Hi, I've looked, but it turns out that there are no solutions. I opened myself already a question on how to "re-combine" split episodes (multi-part epsidoses named a/b). Now I get the next shortcoming with collection, where TMDB moderators disqualify and delete collections, like German TV fairy tale series "Sechs auf einen Streich",
A German thread on TMDB shows the problem. TMDB and it's moderators are extremely restrictive and do not simplify life, so it seems up to Kodi to do something about it?
collection.col
My idea would be an improvement to the library import, allowing to merge information sources in a combination with certain overrides. Similar to the simplified nfo-files offering to link a specific TMDB-dataset (as I happen to use a lot to make their naming recognizable with my file naming and the language. I have movies and series in German, English and Russian, with one or more audio-streams, naming in Latin and Cyrillic. Then we come to series like "Ice Age", which i name (1) to (5) with i.e. (3a) for "Coole Bescherung" (Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas). This collection has also been deleted by the TMDB mods.
I could imagine an addition file iceage.col consisting of the collection files in the collection (not the file name) order, creating a collection from those movies. Would be best if text files, as many users are simply overwhelmed if asked to understand XML. Or an easy, specialized XML structure consisting of file name, "episode" in the collection and TMDB-link? I don't know how it can be done, but it might be that at the end of the import or update, Kodi applies those files to create the collection? That would also allow to add an "iceage.jpg" for the collection poster? Another option would be a [filename].col with each movie, naming the collection name and "episode".
Remerge split series
The second workaround I mentioned in the above mentioned question I posted, merging split seasons back together, using an info file with not one, but both/multiple TMDB-URLs, then merging the plots of both files into one (separated with a line-break).
Refresh single movie
While I find the problems with TMDB aplenty, it would be very nice to refresh, though I believe this requires a trigger to tell TMDB to not use the cached data, but reload from the database itself. Given how I experience TMDB moderators, I think that's a problem. But currently, once imported, the data is not being refreshed, except following a complete reset of the library. It would be helpful to have a trigger to update a specific library.
I do not understand yet why, but my kids library is often filled with English content, despite my setting of all information to German. Quite some files that are not found are (incorrect) linked to some similar named movie. To refresh those, I also must add the nfo-file and then disconnect the library to delete it to do a refresh.
Kodi "mixed" XML
A special "simplified" nfo-file would be also an idea, to tell Kodi the link to the TMDB file(s), but then also the "overrides" or adds information for the file. Without everything that is in the TMDB dataset, but link to that.
While I learned to work with XML some years ago, I don't do it on "daily basis". And I would not want to create the basic information by hand if I could instead use TMDB.
Export single movie XML
Export can only done on library level, it would be helpful to export also just a single movie - this way, it generates only the one fileset that needs attention. Aside that it would be faster.
Related thoughts
While I am not a programmer, I would prefer a simple solution, but as it would be part of library updating, I doubt an "add-on" would be possible? I've looked, but could not find either solution or add-on. Any referral to the right point where to find solutions to my problems sure would be appreciated. Side note: My movie and series library, also thanks to MediathekView is several Terrabyte and thousands of movies and episodes. I would not want to edit manual NFO-files locally, but prefer to make use of TMDB, for the sake of other users facing the same problem. That is what scraping is all about, isn't it? But with TMDB being rather "bureaucratic" and causing structural problems as these and maybe others, a Kodi-workaround would improve usability (and such application) of Kodi. Without, other users will have the same problems and those kept me from using Kodi for very long (using UMS/VLC).
A German thread on TMDB shows the problem. TMDB and it's moderators are extremely restrictive and do not simplify life, so it seems up to Kodi to do something about it?
collection.col
My idea would be an improvement to the library import, allowing to merge information sources in a combination with certain overrides. Similar to the simplified nfo-files offering to link a specific TMDB-dataset (as I happen to use a lot to make their naming recognizable with my file naming and the language. I have movies and series in German, English and Russian, with one or more audio-streams, naming in Latin and Cyrillic. Then we come to series like "Ice Age", which i name (1) to (5) with i.e. (3a) for "Coole Bescherung" (Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas). This collection has also been deleted by the TMDB mods.
I could imagine an addition file iceage.col consisting of the collection files in the collection (not the file name) order, creating a collection from those movies. Would be best if text files, as many users are simply overwhelmed if asked to understand XML. Or an easy, specialized XML structure consisting of file name, "episode" in the collection and TMDB-link? I don't know how it can be done, but it might be that at the end of the import or update, Kodi applies those files to create the collection? That would also allow to add an "iceage.jpg" for the collection poster? Another option would be a [filename].col with each movie, naming the collection name and "episode".
Remerge split series
The second workaround I mentioned in the above mentioned question I posted, merging split seasons back together, using an info file with not one, but both/multiple TMDB-URLs, then merging the plots of both files into one (separated with a line-break).
Refresh single movie
While I find the problems with TMDB aplenty, it would be very nice to refresh, though I believe this requires a trigger to tell TMDB to not use the cached data, but reload from the database itself. Given how I experience TMDB moderators, I think that's a problem. But currently, once imported, the data is not being refreshed, except following a complete reset of the library. It would be helpful to have a trigger to update a specific library.
I do not understand yet why, but my kids library is often filled with English content, despite my setting of all information to German. Quite some files that are not found are (incorrect) linked to some similar named movie. To refresh those, I also must add the nfo-file and then disconnect the library to delete it to do a refresh.
Kodi "mixed" XML
A special "simplified" nfo-file would be also an idea, to tell Kodi the link to the TMDB file(s), but then also the "overrides" or adds information for the file. Without everything that is in the TMDB dataset, but link to that.
While I learned to work with XML some years ago, I don't do it on "daily basis". And I would not want to create the basic information by hand if I could instead use TMDB.
Export single movie XML
Export can only done on library level, it would be helpful to export also just a single movie - this way, it generates only the one fileset that needs attention. Aside that it would be faster.
Related thoughts
While I am not a programmer, I would prefer a simple solution, but as it would be part of library updating, I doubt an "add-on" would be possible? I've looked, but could not find either solution or add-on. Any referral to the right point where to find solutions to my problems sure would be appreciated. Side note: My movie and series library, also thanks to MediathekView is several Terrabyte and thousands of movies and episodes. I would not want to edit manual NFO-files locally, but prefer to make use of TMDB, for the sake of other users facing the same problem. That is what scraping is all about, isn't it? But with TMDB being rather "bureaucratic" and causing structural problems as these and maybe others, a Kodi-workaround would improve usability (and such application) of Kodi. Without, other users will have the same problems and those kept me from using Kodi for very long (using UMS/VLC).
