Release Information and Metadata

Bearcat stores three kinds of information for a release:

• Release information describes the scene release. It can contain the release name, size, video and audio type, release database links, and other scene-specific details.
• Metadata describes the movie or TV show. It can contain the title, genre, description, cover image, and a link to the metadata provider.
• Media data is read from the local video files with MediaInfo. It contains codecs, resolution, duration, audio tracks, and subtitle tracks.

These values can come from different sources. For example, xREL can provide the scene release information while TMDB provides the title, description, genre, and a higher quality cover image.

Configure the sources

Open NFO database registrations in the sidebar to enable sources for scene release information and NFO files:

• xREL has good coverage for German scene releases.
• SRRDB also covers many English and international scene releases and can provide NFO files and IMDb IDs.

xREL and SRRDB do not require account credentials.

Open Metadata sources to register providers for movie and TV metadata:

• The Movie Database (TMDB) supports movies, TV series, and TV episodes.
• TheTVDB supports TV series.

Both metadata providers require an API key. Use Try login after saving a registration to check the key.

Bearcat checks active providers in its built-in order and uses the first matching result. A metadata provider cover is preferred over a scene database cover when it is available. Values already obtained from the scene database remain as fallbacks when the metadata provider does not return them.

Primary language

Releases and release collections can have an optional primary language. Bearcat passes this language to metadata providers for translated titles and descriptions.

Choose the language explicitly when you create or edit a release or collection. A release folder automation can also define the language assigned to every release it creates. This works well with folder patterns such as *.GERMAN.* when separate automations handle different languages.

Bearcat does not infer a language from release names. If the language is empty, it stays empty and the metadata provider uses its own default language. Existing releases and automations therefore continue to work after an upgrade without receiving an assumed language.

The release folder automation list shows the language assigned by each automation.

On the Releases page, use the language filter to find releases with a specific language or select Not set to find releases without one. Select several releases to set or clear their language in one operation.

How resolution works

For a release, Bearcat performs these steps:

1. It reads an existing .nfo file from the release folder. If none exists, it asks active NFO databases for one.
2. It asks active NFO databases for scene release information.
3. It extracts IMDb IDs from NFO content and results returned by xREL or SRRDB.
4. It asks active metadata sources for movie or TV information. An IMDb ID is used first. If no suitable ID is known, Bearcat searches by title and other information parsed from the release name.
5. It passes the release’s primary language to the metadata provider.

The same metadata resolver is used for release collections. Collections are resolved as TV series. Bearcat uses an IMDb ID from one of the collection’s releases when available, otherwise it searches by the collection name.

The Release info resolution background task handles missing data automatically. You can also trigger the relevant actions from the Release Info tab.

The Release Info tab

The tab displays metadata and scene release information separately. The visible actions are:

• Refresh reloads the current data from Bearcat’s database.
• Resolve metadata asks the active metadata sources again.
• Edit release info opens the manual editor.
• Resolve now is shown when no scene release information exists.
• Add NFO is shown when no NFO is stored.

The ... menu contains less common actions such as editing an existing NFO, extracting media data, and deleting the resolved release information and metadata.

External IMDb IDs are shown together with their sources. If the same ID was found in the NFO and by xREL, it appears once with both source badges.

Manual fallback

If no provider finds a match, use Edit release info to enter the values manually. The dialog also accepts an IMDb ID or IMDb URL. A manually assigned IMDb ID is stored separately from IDs found in the NFO, xREL, or SRRDB.

Use Add NFO or Edit NFO to enter NFO content manually. Bearcat scans the saved content for IMDb IDs every time it changes. For managed releases, the edited NFO is also written to the release folder.

Metadata entered manually is not overwritten by an automatic metadata refresh. If you want to start over, use Delete release info and metadata and resolve the release again. The stored NFO and extracted external IDs remain available for the next lookup.