Did the Rovi/AMG Movie Library metadata stop updating?

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T Rush

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Did the Rovi/AMG Movie Library metadata stop updating?

#1

Post by T Rush » Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:54 am

WMC uses dvdid.xml files on DVD discs or in DVD backup folders(added to the native Movie Library) to fetch Rovi metadata(cover art, synopsis, cast + crew, similar movies, review) from Microsoft servers for each movie...much like the data for the TV channels listings in the Guide

I recently experienced about two weeks of the last Guide Data Outage, which sucked till it was luckily fixed...so then now I just added a few more of my films plus dvdid.xml files into the Movie Library, however noticed their metadata never was downloaded, looking back, movies added in June dont have it ether, even a few added in May have it missing...these movies are all fairly new releases, if that might be a factor, i could try moving older movies(known to show metadata in WMC before) if that might be the problem with Rovi or Microsoft not adding any new movies to their database?

is anyone else not getting fresh metadata for the Movie Library?

is Microsoft no longer supporting/supplying the Rovi data for DVD discs and files?

does a 3rd party metadata supplier like EPG123 work with the dvdid.xml files and Movie Library?


- no, i have not tried cleaning out my dvdinfocache...as i do not want to loose the metadata i do have on most of the older movie files
- no, i do not want to use a 'fake' dvdid.xml maker app like YAMMM...i tried that once before and it killed off the real dvdid.xml files in many of my movies making them not 'portable' so they could be used on a networked computer or if the YAMMM app was removed or dvdinfocache cleared(years later, still find fake YAMMM dvdid.xml files which dont work in my backups, and have to dig the discs out of storage to get the real dvdid.xml to restore them)...is Microsoft the only one who uses dvdid.xml identifiers, and made the disc manufactures put them on there?

...i posted this here because i thought it might be related to the 'no data in Guide' issues, maybe even using the same auto updater, servers, data supplier, and Microsoft employees; thus having the same problems .thanks

[edit]oh wait, is it AMG that provides the Rovi data?[/edit]

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Crash2009

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#2

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:04 am

I am getting some.

As you can see, any movie that is named with the correct year has meta data

Anything with a zero, contains nothing.

If I take the time to go to Imdb and look up the movie and find out the correct year, then rename the folder, the meta will come in instantly.
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MetaData003.JPG

Space

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#3

Post by Space » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:12 am

I believe that the movie extended data was always provided by AMG (which is controlled by Rovi/TiVo), even before Microsoft switched to Rovi/TiVo for the guide data.

I would not be surprised if that extended movie database has not been updated in a while. Even though Microsoft has a contract for guide listings with Rovi/TiVo, they may not have renewed the separate contract with AMG to provide this extended data.

This may be one reason why they did not include the year of release for movies in the guide listings. Without this data, the movie will not be found in the AMG database. If you add the year yourself to the recorded movie metadata, it will find it, but I don't know about newer movies. They may have stopped adding new movies to the database.

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Crash2009

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#4

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:27 am

For example Body Parts looks pretty boring in WMC.

I go to imdb and find the correct year, 1991 in this case. Rename the WTV and the folder to Body Parts (1991) and bingo there is the meta in the folder and also shows in WMC.

Pain in the neck, yes, but this is how I fix them.
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Crash2009

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#5

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:41 am

Here are the properties of another one that needs renaming.

Year released is 0

Name of file is source and date of the channel it was recorded from. Rather than the title and the date of release

No big deal to me, renaming works fine....and

What do you expect for nothing? perfection?
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T Rush

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#6

Post by T Rush » Thu Jul 27, 2017 1:41 am

oh...ah, no....I'm not having a problem with Windows Recorded TV files, which are very different, and even have different metadata format and storage locations

i was taking about the dvdid.xml files on actual DVD discs and in folders with DVD VIDEO_TS .VOB files

Windows Media Center reads the DVD identifier number in the dvdid.xml and downloads metadata to
C:/Users/<name>/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/eHome
DvdCoverCache
DvdInfoCache
...so that then it is displayed in the Movie Library for each DVD(not Recorded TV)

its not a question of how to create or get a dvdid.xml(those are on all the store bought DVD discs)... its just that WMC isnt fetching the Rovi/AMG/Microsoft cover art and text(synopsis, cast + crew, similar movies, review...including star ratings and release year)....and wondering if those servers have had problems or were completely shut down in the last couple of months

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#7

Post by webminster » Thu Jul 27, 2017 3:05 am

IIRC, a lot of the movie data (similar movies, star ratings, release year) disappeared during the Rovi conversion. Posters were still there, but erratic. And, as said, a lot were missing. The movie library as I recall became a lot less useful.

EPG123 uses TMDB to fill in missing data on movies. After moving to EPG123, the library became useful again with ratings, good posters (and more posters), ratings, etc.
-Alan

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#8

Post by garyan2 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 3:13 am

webminster wrote:IIRC, a lot of the movie data (similar movies, star ratings, release year) disappeared during the Rovi conversion. Posters were still there, but erratic. And, as said, a lot were missing. The movie library as I recall became a lot less useful.

EPG123 uses TMDB to fill in missing data on movies. After moving to EPG123, the library became useful again with ratings, good posters (and more posters), ratings, etc.
Not quite accurate. Using EPG123 restores the extended movie data by populating the release year. The only thing I get from TMDb is the posters if it is not provided by SD/Gracenote. If/When that capability disappears, the only extra information EPG123 will provide right now is character names. Other information is available from SD, but I don't know a way to populate it or if it is even possible.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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T Rush

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#9

Post by T Rush » Thu Jul 27, 2017 4:50 am

ok...I'm checking with an older DVD disc(again, I hope starting this thread in the EPG forum section isnt causing confusion, but my questions are about metadata on DVD discs and DVD files, not TV programming)....popping the disc in the DVD drive and the cover art and text metadata are showing in the Movie Library....yes I still have star ratings and release year displaying along with similar movies, synopsis, cast + crew, and review...as these are not TV movies, and the metadata is handled differently
....so when I just created a new backup of the VIDEO_TS and dvdid.xml folders and files from the DVD onto my hard drive, apparently yes, WMC was able to download and display the cover art and text, just as it could with the older DVD disc

hmmm....so looking thru my DVD Movie Library in WMC on my THPC (and sorting the collection my 'date')
....it seems that only stuff from 2016 and earlier is having the metadata supplied by Microsoft....ugh, I wonder what the hold up is with getting metadata from new DVD's this year, 2017 as I think I've narrowed down the problem now :wtf:


here is a photo I took of my screen showing the older DVD I just backed up to the hard drive, with the info showing
Image
(oops, sideways and all that....but see? star rating, year, similar movies, etc... :yawn: )

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#10

Post by Space » Thu Jul 27, 2017 6:30 am

Not that it is that important, but the dvdid.xml file is not located on the DVD. This file actually contains a crc64 hash of the *.IFO and *.BUP files along with the VOLUME_ID of the DVD.

So when you put a DVD in the DVD drive, it calculates this hash in order to use it to look up the DVD information on the Microsoft server.

The purpose of the dvdid.xml file is to store the hash for use by ripped DVDs since it is impossible to generate that hash once you rip the files to your hard disk (since the VOLUME_ID is no longer available). Most DVD rippers generate this file for you automatically when they rip the DVD.

Anyway, I am not sure if the dvdid lookup is provided by TMDb as it seems to be a database of movie information, not DVD information, although it may still provide that info.

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#11

Post by T Rush » Thu Jul 27, 2017 1:39 pm

Space wrote:Not that it is that important, but the dvdid.xml file is not located on the DVD.....
I find that interesting, thanks

as I was wondering if the dvdid.xml was a Microsoft creation, or if it was used by anything else
the metadata the DVD generated dvdid.xml points to doesnt seem to exactly match the format of what i get for a recorded TV movie...like what I see for DVD(or files from them on hdd) in WMC is clearly from Rovi(credited at the bottom of the synopsis and review)....but looking at a recorded TV movie only has a much shorter 'synopsis', the 'cast + crew', but 'other showings'(instead of 'similar movies'), and no star ratings or 'review'
....I know a lot of people complained about Rovi data for TV programming...but for DVD movies it seems much more complete and polished
sometime it might be interesting to compare TV guide data to what is supplied for that same DVD movie...seems odd that Rovi wouldnt just use the same text, cover art, and everything for the metadata for the same movie no matter if its on a TV station or a DVD, but maybe they don't?

....having the dvdid.xml system(which fills the DvdCoverCache and DvdInfoCache on the local computer, not the movies file storage location), the ability to play 'ripped' DVD file structure(just as if it was an actual disc), and that there isnt a button to delete VIDEO_TS files; are some of the main reasons i have used Windows Media Center so long...that and the Guide layout and recording for my TV tuners....but, we might have a big problem if they aren't supporting metadata for 2017 dvd movies

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#12

Post by jachin99 » Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:04 am

T Rush wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2017 4:50 am ok...I'm checking with an older DVD disc(again, I hope starting this thread in the EPG forum section isnt causing confusion, but my questions are about metadata on DVD discs and DVD files, not TV programming)....popping the disc in the DVD drive and the cover art and text metadata are showing in the Movie Library....yes I still have star ratings and release year displaying along with similar movies, synopsis, cast + crew, and review...as these are not TV movies, and the metadata is handled differently
....so when I just created a new backup of the VIDEO_TS and dvdid.xml folders and files from the DVD onto my hard drive, apparently yes, WMC was able to download and display the cover art and text, just as it could with the older DVD disc

hmmm....so looking thru my DVD Movie Library in WMC on my THPC (and sorting the collection my 'date')
....it seems that only stuff from 2016 and earlier is having the metadata supplied by Microsoft....ugh, I wonder what the hold up is with getting metadata from new DVD's this year, 2017 as I think I've narrowed down the problem now :wtf:


here is a photo I took of my screen showing the older DVD I just backed up to the hard drive, with the info showing
Image
(oops, sideways and all that....but see? star rating, year, similar movies, etc... :yawn: )
I have been looking at this over the last few days and just when you think you have things figured out.... I'm getting extended guide data for Ready Player One, which was released in 2018. From reading a few different threads I was at the same conclusion. I wonder if the extended data lookup can somehow be made permanent since W7 is about to EOL. All my DVDIDs are YAMMM generated AND I TOOK YAMMM OFF MY PC MONTHS AGO but I never deleted my local cache. I'm trying to narrow down exactly how everything works but it would appear that with at least YAMMM fake DVDIDs, the data is still looked up via the Rovi database. Its not conssistent though as sometimes I get just similar movies, sometimes I get that and cast and crew, and sometimes I get everything for the same movie. Maybe the folder structure YAMMM creates somehow converts everything to a TMDB db id, or rovi always had it like that to begin with. Rovi might even keep this around for a while to keep things like old dvd players working.

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#13

Post by dab2kab » Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:00 am

Unfortunately, based on my reading of this support bulletin posted on the 25th, the movie data you are talking about as well as song data has been discontinued for all versions of wmc, as well as windows media player on windows 7. The data is still apparently provided to windows media player on windows 8 and 10 however.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-hk/hel ... dia-player

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