Running Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel
Last updated November 25, 2023
The Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel client is totally command line driven. Below are the current supported commands and what each one does, along with a suggested use process.
The Mezzmo TV show Trailers Channel has a small set of commands to operate the tool, download trailers, update your database and provide CSV output reports.
| Command | Function |
|---|---|
| trailers on | Checks for TV Shows currently on-the-air |
| trailers air | Checks for Upcoming TV Shows airing today |
| trailers pop | Checks for Popular TV Shows |
| trailers top | Checks for Top Rated TV Shows |
| trailers all | Checks for all for TV Show categories |
| clean category | Clears trailer database info for TV Shows by category and deletes downloaded trailer/artwork files |
| clean files | Analyzes trailer files and database entries for missing files and entries |
| csv trailers | Creates a CSV file with the trailer information in the Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel |
| csv history | Creates a CSV file with the history information in the Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel |
| stats | Generates summary statistics for trailers |
| backup | Creates a time stamped file name backup of the Mezzmo TV Shows Trailers Channel database |
Example use:
tvshow_trailers.py trailers all
Most of the time you will simply use the "trailers all" command and the client will do the rest. You will see in the window everything it is doing and you can view the logfile.txt file for more details. If you want to fully automate this, you can setup a Windows task schedule and have it run periodically. If you do, I recommend once a day.
The client will handle removing old trailers automatically based upon your configuration file setting. The CSV commands can be helpful to see what trails are in the database or to get a history of what has previously been downloaded by the client. You should never really have to touch the server after installation. The Mezzmo TV Show Trailers channel server software reads the database each time a client browses the Mezzmo server.
A backup command is provided to make a backup of the database but if the database were to get corrupted or lost, the "trailers all" command would rebuild it. You'd mainly lose the history information. Note that the Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel database is specific to this channel and is not associated with the larger Mezzmo or any other channel database.
The Mezzmo Movie Trailers Channel 2 update is designed for full automation, like many Mezzmo tools. You can automate checking, downloading and removing old trailers by using the Microsoft Windows Task Scheduler and adding a basic task.
Here is an example of my daily scheduled task.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Program / Script | This is the location of your Python.exe file (i.e. c:\python310\python.exe ) |
| Add Arguments (optional) | Full path to the client software and arguments (i.e D:\Mezzmo\Mezzmo_Channels\tvshow_trailers.py trailers all ) |
| Start in (optional) | Full path to the client software (i.e D:\Mezzmo\Mezzmo_Channels\ ) |
If you run the scheduled task as a user task and you have a drive mapping in the client configuration file for the local trailer path you will need to change from a drive letter mapping to the UNC share name. This is because Microsoft Windows doesn't carryover drive mappings to user level scheduled tasks.
For my example drive mapping:
| Drive Map | UNC Map |
|---|---|
| u:\mezzmo_channels\ | \video1\e-drive\mezzmo_channels\ |
You can confirm the task is working by checking the Mezzmo TV Show Trailers Channel logfile.