[mythtv-users] Season/Episode: guide listing grabber vs. metadata grabber

[Hika van den Hoven]

Hoi John,

Saturday, January 3, 2026, 7:48:28 PM, you wrote:

> The metadata grabbers have to guess a bit. One consequence of this
> is that the Episode information can in some cases be wrong, with an
> example being for multiple episodes broadcast on the same day.


> SchedulesDirect provides "syndicated episode" data which is far
> more likely to be accurate. Other listing providers may do the same.


> In MythTV v35, if you choose to sort the tv shows by
> season/episode, it is using the metadata grabber information. In
> MythTV v36, it will prefer to use the listing grabber information if
> it exists, and fall back to the metadata grabber info otherwise. If
> neither is available, it falls back to the original airdate.


> This leaves the issue of displaying the season/episode information
> in myth. Themers have the choice to display "s01e01" or "1x1" (both
> of those from the metadata grabber) or "syndicatedepisode" (which
> displays as S1E1). Right now, there is a mechanism for a theme to
> "depend" on some data to exist which can then determine how data is
> formatted. However, it is limited in its flexibility.


> My question is, should I extend the flexibility to give themers the
> option to format the data one way if syndicatedepisode exists, and
> another if it does not, and another if the subtitle does not exist, and ....


> Or, do I take the choice away from the themer and just have
> "s01e01" and "1x1" automatically return the syndicated episode
> information in preference to the metadata grabber information?


> Thoughts?


> John

In my experience the metadata grabber is often inaccurate with regards
to SE info. I see a few issues there:
 - it assumes an episode has a sutitle and that title is assumed to be
   in either English or the language set, I do not know precisely. I
   have the frontend language set to English and not to Dutch.
 - If the subtitle is in another (original) language the metadata
   grabber can not find any SE info.
 - If the Series has no episode subtitles, as often is the case in
   European series where stories span a season the metadata grabber
   can not find any SE info.
 - In all those cases listing grabber info is ignored! And I have to
   fill SE info from the listing info by hand!


Tot mails,
  Hika                            mailto:hikavdh at gmail.com

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