Media Browser has it’s own builtin metadata providers so it can retrieve metadata like movie descriptions and artwork.
This however has it’s limitations and requires exact folder name matches. More details about that can be found here.
There are several third party tools however, that offer a more granular way of retrieving metadata. They offer abilities like choosing posters, backdrops and movie matching based on searches.
The most commonly used metadata grabbers are:
Metabrowser
- official website: http://www.themetabrowser.com
- discussion forum: Media Browser Forum – Metabrowser
1) Install Metabrowser
2) Start Metabrowser and open the Options window
3) On the General tab click “Add a new Location” and browse to the StartupFolder (C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\StartupFolder by default) and press enter
4) On the General tab click at “ImagesByName” use the browse button to select the ImagesByName\People folder. (C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\ImagesByName\People by default)
5) Click Save
6) Click Refresh List. The virtual folders are now indexed.
7) Select a movie from the list and click “Fetch Movie Metadata” and select the correct movie from the search results.
The metadata will now be populated.
After that click fetch for both the poster and backdrop images.
Be sure to hit the “Save Metadata” button to save your changes.
Alternatively you can right click a movie folder and press process movie. It will automatically be populated with the Metadata and the first available poster and backdrop.
8) Repeat step 7 for all movies with red text, red text means that the movie has not been matched to an entry on themoviedb. Two red dots next to the movie title means that it is missing both a folder and backdrop image, one red dot means that it is missing one of these images. If a movie has green text then its metadata is complete.
9) For TV Shows the steps for fetching data are similar to movies, but with some extra steps required.
10) In addition to folder and backdrop images, TV shows support banner images, an extra red dot will show next to shows which are missing this image.
11) When you have fetched the main show data, you need to select images for each of the seasons you have for that show.
12) Once you have selected season images, you need to either click fetch data for each episode, or right click the season and click Process. MetaBrowser will then fetch the data for each episode under that season. Red dots will show next to each episode that does not have an image associated with it.
13) Even if the metadata for a TV show is complete, its text will never turn green, so don’t spend time trying to work out what field is missing.
Media Center Master
- official website: http://www.mediacentermaster.com/
- discussion forum: http://forums.mediacentermaster.com/
[improvement needed]
Tip: After you started using a third pary metadata grabber, make sure you disable the internet providers in Media Browser. This can be done on the configuration menu. More details about that can be found here.
Note: based on community feedback, the general consensus is that Metabrowser is easiest to work with.
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We need the following improvements:
- basic instructions on how to use the third party tools
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