[WIP] AniDB.net Anime Video Scraper

Hi there,
I had the same problem with my anime collection and after two days of struggle I can clearly say that naming is the key to get everything recognized.
As you have noticed there are no real season in anime, only sequels and/or prequels, which makes it quiet difficult for XBMC to recognize stuff.

Anyway, this is how I sorted my anime to get it going:

----path/to/anime/
/Shakugan no Shana/
-Shakugan no Shana - 01 - The End to Everything, the One Beginning
/Shakugan no Shana Second/
-Shakugan no Shana Second - 01 - The Time for the Second Time
and so on.....

It seems that you have to put each "season" in a separate folder otherwise it won't load everything, but you don't need to rename everything, the folder name seems to be the most important thing. In my case I only renamed multi-season anime's and those that where not correctly recognized.
As for the advancedsettigns.xml you only need to put in this:

In short: Absolute numbering and Separate folders.

I got 140+ animes correctly recognized this way, the only things that doesn't work are openings, endings and specials but I don't really care about those.

I hope I could help you somehow and if you have any questions fell free to contact me, I'm still a noob myself but I managed so far.

For season artwork cataloguing you would have to rename each episode with S01E01 (s01e01) ect and then scrape the said series via the TVDB add-on , One Piece for example and it's 15 seasons. The 2 Project Index seasons for example are listed as S01 and S02 .

The AniDB add-on seems to scrape most specials if you use the S00 prefix re-naming method, matching the specials and Ovas listed on the TVDB, seems to work in a majority of cases.

Okay, the only issue I have left (other than specials) are most of my OVA are not showing up... Tried putting them in their own folder, but they still don't show up.

Looks like it's still the file browser for me ... This is too much of a pain in the rear.

The real problem isn't this scraper, the real problem is XBMC itself, refusing to accept anything out of a straight-jacket-form-fit view of how TV shows should be organized.

It would be dead simple for programmers within XBMC to allow for special episodes and OVA, but they just don't care.

lothiinator I think you are being a little too critical of XBMC. Some examples of the Ova's or specials you cannot get to display would help.

I have over 600 series and out of the 1000s of eps, specials and Ovas it would be less than a handful of them that I cannot catalogue within XBMC. Due to rare non listed episode or special. Good file re-naming is critical.

For example Usagi Drop (Bunny Dop on TVDB) it's 4 specials if re-named in sequence as listed on AniDB or TVDB Usagi Drop S00E1 - Leaf Aquarium [1280x720][Blu-ray].mkv ..... Usagi Drop S00E2 - To Santa [1280x720][Blu-ray].mkv ect then inserted within the main folder with the rest of the normal episodes the AniDB add-on scraper will scrape and list them perfectly within XBMC.

(2012-06-02 05:04)lothinator Wrote:  Okay, the only issue I have left (other than specials) are most of my OVA are not showing up... Tried putting them in their own folder, but they still don't show up.

Looks like it's still the file browser for me ... This is too much of a pain in the rear.

The real problem isn't this scraper, the real problem is XBMC itself, refusing to accept anything out of a straight-jacket-form-fit view of how TV shows should be organized.

It would be dead simple for programmers within XBMC to allow for special episodes and OVA, but they just don't care.

Don't give up just yet. You can manually add them pretty easy as long as they show up under files.
I don't now how you set it up but I've got a anime playlist and it seems that playlists only show scrapped folders. Sometimes the scrapping process doesn't work even if everything is set up correctly but the folder should appear in the files menu. Scrapping those folder is pretty simple, just open your playlist an go up a level until you see the "Files.." category, select it and then select your playlist, now you should see every folder even those who are not scrapped, they shouldn't have any thumbs or artwork. If you select one of them and press "i" or right click "Show Information" there should be an option "Refresh" do it and something should happen, either you have to type in the name of the show (this means the folder name is not recognized), or you have to select the show from a drop down menu (this happened with most of my OVA's) after that the scrapping should be complete and the show/OVA should appear in your library.

I know this is not the best solution, depending on how many OVA's you've got, but I'd rather do it manually and avoid struggling with the automated process.

Hi,
I'm using xbmc 11 with Anidb scraper 2.0...the problem is : I get banned all the time!!!!
Before all was ok but now I get banned after use for a minute or two...I waited a week to used again but same result , so I went to anidb's irc an this is the log :

rebelyouth>: hi
<rebelyouth>: I have one question: I'm using xbmc with the anidb scraper and when I tried to update it I always get a ban, this is happening for couples of weeks...any idea why?
<DerIdiot>: then talk to the developers of xbmc and tell them that
<DerIdiot>: the api bans naughty clients
<rebelyouth>: But I received a ban form anidb ..you think is a bug of xbmc?
<DerIdiot>: ...
<rebelyouth>: k
<DerIdiot>: whatever code they have running ther eis THEIR code
<rebelyouth>: but the scraper is the same I always used in the past
<DerIdiot>: our api allows for data being pulled, but there are limits you have to respect otherwise you get a kick iun the balls
<rebelyouth>: they didn't change
<DerIdiot>: still their problem and not ours
<rebelyouth>: got it...tnx
<DerIdiot>: clearly they are doing somethign stupid
<DerIdiot>: probalby not respecting the server is busy response and keep on hammering instead
<rebelyouth>: ok I will contact the XBMC's people an let them know..tnx for ur help
<DerIdiot>: anidb is not imdb
<DerIdiot>: you can't keep on hammering
<DerIdiot>: we do not have the ressources for shit like that


I'm using the default setting an also tried to roll back...any idea why i have this problem?
Tnx

Hello All,

I'm having a recent issue today getting data from anidb, is this just an outage or do I need to change something on my end? I've already cleared my sources but no luck.

@Rebelyouth The scraper only needs to download one xml file from anidb per series, and generally the time it takes XBMC to add even one episode is delay enough between requests. At least, in my experience - I haven't been banned in ages, and the last time was very much my fault.

So, this is my guess at what is happening:
You have several videos in your anime collection which can not be enumerated by XBMC (i.e any file whose name doesn't match a tvshowmatching regexp), and you also have cleanonupdate set to true in your advancedsettings. With that combination every time you scan, the scraper will pull the xml file for any series with those files in, but finding no enumerable episodes, XBMC will quickly move on to the next series. Too quickly, perhaps. Cleanonupdate will then make XBMC "forget" that it's already checked those non-library files, ensuring that the same thing will happen next time.

Obviously, that's just speculation on my part, there are probably other things that could cause the same effect (you may just have manually cleaned the library between updates rather than using cleanonupdate, for example.) A debug log of you scanning and getting banned would probably clarify things.

(2012-06-05 08:55)Kupo Wrote:  Hello All,

I'm having a recent issue today getting data from anidb, is this just an outage or do I need to change something on my end? I've already cleared my sources but no luck.

Code:

:36:47 T:3344  NOTICE: VideoInfoScanner: Starting scan ..
23:36:59 T:3344 WARNING: XFILE::CFileCurl::CReadState::FillBuffer: curl failed with code 28
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: CFileCurl::CReadState::Open, didn't get any data from stream.
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: ADDON::CScraper::Run: Unable to parse web site
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: VideoInfoScanner: Asked to lookup episode W:\Anime\Berserk\Berserk s01e01.mkv online, but we have no episode guide. Check your tvshow.nfo and make sure the <episodeguide> tag is in place.
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: VideoInfoScanner: Asked to lookup episode W:\Anime\Berserk\Berserk s01e02.mkv online, but we have no episode guide. Check your tvshow.nfo and make sure the <episodeguide> tag is in place.
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: VideoInfoScanner: Asked to lookup episode W:\Anime\Berserk\Berserk s01e25.mkv online, but we have no episode guide. Check your tvshow.nfo and make sure the <episodeguide> tag is in place.
23:36:59 T:3344   ERROR: CPicture::CacheImage Unable to create new image special://masterprofile/Thumbnails/Video/e/e0929d50.tbn from image
23:36:59 T:3344  NOTICE: VideoInfoScanner: Finished scan. Scanning for video info took 00:12
23:37:18 T:2136 WARNING: XFILE::CFileCurl::CReadState::FillBuffer: curl failed with code 28
23:37:18 T:2136   ERROR: CFileCurl::CReadState::Open, didn't get any data from stream.
23:37:18 T:2136   ERROR: ADDON::CScraper::Run: Unable to parse web site
23:37:18 T:2136   ERROR: CVideoInfoDownloader::Process: Error getting details from http://api.anidb.net:9001/httpapi?request=anime&client=xbmcscrap&clientver=1&protover=1&aid=98

Hi,

It seems to be an outage, it's not working for me either. But as someone mentioned on the page before, this happens from time to time. Guess we just have to wait a day or two.

~DerIdiot | the udp api will be down for some time

until its up im pretty sure we're SOL