IMDb

The IMDb+ plugin and scraper for MovingPictures will make your movie collection easier to use. The plugin will keep the scraper script up-to-date, and add powerful features such as rename and grouping of movie series. It also corrects English titles, allows RottenTomatoes ratings, and many other features.

The rename of movie titles to allow grouping of series is best shown visually:

The IMDb+ plugin allows an easy way to adjust all the IMDb+ scraper script options from within MediaPortal GUI.

NEW: Scraper version 3.3.0+ has a temporary fix included that does a math node test now to see if things are working correct. If it fails, it will disable any average or scoring system that requires math to be done. You can check the movingpictures.log file for information on what was disabled.

The new score stystem calculates an average score based on the IMDb score, Metacritics Metascore, RottenTomatoes All Critics, RottenTomatoes Top Critics and RottenTomatoes Audience score.

If you wish to return back to the old method for scores, then enable the 'Single Score' setting via the IMDb+ plugin.

The users who have their Windows system configured to use a 'comma' as floating point separator, are getting errors due to the math part to calculate the average. Please use the 'Single Score' option for the time being on the IMDb or RottenTomatoes average critics scores, as no math is done on those.

The scraper forces English title on foreign movies. For example the movie Chin gei bin (2003) will be imported as 'Vampire Effect'.

• Enable 'Original Title' option via the IMDb+ plugin to import the movie as "Chin gei bin".
• Enable 'Add Foreign Title' option for "Vampire Effect (Chin gei bin)".
• Enable 'Foreign Title First' option for "Chin gei bin (Vampire Effect)".

The IMDb+ plugin will detect if you have an existing movie collection with movies that got imported via the default IMDb scraper.

If it detects that you have those in your collection, you can use the hidden menu on the left side to find the "Force IMDb+..." option.

This new option allows you to switch those movies over to the IMDb+ scraper, so that you can enjoy all the new benefits. Please see the wiki install guide for more information.

To install the plugin:

1. Open the "MediaPortal Extension Installer" and look for the "IMDb+" plugin under "Known extensions" or download the IMDb+ plugin MPEI package manually.
2. Install the MPEI package
3. Launch MediaPortal and go to the 'plugins' menu, so that you can adjust all the options to your liking.
4. ALERT: If you do not find the IMDb+ plugin in the list, then I'm sorry, but you have then encountered a small bug in MediaPortal. It is being worked on to get it fixed, but in the meantime; simply open MediaPortal configuration and then press 'OK' to properly close the configuration. This should then correctly update the mediaportal.xml file to show the IMDb+ plugin. Please retry the previous step to confirm and verify if all the options are to your liking before proceeding.
5. Then close MediaPortal, and open MovingPictures configuration to set up an import path and import movies, or refresh existing movies via the IMDb+ scraper.

For a few more options - and information on how to set up the script for use with an existing MovingPictures database - view the install procudure here: http://code.google.com/p/imdbplus/wiki/InstallPlugin

Technical details on scraper:

• Gets high resolution covers from imdb.com.
• Solves non-English title problem for users outside of the US.
• Supports made-for-TV movies, mini-series and straight-to-video movies.
• Configurable options to change the behaviour of the scraper. Use the IMDb+ Plugin to adjust (MediaPortal v1.2).
• Enabling UK ratings uses British-English movie titles.
• Auto-rename support based on static XML file for default and custom entries

Known issues:

• If you are bothered by the tiny delay versus the default imdb.com scraper, then please switch to IMDb rating. This removes the extra step to get info from the RottenTomatoes website. You do miss out then on all the extras, such as the much nicer RottenTomatoes rating or the ability of this scraper to use the RottenTomatoes synopsis and/or runtime info when this information is not available on the imdb website.
• The title found during search node will not match the final title from the details node if a forced-English title conversion is taking place. This is only a nuance inside the "Movie Importer" tab during import of a new movie, and might lead to unexpected results where the "Possible Matches" end result after auto (or manual) approval does not match the "File(s)" input title. A solution for this problem caused severe delays to the import process (takes 3-5x longer). Please voice your opinion as a reply to this thread if you feel the delay is worth it or not.
• If you experience unexplained delays during import; try again with your anti-virus solution temporary disabled. If you then sent the same movies back to the importer and there is no delay, modify your anti-virus solution to ignore/white-list MediaPortal.

Normally the first movie does not need to be renamed, except in the case of article removal movies, this is because the group ordering is done on SortBy title. So "The Matrix" would end up with sortby title of "matrix the", which would order it below the 2nd and 3rd movie in the group. You can now also edit the sortby field separate from the title if you wish.

Note: If you are going to rename/add entries to the custom XML file, please remember to use proper XML format. For example the '&' character needs to be written out as '&'. You can verify that the correct XML syntax was used by copy and pasting your file contents into the tester at:XML DOM - Validate XML

The list is now available via the Google Code project SVN @ rename XML database view with only showing the changes. You can use it to quickly see all the new additions and changes to existing entries. Near the top in the middle you can switch the drop down selection from 'Single-column' to 'Side by side' to see all entries. Near the top at the right side you can adjust the revision as well to look at older versions, but also newer ones incase I forgot to update the link on here

Check out the Google Code project page for more: Revision 438: Scraper script v4.9.52 - Fix Swedish plot importRevision 437: Rename XML database v1.9.0 – User suggested switch on 'Rambo' for consistent IMRevision 436: Scraper script v4.9.51 - Accept votes >= 1 millionRevision 435: Scraper script v4.9.50 - Fix IMDb+ Options XML parsing checkRevision 434: Scraper script v4.9.49 - Fix RottenTomatoes RegExphttp://code.google.com/p/imdbplus/