This is just the yearly reminder to support our 3rd party metadata sites with data contributions or financial donations so they can keep running. XBMC relies on these sites to provide metadata and fanart for things like Music, Movies, Games and TVShows. Most sites have a donation target for each year to keep them running, so we ask users to contribute towards this. Even the smallest paypal donation can go along way. If you are unable to support these sites financially, why not contribute some data to them instead? Below is a short description of each site and what they provide:

As time went on, more and more forms of artwork arrived on the scene, until eventually TVDB was simply unable to accomodate all the different types of artwork people wanted included. Users wanted png-style artwork that could incorporate transparencies. In particular, they wanted what came to be known as “clearlogos” which are simply the logos of the show without a rectangular background or any other art. They wanted art for individual seasons. They wanted “clearart” which was typically the cast of a show without a background. Seeing a need, XBMC user Kode began adding clearlogos to his site “Lockstockmods.” As more and more art was submitted, it became clear that all this artwork was going to need its own website. And thus was fanart.tv born.

These days, fanart.tv hosts clearlogos, clearArt, characterArt, TV thumbs, Season thumbs, and show backgrounds. It covers TV shows, Movies, and Music. Indeed, fanart.tv’s most active section today is Music, with more and more album covers and artist thumbs being added every day. It does a little bit of something for almost everyone on the artwork front. And quite likely at some time or another, if you have browsed the artwork of XBMC, you’ve seen something that was originally hosted on fanart.tv. Much like TVDB, fanart.tv’s budget is based almost entirely on user donation, so feel free to donate here.

The MovieDb was created in 2008 with the limited goal of provided better high resolution posters and fanart for XBMC. Since then, it’s become a one-stop shop for posters, art, cast and crew info, trailer links, and more. Much like Fanart.tv and TVDB, TMDb is entirely crowd-sourced.

One of XBMC’s earliest online content providers was TheTVDB. Back in 2006 and early 2007, the leading media center software for the PC was actually not XBMC (since XBMC had not yet been ported to the PC). Instead, in those days the major PC software was Meedios and Media Portal. Given XBMC’s memory limitations and the fact that we were all still several years away from the efficiency improvements that would make XBMC the beast it is now on embedded devices, Meedios and Media Portal were the primary platforms on which users could install fanart and really go crazy with the early artwork heavy skins of the time, like the original Aeon. TVDB helped to shape many of the rules we take for granted these days. For example, on the XBMC wiki, we have a number of examples of “good” and “bad” fanart, where “good” fanart has no vignetting and is left entirely clean, so that the skinner can do with the art as the skin dictates, rather than as the artist dictates. Such rules were originally created and enforced by the TVDB and revolutionized the way we interact with skins today. The TVDB was also the site behind thumbnails, banners, and other multi-format image work.

Since those days, media center software has only gotten bigger and more popular, with millions of new users every year. Meanwhile, TVDB remains a wholly crowd-sourced website with artwork licensed under the Creative Commons whose server costs and budget are based almost entirely on donations by users like you and me. Every time you scan your TV shows, you are almost certainly looking at artwork and show information that came from The TVDB’s servers. If you are as grateful as we all are, feel free to donate to the server fund.

TheAudioDB.com is a community driven database of music metadata. It is their aim to be the most simple, easy to use and accurate source for audio data on the web. The site has basic information about the artists, album reviews, track charts and many more features that can be used in XBMC.

We encourage users to sign up to the site and enter all the information you can from Wikipedia or other CC licensed sources. The site has on average, 200 edits a day from dedicated users helps fill the information into the XBMC music database.

We are also working to include Artist Logos and banners in future XBMC scrapers. The more that are uploaded, the more likely the feature will be in the future.

Many more…

That is a mere sprinkling of the many websites that contribute to the incredible user experience that XBMC brings together. Other providers include MusicBrainz (for music), TheGamesDB (for games), and so many more, thanks to the remarkable work of an army of addon developers and coders.

Donation Links

Donation links:

TheAudioDB.com https://theaudiodb.com/donate

Fanart.tv https://fanart.tv/contribute/

TheTVDB.org https://www.thetvdb.com/donate

TheGamesDB.net https://thegamesdb.net/blog/