Batch Metadata Tools gets Custom Content Proivder

As of version 1.12, the Batch Metadata Tools now has a "build your own content provider". This new feature, called a CompositeMetadataProvider, is basically a way to compose or build a new content provider from 2 other content providers, using only configuration.

For example, you can create a new content provider that uses the IMDB provider to search, but then uses themovidedb.com provider to fetch the details and thumbnail information. You can also configure which fields from the search provider that you want to use instead of those in the detail provider.

This new composite provider model may be a little tricky to understand at first, but it opens up some great potential to pull content from multiple sources when fetching metadata information.

Batch Metadata Tools gets new Metadata Provider

Last week I applied for an api_key for themoviedb.com for the Batch Metadata Tools project, and it was granted. Then within a couple of hours, I had the full integration with themoviedb.com complete.

Their api is really simple. It mainly consists of two commands; Search and GetInfo. The search takes a single search argument and returns a list of matches, and the get info command will return back the complete movie information for a given match. Simple and easy.

Batch Metadata Tools is now at version 1.11, and you can red more about how to use this new provider in the project wiki.

About Batch Metadata Tools
The Batch Metadata Tools project is a small java project that provide movie information and cover art for movie files. Currently it's used within the SageTV community for fetching movie information when you import a large collection of movies. Although it is currently used for SageTV, it supports a pluggable output provider, so that it could be used to read/write other formats.

Currently the Batch Metadata Tools has search providers for IMDB, DVDProfiler, and themoviedb.com.