Moving Pictures - The New Movies Plug-in (Original Thread)

[fforde]

Please note this thread is out of date and kept for only for nostalgia. Check the other stickied threads on this forum for the latest release.

Moving Pictures
Some of you may already be aware, but over the past few months I and several others have been working on a new movies Plug-in for MediaPortal called Moving Pictures. The plug-in's intended focus is exclusively on movie content. It is not designed to manage clips, music videos, TV shows, or any other type of video content. This narrow focus will (hopefully) allow for a more refined interface than something like MyVideo. This focus is based after the similar focus and success of the MP-TVSeries plug-in.

Moving Pictures is also being designed to require the least amount of user interaction possible. If a new movie file or DVD rip is placed in a watch folder, it will automatically be added to the system. Meta data will be retrieved and artwork, both covers and backdrops (fanart) will be automatically downloaded. If user interaction is necessary to clarify the actual title that has been added, the user will be prompted, but this is a last resort, and from a design perspective, this represents a failure in the design of the plug-in.

If you did not see the thread over in the MP-TVSeries forums, you may want to take a peek, there is a bit of a preview for the configuration screen:
Expand TVSeries to a sister plugin? My Films?

Current Release: 0.5.2
Skin Designer's Alpha
I want to be extremely clear about this. This is a feature incomplete release to help skin designers get a head start on skinning this plug-in. If you are a skin designer you are in the right place. But if you are an end user download at your own risk. There will be bugs. There are features that have not been fully implemented. Your current skin does not yet support this plug-in. The generic skin files included with this are a huge work in progress, and if you copy the image files in, they will overwrite some images for your current skin. If all of this sounds okay to you, then please go ahead and download it.

Please try to be patient though. The first end-user release will be out in a few weeks. If you do try out the alpha, comments of course are welcome. If you find a legitimate bug, bug reports are welcome as well. Please do not post asking how to get this working with your skin, your setup, etc. Like I said I want the focus right now to be getting things going with the skin designers.

Website
Download
Skin Designers Guide

Contributers
I want to thanks everyone that has supported the plug-in thus far. Even you guys checking for updates every couple of days in the old thread. Without you guys pestering me it would have taken twice as long to get to this point.

Also a huge thanks goes out to mattsk88. A week ago I was totally lost as far as skinning and the MediaPortal GUI goes. He has been a big help getting my head wrapped around things. He also designed the (work in progress!) skin included in this release. The screenshot attached is of the plug-in running his skin. He deserves a lot of credit for helping get this release out the door as well.

I don't want to turn this into some sort of Oscar speech, but I also want to thank ArmandP. While there is a lot of developer interest in this project he has actually contributed some code changes. Also thanks to piranha, Psycho Reptile, inker and everyone who has registered on the Google Groups for the project. I know I am forgetting someone. *queue the oscar music* Okay I am running long. Have fun. I look forward to comments.

Upcoming Features
As mentioned above the current release is not feature complete and is meant only to help skin designers along. That being said I am sure many of you are wondering what will and will not be in the first end-user release and beyond. The first place to look is the current Issues List. This tracks existing bugs and upcoming enhancements. That being said, here are some topics I already predict coming up, so let's get them out of the way...

Enhanced Movie Backdrops (Fan-Art) Support
In the current version, movie backdrops are automatically downloaded, but the user can't pick what backdrops he or she wants to grab from online. I know the lack of interaction with the auto-downloader is a big limitation, but I really wanted to get auto-downloading fan-art in this first release, and this limited interface was the only way to do it in the time frame I wanted.

The scanner will also pick up any file name of the form %imdb_id%.jpg, png or bmp. So if you already have movie backdrops of this format, just dump them in the Backdrop folder in your file system. Currently the files need to be there before you add your movies to the database though. The file name pattern is also customizable in the Config Screen, if anyone wants more details on this, let me know and I will better explain it.

You can also manually enter a file name on the Movie Management pane for your artwork if you are having trouble with the auto-loader.

In an upcoming release I will add an interface in both the configuration panel and the GUI for easy backdrop management. This is lower on the priority list though, so it may not happen for a few months. Please be patient.

Improved Cover Art Matching / Additional Data Providers
Currently for cover-art and meta-data the plug-in exclusively uses movie-xml. The cover-art in the movie-xml database is not comprehensive, so I am going to try to get an impawards.com importer in for the 0.6 release. For anything further though you will have to wait until 0.7. I realize that scriptable importers are highly desired, and they will be added. But it all takes time.

Multi-Lingual Support
This is the number one feature that will not be in the first end-user release that I really wish we could get squeezed in. The problem is that there is a lot to supporting multiple languages in a plug-in like this, it's not just a matter of adding another string file. Support needs to be implemented for a scriptable importer so non-english data providers can be added as well. To all you folks out there with large non-english language movie collections, support for you is coming. The primary focus for the second end-user release (0.7) will be multi-lingual support.

Filtering by Genre, Year, Director, etc.
User customizable filtering will be in the first end-user release (0.6). There are a lot of little things that need to go in but this is the last big feature still in development. The completion of this will pretty much determine the release date for 0.6.

Other Features
This list here does not cover everything planned for the plug-in. If you would like to see what else is coming down the line (or if you would like some information about known issues with the plug-in) you can visit the Issue Tracker. Before you head over there though, please read the following section on working with the tracker.


Submitting Bug Reports / Making Feature Requests
If you have found what you feel like is a legitimate, undocumented bug in Moving Pictures, you should create a bug report on the Issue Tracker. Before you rush over there though, I want to make a few things clear. First and foremost, the Issue Tracker is not technical support. If you need help getting something working, but are not experiencing a technical issue, post here in the forums or in the Google Group for the project, developers monitor both. Also, please search the existing issues in the Issue Tracker before submitting a bug report! Multiple bug reports on the same issue will only make the development process slower. If you feel you have something to add, post a comment in the issue thread, the developer working on the fix will look there first.

For feature requests, again feel free to create an item in Issue Tracker. But first, please search for similar issues already logged. The search feature on the Issue Tracker is excellent, please use it. Again if multiple issues are created for one feature request, it will slow things down for us. One very important thing to remember though is to keep in mind the philosophy behind this plug-in (those first two paragraphs up at the top). If you request a feature that conflicts with either of those "mission statements", I am telling you now it will get turned down. When creating an enhancement request, please use the Enhancement Template (drop down at the top) on the request form. This will ensure it gets tagged properly and organized correctly in the Tracker.

Also if you find an existing issue you are interested in or would really like to see fixed, star it. When you do this you will automatically receive email updates as the issue is updated (or closed). In addition, the number of stars for an issue serves as a kind of voting mechanism for which issues are most important to the user base. Issues with more stars will usually get priority.

And finally, please be respectful. Don't spam the Issue Tracker.

[fforde]

Moved content to the opening post to work better with sticky status... scroll up.

[piranha]

Wohoo! Just in time!

*** Throws flowers at new self-nominated Oscar holder ***

Awesome work. Thanks for it.

[gamejester]

Good work, look forward to giving it a try.
Sorry if I have been one of the 'promising but delivering nothing crowd' but the work I have been doing on the Movies core has become more involved than I was antisipating.

Still it has proven enlightenging and the knowledge I have emassed on data and cover retrival form the various site source + the work I have put into fuzzy logic auto movie matching will prove valuable here as well, so will have helped in the long run

There have been some good ideas from the community regarding what they want out of data retrival and display which will feed into this plugin as well. Check it out, most of the new features they want are highlighted in the first post.

Movies - enhanced details + cover retrieval + auto matching

There has been some interesting work around 'scene' naming and auto retrival of movie year and title from an ambiguos string like:

Black.Hawk.Down.2001.BluRay.1080p.DTS.x264.dx va-EuReKA.mkv

[fforde]

Originally Posted by gamejester

Good work, look forward to giving it a try.
Sorry if I have been one of the 'promising but delivering nothing crowd' but the work I have been doing on the Movies core has become more involved than I was antisipating.

No worries at all! I didn't mean to imply anything, I am happy to have as many people aboard as possible. Things are still in very early phases here though, so there is plenty of room to contribute in the future.

[allanp81]

Do you want any feedback considering the gui that is accessible from mp configuration?

[fforde]

Sure, any sort of feedback is welcome. Just keep in mind that this release is not feature complete. For example the filtering on the Movie Importer is not implemented yet.

[allanp81]

Wow just been having a look and this is fantastic!!!

Can I put in a request though for it to show resolution or something? I have a mixture of SD and HD films and it would be nice to know which are which.

[fforde]

It's on the list, Issue 17. It wont be in until 0.7 though (the second end user release). It's going to require integration with the mediainfo.dll file/project similar to what MP-TVSeries does. I want to include this, but there are some higher priority items to do first..

And thanks for the kind words!

[robyf]

What about the possibility of supporting various sources? I wrote the imdb scripts in c# that supports italian sites mymovies and yahoo to retrieve plots in italian for myvideo plugin. Does this plugin support scripting for retrieving infos? I can help you in writing scripts for italian sources.