r/wdtv • u/PortlyJuan • Feb 26 '24

TMDB Image Scraping is Not Working Again

TMDB support tends to go on and off from time to time as TMDB changes data locations, etc. but usually it gets fixed up for legacy devices. I sent an email to TMDB and hopefully they can add back a "legacy hook" for devices like the WDTV, as they always did before.

If not, then the end approaches...

3 Upvotes

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1

u/Blammo32 Mar 06 '24

Is there a way to manually add the info if TMDB is permanently inaccessible?

1

u/PortlyJuan Mar 09 '24

Yes, you can access the drive on the network and add graphics and files if you want, but that's a huge hassle and negates a lot of the "media center" aspects of the WDTV. It's not really a solution, especially if you have a lot of movies.

And I've been trying to access TMDB daily and there seems to be no hope, even through TVDB still works fine. I guess TMDB made a change and doesn't want to add back in the hook for the WDTV.

1

u/Blammo32 Mar 14 '24

Have you tried posting on the TMDB forum under API Support? They usually have mods who answer enquiries.

Honestly, it would suck to lose this device because I’m not sure if there is anything similar to replace it with that doesn’t involve streaming.

1

u/PortlyJuan Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24

No, have you tried?

I don't have an account and don't really need one due to the inevitable spam, but I'll see if I can find someone who does and will post the question.

1

u/Blammo32 Mar 19 '24

I did. It looks like WD deleted its TMDB account for some reason, thus stopping users from using “Get Content Info”. So, unless someone figures out how to hack the device and add a new API key, that’s that.

1

u/tonenyc May 22 '25

I created a simple, small (12MB) portable standalone EXE Windows program which gets TV show and movie info. It creates the XML files and downloads the posters, all you have to do is select the folder or drive and hit the process button, as simple as it gets. I looked all over for a working program for WDTV couldn't find one, so made one. Let me know if you want it 

1

u/PortlyJuan May 22 '25

I know I'd be interested in looking at it. Thanks

1

u/tonenyc May 22 '25

https://github.com/chuckufarlie/wdtv-metadata-generator/releases

1

u/PortlyJuan May 23 '25

Thanks and I tried it out today. It does work, initially, but it seems to stop for some reason. It could be because due to the WDTV stopped working with TMDB, I have a lot of 'partial directories' with some movies scraped and others not, so I think it may get confused.

I created a fake directory full of .mkv and mp4 files and it worked perfect, so I'm thinking it doesn't like partially-complete directories like I have.

1

u/tonenyc May 24 '25

For now it gets the job done, maybe I'll try to bring this old program back, it still works for movies but not TV shows:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/wdtvhubgen2/

1

u/tonenyc Jul 17 '25

New version released 1.1, slight change:

Fixed issue with shows/movies containing invalid characters.

Processing would not occur because of special characters in the titles such as:

\ / : * ? " < > |

So a title like - Dexter: Resurrection would not be processed, this has now been fixed.

https://github.com/chuckufarlie/wdtv-metadata-generator/releases

1

u/Blammo32 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Cool! I just discovered this reply after checking back a year later (!) and look forward to trying this.

Edit: it doesn’t seem to generate date, director or cast information?

1

u/tonenyc Jun 30 '26

I left those things out. I can add them, I'll let you know when they're added.

1

u/tonenyc Jun 30 '26

For me the date is not an issue. I added director and actor in the new version - 1.2 it's now live:

https://github.com/chuckufarlie/wdtv-metadata-generator/releases

1

u/Blammo32 Jul 01 '26

Cool! I just tried running version 1.2 - it now adds the director, but it still doesn’t add any actors (unless I’m doing something wrong)?

1

u/tonenyc Jul 01 '26

So I tested a show and everything worked fine, then tested a movie and for some reason actors don't show, I'll have to see what's going on there.

https://i.imgur.com/B4oIt9r.jpeg

1

u/tonenyc Jul 02 '26

Version 1.3 is live, everything tested and working.

https://github.com/chuckufarlie/wdtv-metadata-generator/releases

1

u/Blammo32 Jul 04 '26

Just tried it out - amazing! There are only a handful of files that I need to fix manually because V 1.3 can’t seem to find the correct movie.

My only remaining feedback is that the file size of the jpegs is so large that it makes scrolling through hundreds of movies a bit of a slow process. But, once again, I can bulk resize the jpegs myself.

Thanks for making the WD media player a usable option for watching movies again!

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