Hi,
I have seen this posted elsewhere before some time ago but wondered if there may now be a solution...
I can sometimes get the full programme info of given recording by going into a film/tv prog in Recorded TV, but often there are just a few short sentences ending in ...
This appears to be random, as there is plenty of space for more information to be displayed on the screen.
Also, the same film might have very little info on it in RecordedTV, but the full info under DVD Library, so the information is definitely saved somewhere on my MCE. Is there a registry key that limits the amount of characters in recordedtv info perhaps?
(postscript: In fact the full data is here: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\Recording\Recordings.xml. Any way to always display this full programme data?)
A second question: is there a good add-in for automatically ading a thumbnail to recorded films (as opposed to ripped ones) when the appear in the DVD Library?
many thanks!!
Hi Emartel,
I take it your using Vista Media Center ?
Dale
VMC 32Bit, 7MC 64bit, 7MC 32bit, 36TB Home Media Server, VOIP.
Hi Da1ek,
yes, vista 32 bit
ed
yes me too
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Let me break your question down into a few parts
1) There is inconsitancy between the metadata shown in recorded TV and that shown in the DVD LIbrary ?
I cant answer why the short versions are appearing with the ... , however to my understanding the two areas , recorded tv and dvd library get their information from different sources. Recorded TV from the information contained in the guide data itself and DVD Library from an online Movie information source. From memory AMG, hence the inconsitancy.
Perhaps someone else can comment on exactly why the artifically shortened version appears, but i would suspect theres a character limitation in place where if the number of characters is greater than X , suffix '...' .
As for a registry hack for Vista, this limit i'm lead to believe is held directly within one of the mediacenter DLLS (eshell.dll ? ) so its unlikeky you will find a hack.
2) Attaching a custom thumbnail to Recorded TV shown in the DVD Library.
I remember playing with this problem a few years back when i first got into Vista Media Center, and couldnt find an easy way to resolve it. The problem stems from the way VMC sees the recorded movie inside the DVD Library and in the different ways they are stored.
DVDs require a unique folder for each movie. This folder can contain a folder.jpg file which can be a thumbnail or a cover and are simple to do, and as long as the rest of the DVD structure is intact will show properly inside the Library.
The Recorded TV movies however get special treatment and dont require any unique folder to be created for each movie to appear within the DVD Library so there is no easy way to add a unique thumbnail to it.
To my knowledge no such plug in exisits to allow Recorded TV movies to have unique thumbnails attached for the Vista DVD Library. and a quick hunt around the net has so far confirmed this.
There is every evidence that the DVD Library feature of VMC was a work in progress which , given the potentially questionable activity of transfering your DVDs from disc to Media Center, Microsoft where not completely happy with, hence why it was 'disabled' as standard.
I would consider ignoring the DVD Library feature entirely in favour of a plug in such as Sam's excellent MediaBrowser or MyMovies 3 which allow you to create unique metadata, backgrounds and cover information for each movie, if you plan to stick with Vista...
However, the Movie Library feature of Windows 7 does handle recorded movies far more intelligently, going off to the net to collect DVD covers, cast and crew information by default. Combined with the excellent Movie Guide feature , which displays all upcomming movies for recording, getting your hands on an upgrade edition of 7 is by far the best 'plug in'
Not as helpful as i would have liked to have been, but i hope it at least gives you a few pointers/avenues of enquiry.
thanks for the response dale.
The info in DVD library and recordedTV appears to be the same text content, just shortened in recordedTv.
In terms of the thumbnail for recorded films in DVD library, I think I have found a solution: putting a jgp image with the exact same filename (except the file extension obviously) in the same folder as the recorded tv films appears to work.
taking your advice re win7 - getting my copy this weekend!!
many thanks