Unified media collection system

A unified media collection system, comprising;

• a first foreign user agent;
• a local user agent having a primary metadata repository and being adapted to interact with said first foreign user agent;
• and
• a second foreign user agent having a secondary metadata repository operatively coupled to said primary metadata repository, said local user agent configured to compare and keep said primary and secondary metadata repositories synchronized and up-to-date.

A method for consolidating and unifying logical and physical metadata about media content from a plurality of sources, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) launching a local user agent;
• (b) checking for new content in at least one foreign user agent, said local user agent subscribing to metadata changes from said at least one foreign user agent;
• (c) importing and translating metadata for new content from the format used by said at least one foreign user agent into format used by said local user agent if there is new content in said at least one foreign user agent;
• and
• (d) propagating the imported metadata to other user agents.

A method for consolidating and unifying logical and physical metadata about media content from a plurality of sources, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) launching a local user agent, said local user agent including a primary metadata repository;
• (b) checking for new content in at least one foreign user agent, said local user agent subscribing to metadata changes from said at least one foreign user agent;
• (c) checking for new content introduced directly to said local user agent if there is no new content in said at least one foreign user agent;
• (d) translating new metadata if new content has been introduced directly to said local user agent;
• (e) checking if any new content has been discovered in any of the file system directories subscribed to by said local user agent if no new content has been introduced directly to said local user agent;
• (f) enumerating newly discovered content;
• (g) checking whether the enumerated new content has inherent logical metadata;
• (h) retrieving physical metadata from the enumerated new content if no inherent logical metadata is found;
• and
• (i) importing new logical metadata into said primary metadata repository if inherent logical metadata is found.