Friday, August 17, 2007

Mass Edit BeyondTV Show Details


Using my favorite Home Theater PC Software - BeyondTV, you can edit any of the show details such as title, description using the built-in BeyondTV web admin interface. If you are just editing one shows information this is more then sufficient for the task. But if you are needing to edit multiple files at a time, you need a way to edit all of those fields quickly, cut and past functions and a quick save of all edits. The perfect tool for this task is BTVShowInfo. BTVShowInfo is a freeware app developed by John Maver - a member of the Snapstream Forums that allows you to edit any text and date information stored inside the video files recorded on BeyondTV. (Beyond TV is one of the leading Home Theater PC applications that transforms your computer into something like a souped-up TIVO.)
BTVShowInfo is especially nice for when you import shows or movies from sources other then Beyond TV (BTV) that might not have populated the show name properly. I also use it to add the series number when I'm recording an entire series before watching it. I get the more-detailed show information from TV.com and then cut and past using BTVShowInfo.

BTVShowInfo is an application that give you the power to edit any of the show information that Beyond TV stores for recorded shows. You can edit each field individually or you can select multiple shows to batch edit all at once. When you first run BTVShowInfo, a window opens that asks you to insert the server, port and password for the BTV machine you are logging into. After the first time, this will pre-populate each time you run the program. As an option, you can set the app to log in automatically via Tools-Options.

Once logged in, it will populate with all shows loaded in BeyondTV along with all of the show details.
Any column without a (r) in the field (shaded tan color) are editable and can be changed. To edit a field, you select the field and type in the new information. You can also do copy and paste from any text to the desired field using the right-mouse button. To complete the edit, you just select any area outside of the edited field. The row will then change to a green text to reflect that the field has been changed. Note that these green-colored fields haven't yet been saved to BeyondTV yet. You can still undo a change by right-clicking the grey button at the left of the column in the row and choose Undo-Edit. That will revert any change in that row to its original value.

You can make any additional edits you want. When finished editing, select the Save button and it will save your edits to BeyondTV. Once that is done, the edited fields will change from green to their original color.

I've been using the excellent Tool BTVShowInfo for about a year now and recommend it to all Beyond TV users. For more information, check out the download and forum page for BTV Show Info
You might also be interested in my articles on BeyondTV and HTPC's