iteki /forum/post/18256473


What bothers me about it is that it actually loses some functionality (TV) and charges. A one time fee I would be ok with, but an annual subscription? It would need to be much lower for me to consider it. Guess I'll stick with the current version or look at an alternative.

TV will be added, so you are only losing it temporarily (and can continue to use metabrowser beta for TV). I am currently using metabrowser 2.0 for my movies and metabrowser beta for my tv shows, no conflicts

 

[ogormask]

Is there some way to actually try it? I just hate beta programs as I already said.

 

[dbone1026]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ogormask /forum/post/18256530


Is there some way to actually try it? I just hate beta programs as I already said.

As of now I don't think there is a trial period, but maybe that will change down the road (i.e. the pricing is not set in stone).

 

[jdubbs23]

I tried metabrowser some months ago, and found it quite buggy.


I don't really understand, what the need is for it if you use MediaBrowser though? MediaBrowser already accesses content for movies and TV shows off the internet and locally caches the images. When I add new movies or TV shows to MediaBrowser folder locations, I don't have to do anything else and MediaBrowser displays all the pretty graphics and description information.


How does metabrowser improve on this?

 

[ogormask]

So they want you to pay to test an app? That sounds like it will work out well...


My problem with all the meta data apps is that the names of my files never seem to match the databases used so you end up manually doing the work anyways. It just comes down to whichever is easiest to use manually. I highly doubt this will ever change as a computer has no way to know if pyscho is the 60s or the 90s version without entering the year and then I noticed that seems to throw things off as well. Thats why it would be nice to at least be able to try it to see if it actually works better than the plethora of free apps already in the market. It makes no sense that anyone would pay for something without seeing if it would work well for them or not.