Sapphire Browser

  Sapphire Browser Beta 6.1 (Universal) (1 MB)

• Added Video_TS parsing from patch from Warren Gavin. This fixes #165.
• Updated the import tool to handle IMDB’s change to listing genres.
• Updated the import tool to handle IMDB’s new plot heading. This fixes #166.
  
• Improved the mechanism for importing screenshots from TVRage.

  Sapphire Browser Beta 6 (Universal) (1015 KB)

• Patch from Stephen for Take 2 Compatibility. This fixes #126.
• Corrected XML Meta data Overriding. This fixes #108.
• Added descriptions of settings and mark menus.
• Allowed VIDEO_TS folders to be marked as movies. This fixes #100.
• Don’t compact different movies with the same name together as the same movie if they have different release dates (Italian Job). This fixes #106.
• Special episodes are sorted into their season by air date
• Enabled Also Known As (AKA) searches on IMDB. This fixes #119.
• Patch from Stephen to allow directory names to be used in movie searches instead of file names. This fixes #120.
• Corrected Genre names with returns at the end of them. This fixes #122.
• Patch from Jeremy to reset the resume time if watched is toggled. This fixes #139.
• Significantly, reduced memory usage on background importer.
• Directory names are cropped during import to prevent two lines of display.
• Use a more lightweight poster chooser if there are a lot of posters.
• Skipping import of directories corrected. This fixes #15 (hopefully for real this time).

  Sapphire Browser Beta 5 (Universal) (992 KB)

• Thanks to Coldy, we have retired the hideous “S” for a more appealing icon.
• Sapphire will display the correct metadata when the view is toggled.
• Sapphire will now attempt to remember which item was selected when toggling between views.
• Mark menu will now show the name of the item being marked.
• XML file data can now override filename’s values when searching for a TV ep. This fixes ticket #8.
• Sapphire now accounts for two TV episodes in one file. See ticket #14.
• Import tools in FrontRow now have a more visible “button” to start them.
• Clearing metadata for directories should work a little better.
• Individual directories can now be “Marked to Skip” effectively telling Sapphire to skip them for importing. This Fixes ticket #15 & ticket #76. We’d appreciate feedback on this feature.
• Arbitrary (physical) directories can now be marked as collections.
• Fixed a typo in the TV Show importer - it’s text now on topic.
• Optimized several mechanisms dealing with Virtual Directories.
• For consistency, Sapphire will now revert AC-3 Passthrough to whatever setting it was before it played an AC-3 encoded file.
• Updated the methods Sapphire uses to detect mounted drives. This should result in more accurate results.
• Sapphire’s translation lists have been stripped of path extensions. This will come in handy later.
• Cleaned up the deallocation of metadata. It’s good to be tidy.
• Plugged some (small & large) memory leaks that could bog down the UI when left running for extended amounts of time.
• Sapphire now supports the Video_TS (DVD) format. Directories containing a VIDEO_TS will now be recognized as a file instead of a directory. This feature is not supported for the ATV.
• DVDs mounted directly (such as a mounted optical drive) will be playable from the main menu.
• Fixed an error that was causing Sapphire to crash when loading metadata. This fixes ticket #47.
• Sapphire is now capable of importing files in the background.

We are happy to officially announce the release of Sapphire’s source code.

Details can be found here.

  Sapphire Browser beta 4.2 (Universal) (795.1 KB)

• Enabled exception logging.
• Movie importer will now properly identify movies that won only one Oscar.
• TV show importer can now handle summaries with nested font objects. This fixes ticket #25.
• Audited code related to timers. This fixes ticket #31.
• The TV show importer will be more resilient to the oddities (such as ?? episodes) of TVRage.
• Improved the filtering of the movie importer. This fixes ticket #32.
• Clearing the metadata of a file/directory will now actually work.
• Improved the method sapphire uses to look for Collection Art. This should help sapphire scroll through menu lists (such as TV Shows virtual directory) with less effort.

• See installation instructions:
  • Install - In Frontrow on Leopard
  • Install - Apple TV
• With the addition of the “Mark to Clear Metadata” it is highly recommended that you make a backup copy of your “~/Library/Application Support/Sapphire” folder.
• If the Collection Art folder is missing you will need to re-run the import tools to get Sapphire to build it.
  • First use the mark menu to mark your files to be refetched.
  • Then run the import tools.

  Sapphire Browser beta 4.1 (Universal) (765.7 KB)

• Fixed an issue with the movie importer that was causing some movie titles to be omitted from the movie title chooser. This fixes #32.
• We have changed the way Sapphire stores cover art. Once the importers have been ran, Sapphire will automatically create folders to house your cover art. See Collection Art for more details.
  • “~/Library/Application Support/Sapphire/Collection Art/@TV/”
    • Sapphire will download all TV show screen caps to this directory and place them in the appropriate sub-folders. ShowName/Season #/
    • Placing a cover.ext in any of these directories will have sapphire display them as directory art.
      • for example: the file: “~/Library/Application Support/Sapphire/Collection Art/@TV/24/cover.ext” will display as the default cover art for all 24 episodes where “~/Library/Application Support/Sapphire/Collection Art/@TV/24/Season 3/cover.ext” would display for any third season 24 episode.
  • “~/Library/Application Support/Sapphire/Collection Art/@MOVIES/”
    • Sapphire will download all posters to this location.
• Users now have the option to “Hide Poster Chooser” in the settings menu. This tells Sapphire to automatically pick a poster to use for a given movie without the user needing to select a poster during the movie import.
• Movie Importer will no longer give the user an empty title chooser.
• Fixed issue with no posters found causing an exception. This fixes ticket #26.
• The File Joiner menu has been improved.
• Fixed various spelling and grammar errors.
• All menus can now wrap around. This should help users transitioning between the top and bottom of a menu more quickly.
• Users will now see “Premiered” date for movies instead of “Released” when previewing a movie in the browser.
• Added badges to the Title Chooser lists. This should help with accidentally selecting the correct title in the wrong importer.
• Users can now delete metadata for individual files or folders using the Mark Menu.
• Fixed an issue where the import tools wouldn’t flush their queues when the import process was canceled. Changing the skipped collections will no longer require sapphire to be restarted.

  Sapphire Browser Beta 4 (Universal) (763.8 KB)

• Browser listings will ignore leading “A”s and “The”s from titles when sorting alphabetically.
• Movie and TV Show title choosers now have a much wider selection list. This should help when selecting titles since the user won’t have to wait for the text to scroll.
• Added the ability to hide Video info in the Media Preview.
• Added the ability to hide Audio info in the Media Preview.
• Appropriate movies will be adorned with an Oscar or IMDB badge for winning an Oscar or being in the IMDB Top250.
• Virtual directories are now loaded in the background. This allows for faster loading from the AppleTV menu. The user will be stalled with a load screen if they aren’t ready when selected.
• Settings menu now has some more appropriate icons.
• Added ability to join together multiple files into one. Great for movies which were segmented. Access this through the mark menu.
• Sapphire is now compatible to run on Leopard (10.5). This compatibility is processor independent.
• Sapphire now has Virtual Directories. These directories are compiled directly from the metadata and are independent of a files actual directory location.
  • TV Shows - All recognized episodes are displayed here with the following structure:
    • Show Name
      • Season
        • Episode Titles (sorted by episode number)
  • Movies - All recognized movies are displayed here with the following structure:
    • All Movies
      • Movie Titles (sorted by name)
    • By Genre
      • Genre
        • Movie Titles (sorted by name)
    • By Cast
      • Actor Name (sorted by name)
        • Movie Titles (sorted by name)
    • By Director
      • Director (sorted by name)
        • Movie Titles (sorted by name)
    • IMDB Top 250 (must be ranked)
      • Movie Titles (sorted by rank)
    • Academy Award Winning (must have won an Oscar)
      • Movie Titles (sorted by number won)
• Sapphire Media Preview now displays movie specific information.
  • Release Date
  • Director
  • Genre
  • Cast (first 3 - headliners)
  • IMDB User rating
  • Plot
• Added a Poster Chooser that lets the user choose which poster they want displayed for their movie files (ATV 1.1 & Front Row only).
• Added a new import tool for fetching data for movies.
  • Collecting the movie’s release date from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie’s genres from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie’s director(s) from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie’s writer(s) from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie plot from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie’s oscar count from IMDB.
  • Collecting the movie’s IMDB rating.
  • Collecting the movies MPAA rating.
  • Collecting the movie’s IMDB Top250 rank.
• Sapphire Meta Data is now using a binary format - this dramatically reduces the size if the stored metaData file.
• Sapphire is now capable of seeing all mount points & displaying them in the browser.
• Added settings that allow Allows the hiding and skipping of collections.
• The Sapphire Pill has been replaced: the Left button now changes predicates and the Right button now goes to mark menu.
• Skipping during playback has been improved to allow for finding a particular place a bit nicer.
• Added support for playing audio files.
• TV Show files are now sorted by show first, then season, then episode.
• Fixed the menu dividers to be more compatible with ATV 1.1.
• Fixed an issue when playing a video where skipping forward and then back would cause the player to crash.
• Import Tool titles should be a little more informative to what they do.
• Sapphire now has the ability to enable/disable AC3 passthrough on a per file basis. Enable this feature in the settings menu.
• Sapphire should now display more accurate sample rate information.
• Fixed Ticket #5
• Fixed Ticket #6
• Fixed Ticket #9
• Added Enhancement Ticket #12
• Changed the Sapphire ApplianceIcon.png to a smaller & better looking image
• Changed the DefaultPreview.png to the new image
• Added the TV show’s name to the S/E preview display
• Sapphire Import tools are more verbose giving the user a better idea what it’s currently doing.
• Sapphire Meta Data structure is more robust - allowing multiple paths and subpaths for a single file.
• Sapphire Import tools will now play nicely with watchdog. This should solve issues with the importers freezing and/or never starting.
• Sapphire is now using localizable strings - Time to get some translators!

The TV Show chooser has been updated - no more waiting for text to scroll!

Browse your movie collection in it’s entirety. They are all here in one spot!