[plugin] Movie Showtimes (August 4 Update)

[Kilrsat]

Originally Posted by aperry

Instead of deleting after 7 days, may I suggest that the trailer be deleted only when the movie no longer shows in the listings? Otherwise, for a movie that is out for a long time, you would be downloading the same trailer every 7 days.

That was the issue I mentioned above, it doesn't give movies still present another 7 day extension.

So this has become item #1 in the fixed list, ready to go for the next update.

If anyone else notices something that isn't quite right or has a suggestion, just let me know.

[aperry]

Oops, sorry, I guess I misread your post... Glad to see it's on the fix list!

This plugin and the comics one may just be what it takes for me to pull the plug and order BM.

[MannyTC]

This new plugin works awesome! Thanks for the hard work on it. I am having one problem that I can't seem to figure out. When I first installed the plugin and then ran BM it worked just fine. After I exited BM and started it up again the list of movies contained only 1 entry ("Without a Paddle"). The list of theatres was still there but if I selected any of them I got just a black screen. I then exited BM and started it up again. Now it was all back to normal. That all happened this morning.

Tonight, I showed my wife the new plugin and then I exited BM to do some other stuff. When I went back in I had the same exact problem as above. Exiting out and restarting did not fix it this time however. I decided to initiated a manual update of the movie showtimes from the setup screen. After that completed all was fine again. For the hell of it, I decided to exit BM and lauch it again. The problem came back again. Seems pretty consistent and thought I would pass this on.

[nanook105]

In browse by movie, I am seeing some really old movies (Adventures of Robin Hood, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Maltese Falcon, etc). Some of them have a bogus release year of 9999, but others seem to have accurate release dates. No theaters are listed. Not sure why they are showing up in the list of movies

[roryboy]

Originally Posted by geoffstewart

And I live in Ottawa, ON, Canada. I just put in my postal code and it worked great... take a look at yahoo.com to see you can get listings for your area first. If so, then you might just get them in the plugin too.

Cheers.

Geoff

Thanks for the tip =) I just looked and yahoo.com does indeed work with my postal code. I will try to put my postal code in when I get a chance.

Rory =)

[Kilrsat]

Originally Posted by MannyTC

This new plugin works awesome! Thanks for the hard work on it. I am having one problem that I can't seem to figure out. When I first installed the plugin and then ran BM it worked just fine. After I exited BM and started it up again the list of movies contained only 1 entry ("Without a Paddle"). The list of theatres was still there but if I selected any of them I got just a black screen. I then exited BM and started it up again. Now it was all back to normal. That all happened this morning.

Tonight, I showed my wife the new plugin and then I exited BM to do some other stuff. When I went back in I had the same exact problem as above. Exiting out and restarting did not fix it this time however. I decided to initiated a manual update of the movie showtimes from the setup screen. After that completed all was fine again. For the hell of it, I decided to exit BM and lauch it again. The problem came back again. Seems pretty consistent and thought I would pass this on.

Can you check the contents of:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond Media\Plugins\MovieShowtimes\movies.xml
and
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond Media\Plugins\MovieShowtimes\theaters.xml

This is where the info is saved/loaded from. Was it reporting "Updating yyyyyy!" when you exited?

[Kilrsat]

Originally Posted by nanook105

In browse by movie, I am seeing some really old movies (Adventures of Robin Hood, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Maltese Falcon, etc). Some of them have a bogus release year of 9999, but others seem to have accurate release dates. No theaters are listed. Not sure why they are showing up in the list of movies

Check:
http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/showtimes.html?z=<yourzipcode>&&nt=10

Do you see the movies there? I have one theater in my area that shows classic movies on fairly odd schedules. The release dates are bogus if yahoo doesn't actually provide one (basically only for these old movies).

It only lists a theater for the movie if a theater is playing the movie that day. While the movie list can get movies farther in advance. Since 1) it actually downloads the showtimes for the next 7 days and 2) yahoo lists some movies well in adavance of when they actually show (I see a few that are listed as "Starts on Friday, Dec. 31").

[nanook105]

Yes - the movies do show up on the Yahoo site. It is interesting, because they are associated with a theatre, but there are no showing times.

[MannyTC]

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

Can you check the contents of:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond Media\Plugins\MovieShowtimes\movies.xml

After exiting BM, the movies.xml file only contains 1 movie in it which is "Without a Paddle". That happens to be the last movie on the list of movies that shows alphabetically when all the movies are showing properly.

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

Can you check the contents of:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SnapStream\Beyond Media\Plugins\MovieShowtimes\theaters.xml

After exiting BM, the theaters.xml seems to still have lots of data in it with theatres and movie times.

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

Was it reporting "Updating yyyyyy!" when you exited?

No, I have never exited BM while the plugin was reporting the "Updating" message.

I am gonna have it update again and see if I can look at the contents of the XML files while BM is running and while the plugin is still working and let you know.

[Kilrsat]

Also, I've had a reqest to add support for Denmark.

If there are any other countries that someone would like an option for, get in touch with me and I'll see what I can do.

[splootch]

Great plugin, but I'm having one problem. A few of the theaters I go to aren't listed on the theater page, so I figured yahoo must not list them. I checked the yahoo web page and the same theaters are listed, but it has an option at the bottom for 'More Theaters'. When I click that, it still doesn't list one of my theaters but there is yet another 'More Theaters' link on that page. Finally clicking that one gives me all my usual theaters. Yahoo's page seems to incrementally add 10 more theaters every time you click the 'More Theaters' link.

Is there any way we can increase the number of theaters that the plugin fetches?

[Kilrsat]

Originally Posted by splootch

Great plugin, but I'm having one problem. A few of the theaters I go to aren't listed on the theater page, so I figured yahoo must not list them. I checked the yahoo web page and the same theaters are listed, but it has an option at the bottom for 'More Theaters'. When I click that, it still doesn't list one of my theaters but there is yet another 'More Theaters' link on that page. Finally clicking that one gives me all my usual theaters. Yahoo's page seems to incrementally add 10 more theaters every time you click the 'More Theaters' link.

Is there any way we can increase the number of theaters that the plugin fetches?

Yeah, it defaults to 10, if people want more, can be an option.

[timeri]

A suggestion: You should be able to select your "favorite" movie theatres so you only have to go through the ones that you actually go to.


Tim

[splootch]

I don't think there's an option to do that in the plugin, just when visiting the website.

I'm now getting the same black screen problem as MannyTC, except no matter how many times I restart. How do you manually update? I can't read what it says in the settings screen because the font is too big. All I see is: "Select H..." in huge letters.

addendum: Went through all my 'H' options and I found the home key seems to work. Could there be a remote control option for this function too?

Thanks for the work, btw.

[MannyTC]

Ok here is more info. After my manual guide update everything is ok again. If I go look at the movies.xml file there is still only 1 movie showing inside of it yet BM shows all the movies. After I performed the update the only files that have a modified date in the MovieShowtimes plugin folder are the movies.xml and the theaters.xml. I have absolutely no idea where this data is coming from that is on the plugin right now because it is NOT in the xml files. Attached is a screenshot of the BM screen showing the movies which is running right now on my HTPC system. Below is a copy of what is inside the movies.xml file on the same system.

<PropertyBag>
  <PropertyBag>
    <Property>
      <Name>Actors</Name>
      <Value>Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Abraham Benrubi, Rachel Blanchard</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Directors</Name>
      <Value>Steven Brill</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Genre</Name>
      <Value>Comedy</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Length</Name>
      <Value>57000000000</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Name</Name>
      <Value>Without a Paddle</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>PosterLocalPath</Name>
      <Value>c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\snapstream\beyond media\plugins\movieshowtimes\Posters\withoutapaddle_releaseposter.jpg</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>PosterUrl</Name>
      <Value>http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/paramount_pictures/without_a_paddle/withoutapaddle_releaseposter.jpg</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Rating</Name>
      <Value>PG-13</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Released</Name>
      <Value>632285820000000000</Value>
    </Property>
    <Property>
      <Name>Synopsis</Name>
      <Value>Three young guys go into the Oregon wilderness in search of lost treasure. They take a canoe upriver and everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Hunted by two backwoods farmers, they encounter death-defying rapids, tree-hugging hippie chicks and a crazy old mountain man played by Burt Reynolds.</Value>
    </Property>
  </PropertyBag>
</PropertyBag>