[joncgde2]

@urizen: yes i understand that, hence me saying it wasn't perfect - but it's a matter of which is more unreliable - and ratings are, because of the fanboys dodgy studios


@ Air MiHandles: another one, and perhaps more popular, is rotten tomatoes, which takes an average of a number of film critics and gives a rating to movies - then they have a tomato meter, which is bascially a "watch of don't watch' rating

this would be much better to use


or, if stark takes the info from the movie nfo, then other apps like media companion could actually grab the info from wherever, and stark would just display it - so in theory, any site could be used with stark.. hmm

[djh_]

But a professional skin should not be ruined with 'unprofessional' or amateur ratings

I couldn't agree with you more - but unfortunately we're in the minority. And the fact is that I don't want to spend months after release being nagged about the lack of them. Another sad fact is that pretty much all the info XBMC scrapes is amateurish at best. Childish plot descriptions, incomplete ratings info, incorrect studios, crap thumbnails: it's all rubbish. But just as you can use nfos to get round that, the time will come when XBMC lets you rate your own movies.

After release I'll be bumping up the customisation side of the Info screens anyway, so your problems will be over soon enough.

[jtap06]

Great to hear! After release of Stark perhaps we should all chip in and buy djh_ a much earned vacation to a destination of his choice! djh_ vacation fund anyone?

[jmarshall]

Another sad fact is that pretty much all the info XBMC scrapes is amateurish at best. Childish plot descriptions, incomplete ratings info, incorrect studios, crap thumbnails: it's all rubbish. But just as you can use nfos to get round that, the time will come when XBMC lets you rate your own movies.

While I agree with your sentiments on the whole (though would have used less extreme language :p) I think it's fair to point out that things have drastically improved in this regard with thetvdb and themoviedb coming online. They allow all of us to benefit from the improvements that each of us make to these things. Ofcourse, a community driven site like these do let some not-so-professional submissions come in, but generally only if there's nothing better available. The not-so-professional submissions are then improved and everyone benefits

Cheers,
Jonathan

[djh_]

To be fair, I did notice a sudden bump up in synopsis quality about a month or two ago. Change of scraper? But yes, the buck ultimately stops with us if these things are going to get any better. Shame I've got my hands full with something else atm...

[pecinko]

But just as you can use nfos to get round that, the time will come when XBMC lets you rate your own movies.

Pardon my ignorance, but thus that mean that a Skiner can actually read metadata from nfos and use them on screen, if he is willing to do so? I thought you can use only informations from XBMC library?

[LaTropa64]

After release I'll be bumping up the customisation side of the Info screens anyway, so your problems will be over soon enough.

Being the info screen, I think it should have as much information as possible. As long as it can be presented in a non-cluttered way, the more the better... in my opinion anyways.

[Saelfaer]

Pardon my ignorance, but thus that mean that a Skiner can actually read metadata from nfos and use them on screen, if he is willing to do so? I thought you can use only informations from XBMC library?

i don't think that is the case
what dhj meant was that he can use info from the library
but the user can choose to work with .nfo files instead of scraped content
which means he can - to a certain extend - determine the quality of the synopsis, thumbs, ... himself instead of using flawed content from a third party source like these sites where content is scraped from

but this has nothing to do with how skinners get to the content.
it is still picked up by scrapers from the nfo, placed into the library
and then the skinner takes it from there.

[LaTropa64]

One other thing, it would be nice if we could scroll through the list of actors and select them (to pull up the list of other movies they are in) and also display their thumbnail as you cycle through them. I didn't realize it didn't actually work that way until now.

[smcnally75]

Why wouldn't you just browse by actor?

[LaTropa64]

Why wouldn't you just browse by actor?

I do that sometimes too but there are a number of reasons why it's convenient to jump to them from info. 1) With over 12,000 actors in my library, it takes some time to go through them all. 2) Usually, I'm browsing through my movies and come to one and think "Oh yeah, what's that other movie I have that Tom Cruise is in" hit info, select Tom Cruise, and just like that I have a complete list of every movie he's in. 3) Every other skin shows you thumbs and lets you select an actor from the info view, it's what I'm use to.

I realize this is a beta and that's why this is a suggestion. Stark looks amazing. Usability is important too though.

[smcnally75]

I do that sometimes too but there are a number of reasons why it's convenient to jump to them from info. 1) With over 12,000 actors in my library, it takes some time to go through them all. 2) Usually, I'm browsing through my movies and come to one and think "Oh yeah, what's that other movie I have that Tom Cruise is in" hit info, select Tom Cruise, and just like that I have a complete list of every movie he's in. 3) Every other skin shows you thumbs and lets you select an actor from the info view, it's what I'm use to.

I realize this is a beta and that's why this is a suggestion. Stark looks amazing. Usability is important too though.

Stark has great usability, what you are asking for are extra features, not usability. It's a neat idea, but can it even be done in XBMC? I'm only asking because I've never seen anyone do that before.

[LaTropa64]

Stark has great usability, what you are asking for are extra features, not usability. It's a neat idea, but can it even be done in XBMC? I'm only asking because I've never seen anyone do that before.

It's not my idea. It's not an extra feature. It's an existing option in XBMC. Every other skin I've used (PM3, PM3.HD, xTV, MediaStream, Horizonz) works this way. Jump to 1:30 in this video to see what I'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohjkj6zOucs

[Hitcher]

I think djh said it something that'll be added at a later date.

[smcnally75]

That is pretty neat. I didn't think you were making it up, I was just saying a had not seen it before.