Add to library

Hi everyone

I have just set up OSMC on a Pi which is amazing by the way !

I have been slowly working my way to understand everything and I must admit It just keeps getting better and better. A few renames here and there of files and folders and the scrappers have been excellent however just one issue I hope someone can help with

I have tried both listed scrappers to find info on a British TV documentary that is quite old but a personal favorite of mine. And while i can find it on the scrapper website, the scrapper will not pick it up and add the show to my library. I even setup a separate source just with the show and used the the second scrapper listed but to no joy when the library is updated it just wont show in my library with or without the poster information its just not there. Of course i can see the show in files and can play the files no issue, so i know there is no issue with format etc and also in my main tv source of course all the other shows are picked up by the tvdb scrapper.

So my question is, can I force the issue and make a manual link or can I manually add the show and manually add the show poster ?

Im doing everything from within the OSMC due to being so new using Linux so I would appreciate any help directing me via the OSMC guys.

You sure can.

https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files

Which show exactly are you trying to add?

https://thetvdb.com/series/provos-loyalists-and-brits

This is the show I’m trying to add

It looks like nobody has added that show to TMDB yet so you would need to set your scraper for that source to TVDB (new) or alternatively generate full nfo files with something like Tiny Media Manager (again using TVDB as the source there). I checked it using a …/Provos, Loyalists and Brits/s01e01.mkv file path and got Kodi to scrape it the way you wanted.

i shall look at generating the nfo files thanks for your help

That is a bit of a learning curve. If you wanted to get it into your library quick you can just go to videos>files>(follow the file path to this shows source folder)>context menu>change content> then in that window change the scraper to TVDB (new). If that scraper option is not there you can install it in the add-ons section under information providers.

Thank you I just looked at the format of the nfo yes a bit of work needed on that i think and its late so i will try what you have suggested

Just wanted to write again and say it worked perfectly thanks so much, thought i was in for a long night of nfo creation. this has been bugging me for about 3 hours LOL

Did not know a new scrapper could be added but makes perfect sense should have looked. But really appreciate the help on that one.

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Your welcome. If you wanted to dive into nfo files I would check out Tiny Media Manager. You can download the older version for free still if you didn’t want to fork out the money they want for the current version.

Parsing nfo files work well in cases where Kodi is picking up the wrong show but the url has to correspond to the scraper your using. So in a case like this show you would still need to change your scraper since the one you were using (TMDB) didn’t have the listing you needed.

Im with you,

Is there a simple way to point different shows at different scrapers without setting up a different source ? or is setting another source best practice ?

you have a scraper set at your source itself but you can if needed follow that path down to the source folder for an individual show and do the change content for just that show. There is no need to have different sources. With that being said, this is not something that is normally needed to be done as most things on TVDB are also on TMDB and you just happened to run into an edge case.

Additionally if one was to make full nfo files for a particular show then Kodi will just use that info when scraping regardless of what scraper is set. This isn’t probably something that would be useful to many people who only have content from the last decade or so in their library, but there exists people who have files from show that were acquired from farther back that don’t line up very will with how the scrapers are listed. There is also cases where people want a shows episodes listed in a different order than how they were aired, and other edge cases were you may want to just make the metadata to conform to what you want instead of making your files conform to what the scraper has. This is where nfo files really come in handy. There is a learning curve so it is probably not something that most people would find value in unless they are having an issue that can’t easily be worked around.

Personally my collection is split between currently airing show that I just scrape normally with Kodi, and a separate source that only contains completed shows and I used TMM to generate nfo files for all of those.