[mythtv-users] MythTV Recordings Artwork

[Doug Vaughan]

Glenhawk,
    Mythbuntu automatically installs three cron jobs all involving Jamu. 
Jamu is an independent script that automates the process of downloading 
metadata and images for TV episodes and Movies.
See: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Jamu

    Being a Mythbuntu user it is highly recommended that you apply the 
daily builds as there are many fixes to MythTV including at least one 
crucial one for Jamu.
Follow this link: http://www.mythbuntu.org/auto-builds

    When Mythbuntu 9.10 with Mythtv 0.22 was created it had to go out 
with a pre-release of MythTV 0.22. The pre release had bugs that were 
fixed for the official release. You will save your self a few headaches 
by updating your install.
    
    The Mythbuntu cron jobs are:
1) An hourly job that gets images for Scheduled and Recorded programs 
displayed in Watch Recordings
2) A daily job to get metadata and images for MythVideo videos files
3) A weekly job that removes unused images. These images usually 
accumulate from recordings that have been deleted.
    
    The hourly cron jobs checks the MythTV database for your scheduled 
and recorded programs. Using the information that came from your EPG it 
looks on themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com to get the metadata and images. 
This is why the mysterious images showed up. This cron job "guesses" at 
which programs match your recordings. The accuracy of the "guesses" is 
dependant on your EPG data.
    
    Movies are identified as a movie when the EPG data has no subtitle. 
When your EPG data does not provide information that allows guessing you 
can sometimes use a jamu.conf file to set up matches between your EPG 
data and a reference number from one of the two data sources 
(themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com). That process is described in the wiki.
    
    As you mentioned you are in Australia and using MythTV 0.22 via 
Mythbuntu you may run into some issues that have been resolved in the 
upcoming release of MythTV 0.23. The wiki lists the new features in the 
"Coming Attractions" section.
    
    Assuming you use MythVideo and want metadata and artwork for those 
video please refer to the Jamu wiki page for the process required. In 
brief you need to associate a video file with a reference number from 
either of the data sources (themoviedb.org and thetvdb.com). That 
process is described in the wiki.
    
    For MythVideo, Jamu script only augments the built in functionality 
for downloading metadata and artwork. Within MythVideo you can hit the 
"w" key when you are focused on a video to invoke the process.
    
Doug