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http://www.thetvdb.com is the preferred source for metadata for TV programmes. It does indeed list metadata for the Doctor Who programmes I am trying to add to XBMC Atlantis Alpha 4 (running under Mac OS X 10.5.4 on an Intel Mac mini).

Some history of Doctor Who is however important to understand the problem.

The so called "Classic Doctor Who" ran from 1963 to 1989, starting with the first Doctor played by William Hartnell and ending with the Seventh Doctor played by Sylvester McCoy. There was then a one off Doctor Who Film in which the Eighth Doctor was played by Paul McGann. There was then a considerable gap when the BBC discontinued Doctor Who.

In 2005 the BBC resurrected Dcotor Who with the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Ecclestone, and this continues on still with now the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant.

Most people and authoritative sources therefore list two totally different sets of Doctor Who Episodes, the "Classic" episodes, and the "New" episodes. The new episodes therefore have restarted the Season numbers back at 1 again. This is the source of the problem.

TheTVDB.com lists the classic episodes under the main name of "Doctor Who" and the new episodes as "Doctor Who (2005)". However the Seasons for the classic "Doctor Who" start at Season 1, and the Seasons for the new "Doctor Who (2005)" also start at Season 1.

While XBMC and the TVDB scraper recognise the different TV program names (Doctor Who vs. Doctor Who 2005), when it tries to scrape a Season 1 episode from Doctor Who (2005) it actually gets information from the old Classic Doctor Who season 1 dating back to 1963!!

This problem also occurs with Plex for Mac since it is using the same scraper.

I would have posted this to a generic XBMC forum since it as far as I can see would affect all versions of XBMC since this is a scraping problem but as I only have a Mac I am posting it here. I have raised a Trac for it.

I'm not sure on this one but if you actually call the TV Show folder Doctor Who (2005) it will get it right. But you can always go into the TVShow info window in XBMC and click refresh and then manually pick the one you want saying yes to "Refresh info for all episodes"
This ay be a pain but you anly have to do it once, once corrected it will always get the right info

I had the same problem, easily solved by adding a file named "tvshow.nfo" in the docterwho(2005) directory with a link to the correct page on thetvdb.com

example:
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=78804&lid=7

Had to do this for Battlestar Galactica aswell.

Not really related, but another issue you might come across when scraping DR Who is all those specials, just rename them too series 00, (and look for exactly what episode it was on thetvdb.com).

http://thetvdb.com/?tab=season&seriesid=...6260&lid=7

for example:

Doctor Who.2005.S00.07.Voyage of the Damned.avi

Jezz_X Wrote:I'm not sure on this one but if you actually call the TV Show folder Doctor Who (2005) it will get it right. But you can always go into the TVShow info window in XBMC and click refresh and then manually pick the one you want saying yes to "Refresh info for all episodes"
This ay be a pain but you anly have to do it once, once corrected it will always get the right info

This is the whole point, I do have two correctly named folders, one called "Doctor Who" for the original episodes, and one called "Doctor Who (2005)" for the new ones. With XBMC and the TVDB scraper it did correctly assign the 2005 banner to the 2005 folder, but the seasons and episodes within that folder got data from the older original series despite this. I have since seen another report from someone else (elsewhere) describing exactly the same problem but with Battle Star Galactica, which like Doctor who has an old set of series and a new set of series.

Yes, using an nfo file gets round the problem, my point is that this should not be necessary.

Just to clarify my folder structure is as follows

/TV/Doctor Who/Season 2/The Daleks - S02E05.VOB
/TV/Doctor Who (2005)/Season 1/Rose - S01E01.VOB

PS. While we are on the topic of TV programmes, the gorgeous AEON skin does not have a 'view' which supports wide banners which the vast majority of TV programmes on TVDB use. Unfortunately the AEON threads have been closed and the AEON website not updated since July. Anyone know if the AEON skin is still being developed? Is there a new link? A way to contact the author? If he could add a view which supported Banners instead of DVD shape thumbs this would be great (by adding an extra view people would still have the current choice). The Project Mayhem III and MediaStream skins do have views which work with wide banners.

Aeon discussion

What you describe would definitely be considered a bug.
Can it be reliably reproduced?

this rieks of the tvshow stacking code to me

Please produce a set of dummy files that mimics your filesystem for these shows. Armed with these, we can reproduce it and fix it, and furthermore use them as a reference to make sure it does not happen again

Basically: Create a bunch of empty .avi files (or .vob if you prefer) inside a directory hierarchy similar to what you use, and try to replicate using this. If you can, add a trac report and zip up this dummy filesystem and attach it.

Thanks!
Jonathan

Can confirm jelockwood's findings, whenever i tried to scrape Doctor Who(2005) i would get the original Dr Who series info.

Hence i had to do the .nfo workaround.

That's just a bad match, and presumably does not entail what is described above. (Then Series info is for 2005, but season/ep info for original, ie they somehow mix).

Fixed in revision r15524.. the tvdb scraper will now use the year if found in the folder name of your series.

VDRfan

Just out of curiosity, what happens I you use year which is not used by theTVDB?
Such as an error (one ore more years off), or if TheTVDB does not have a year for that show, such as the original BSG and Dr. Who?

sho Wrote:Just out of curiosity, what happens I you use year which is not used by theTVDB?
Such as an error (one ore more years off), or if TheTVDB does not have a year for that show, such as the original BSG and Dr. Who?

Unfortunately TheTVDB wont find anything if a wrong year is passed to the search. Original series will have to be scraped by the name only. Remakes will be found by adding the year to the folder name. It would be great if scott (or someone else) could change the search to match everything, even if the year provided is a wrong one.
If you're using years in foldernames you should make sure its the correct one

ok so i finally got the system to see it as dr. who 2005. but now the episodes and seasons won't show on the tv shows tab even though it did before i changed it. i did just as jeez_x said earlier and went to the show info and refeshed it. the videos are labeled as Dr. Who 2005 season 1 and so on. so why isn't it showing up in the tv shows tab and it is showing in the videos tab under files?

Can anyone help me here? I don't see an actual solution in this thread that is of any use to someone new to XBMC like myself...

1. Where do I get the .nfo file?
2. Where do I put it?

Hopefully someone might see this...