Advantages over standard Videos function? (1 Viewer)

[zxao]

The built in videos feature in MP is great for average users.
But power users are going to want more. Using ANT gives you so much more control over your collection.
I have over 400 HD movies and over 500 dvd rips and without ANT and myfilms i would be lost.

I would say used the built-in videos function until you hit a point where it isnt capable of doing everything you want. Then get myfilms.

 

[teoh]

The built in videos feature in MP is great for average users.
But power users are going to want more. Using ANT gives you so much more control over your collection.
I have over 400 HD movies and over 500 dvd rips and without ANT and myfilms i would be lost.

I would say used the built-in videos function until you hit a point where it isnt capable of doing everything you want. Then get myfilms.

So MyFilms is an automated version of MyVideos? and what is ANT(should I know?)?

 

[zxao]

Ant Movie Catalog is a free (really free, i.e. the source code is available) program made to manage your collection of movies, or whatever else you want to catalog.

For me the whole myfilms thing a a two part blessing.
Part 1 is ANT. This little program is great! For instance when you get a new video (.mkv, .avi, whatever) you drag and drop in onto ant and it is added to your catalog of movies. Once you have the file in there ant can use scripts and pull data from pretty much any movie site out there and update that movie entry with its pertaining info. Like Actors, Director, Year, Reviews, imdb and mpaa rating, ect...

My movie collection is a hobby of mine so rather then just letting ANT pull data from imdb alone i pull different fields (Genre, producer, and others) from allmovie.com and I get the rest from imdb.

I also like to find and use movie posters rather then dvd covers for the images field. So I usualy go to Movie Poster Awards - All the Latest Movie Posters and search for a high res (at least 720px wide) movie poster for the film i'm updating.
I also leave the imdb star rating blank. Then when i'm done watching the movie in MP I click the update button and add my own rating to the film. I could also write a little review for the film all within MP.

After you have your moives added to ANT you can then do so much with your catalog. You can print it out using some nice templates built-in or like I did you can create your own template.
You can export your catalog as an xml and thats the file that myfilms will use.

Part 2 would be myfilms itself. There are a lot of options in this plugin. You have a lot of choices regarding what information you want shown once in MP and using myfilms. You can search by any field (genre, director, actor, year, ect) and you can sort in a number of different ways too.

Also with ANT you can take your mymoviecatalog.amc/xml file to another pc and you have your whole database right there with you. Its also a life saver when you are formating/reinstalling xp.