Germany
Hi guys
due to the fact that the seemingly most asked question about MyFilms is the question what the differences are between "MyFilms 5" and "Moving Pictures" I want to write some more or less small summary about the differences. This text is inspired by a thread in the german forum ( https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-erweiterungen-178/my-films-5-vs-moving-pictures-100975/ ).
What are MyFilms 5 and MovingPictures:
Both are plugins for MediaPortal to manage and organize your movie data on your htpc. They have the ability to download (scrap or grab) data from the internet and to show images (covers and fanart) and data (descriptions etc.) on an intutitive graphical user interface like others in MediaPortal.
The ideas behind the plugins:
The idea of Moving Pictures is to grab data from the internet as easy as possible. With this approach you can grab data from the internet really fast but you also have a worse data quality compared to MyFilms because the grabbing is completely automated and in the normal case you don't edit the data afterwards.
The idea of MyFilms is to use already existing database systems (i.e. Ant Movie Catalog - antp.be > Software > Ant Movie Catalog) or to create such a database system and to manage, maintain and expand the own movie collection. With MyFilms you have much more functionalities to achieve this even if you have to do some things manually. To minimize the work on your movie collection MyFilms 5 uses a newly created Tool called AMCUpdater which is installed together with MyFilms. This tool makes the data grabbing process a lot easier and gives you the possibility to grab more or less automatically. So it makes a large step into the direction of MovingPictures easy to use automated grabbing.
Availabilty of data on your network:
When you use Moving Pictures every client uses its own database. This database can normally be found on every Client-PC itself and is also maintained from this client. Due to this fact every client has to download (grab) his data from the internet own its own and so the users maintenance investment is growing with every single client. So if you have 10 clients you have to do much more maintenance than if you only have 2 or 3 clients and especially with bad internet connections it's a pain to download the data for every client.
When you use MyFilms your database is an xml file which is situated somewhere on your server or on your NAS filestore or somewhere else. Also your pictures (fanart, covers, genre pictures, logos, actore pictures, ...) can be stored in the same place. With this structure you only have to grab your data 1 time and all your data can be stored, maintained and expanded in 1 place. The management of the database can be achieved with 1 tool. You may choose between several external tools (here you can choose between a large number of tools like you want because many tools are supported) or the newly added AMC Updater which is installed together with MyFilms. The advantages of holding your data (xml database and your pictures etc.) on your server are clear. Every client is able to connect to the data and there is only 1 place where you have to maintain your data and you are able to backup, restore and manage your data easily.
Functionalities:
MovingPictures and MyFilms have some realy similar graphical user interfaces. Both can show trailers for you movies (even though only MyFilms supports trailers which are in your file system on your server), both are able to filter and sort your data (imho only MyFilms has an actor view with direct connection to the actory movies) and both have an intuitive graphical user interface in your MediaPortal client.
But MyFilms gives you much more configuration possibilities. For example it is possible to change every single filter, search or sorting functionality so that it suits to your needs. You are able to configure your own logos which show the genre, file type or any other data in your graphical user interface so you can directly see which type of movie you are watching in your collection. Furthermore you are able to create your own fanarts dynamically within your MediaPortal client. And last but not least (for me it's the best thing in MyFilms) you are able to add all your DVD/BluRay/HDDVD movies to your collection without creating some faked movie files or something like that for ALL your clients in your network without rescan and without some further manual changes.
Conclusion:
MovingPictures has the advantage to be an out-of-the-box solution with a really good data grabbing automatism. It's a really good solution if you only have 1 or 2 clients and if you have only a temporary movie collection (which means that often movies are deleted) where you don't want to do anything and aren't interested in a great maintained collection.
If you have more clients in your network, if you want to have a large movie collection with data for all these clients, if you want to share this database to all clients together and don't want to do the data grabbing multiple times for every newly inserted movie than you should prefer MyFilms. Ok at the moment it has a harder learning curve but at the end MyFilms gives you more functionality and with a large number of movies/clients a much easier maintenance of your movies.
So let's come to an end. I know that this summary of the difference is perhaps a little bit objective but it's my view on both plugins. In my opinion every user who is interested in a movie collection management plugin should try BOTH and see what is best for his or her own needs.
Conclusion of the conclusion:
MovingPictures is for guys who have a movie collection which shouldn't be permanent and where the data quality is so important and who don't want to do anything for there data.
MyFilms is for guys who have a huge movie collection which should keep the same for 2 billion years
and where the data quality is important because of the longer lifecycle but who are also willing to do something on their own sometimes.
Wikis:
MyFilms Wiki
Moving Pictures Wiki
Ant Movie Catalog Homepage
Forum threads:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-erweiterungen-178/my-films-5-vs-moving-pictures-100975/
Forum:
My Films - MediaPortal Forum
Moving Pictures - MediaPortal Forum
due to the fact that the seemingly most asked question about MyFilms is the question what the differences are between "MyFilms 5" and "Moving Pictures" I want to write some more or less small summary about the differences. This text is inspired by a thread in the german forum ( https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-erweiterungen-178/my-films-5-vs-moving-pictures-100975/ ).
What are MyFilms 5 and MovingPictures:
Both are plugins for MediaPortal to manage and organize your movie data on your htpc. They have the ability to download (scrap or grab) data from the internet and to show images (covers and fanart) and data (descriptions etc.) on an intutitive graphical user interface like others in MediaPortal.
The ideas behind the plugins:
The idea of Moving Pictures is to grab data from the internet as easy as possible. With this approach you can grab data from the internet really fast but you also have a worse data quality compared to MyFilms because the grabbing is completely automated and in the normal case you don't edit the data afterwards.
The idea of MyFilms is to use already existing database systems (i.e. Ant Movie Catalog - antp.be > Software > Ant Movie Catalog) or to create such a database system and to manage, maintain and expand the own movie collection. With MyFilms you have much more functionalities to achieve this even if you have to do some things manually. To minimize the work on your movie collection MyFilms 5 uses a newly created Tool called AMCUpdater which is installed together with MyFilms. This tool makes the data grabbing process a lot easier and gives you the possibility to grab more or less automatically. So it makes a large step into the direction of MovingPictures easy to use automated grabbing.
Availabilty of data on your network:
When you use Moving Pictures every client uses its own database. This database can normally be found on every Client-PC itself and is also maintained from this client. Due to this fact every client has to download (grab) his data from the internet own its own and so the users maintenance investment is growing with every single client. So if you have 10 clients you have to do much more maintenance than if you only have 2 or 3 clients and especially with bad internet connections it's a pain to download the data for every client.
When you use MyFilms your database is an xml file which is situated somewhere on your server or on your NAS filestore or somewhere else. Also your pictures (fanart, covers, genre pictures, logos, actore pictures, ...) can be stored in the same place. With this structure you only have to grab your data 1 time and all your data can be stored, maintained and expanded in 1 place. The management of the database can be achieved with 1 tool. You may choose between several external tools (here you can choose between a large number of tools like you want because many tools are supported) or the newly added AMC Updater which is installed together with MyFilms. The advantages of holding your data (xml database and your pictures etc.) on your server are clear. Every client is able to connect to the data and there is only 1 place where you have to maintain your data and you are able to backup, restore and manage your data easily.
Functionalities:
MovingPictures and MyFilms have some realy similar graphical user interfaces. Both can show trailers for you movies (even though only MyFilms supports trailers which are in your file system on your server), both are able to filter and sort your data (imho only MyFilms has an actor view with direct connection to the actory movies) and both have an intuitive graphical user interface in your MediaPortal client.
But MyFilms gives you much more configuration possibilities. For example it is possible to change every single filter, search or sorting functionality so that it suits to your needs. You are able to configure your own logos which show the genre, file type or any other data in your graphical user interface so you can directly see which type of movie you are watching in your collection. Furthermore you are able to create your own fanarts dynamically within your MediaPortal client. And last but not least (for me it's the best thing in MyFilms) you are able to add all your DVD/BluRay/HDDVD movies to your collection without creating some faked movie files or something like that for ALL your clients in your network without rescan and without some further manual changes.
Conclusion:
MovingPictures has the advantage to be an out-of-the-box solution with a really good data grabbing automatism. It's a really good solution if you only have 1 or 2 clients and if you have only a temporary movie collection (which means that often movies are deleted) where you don't want to do anything and aren't interested in a great maintained collection.
If you have more clients in your network, if you want to have a large movie collection with data for all these clients, if you want to share this database to all clients together and don't want to do the data grabbing multiple times for every newly inserted movie than you should prefer MyFilms. Ok at the moment it has a harder learning curve but at the end MyFilms gives you more functionality and with a large number of movies/clients a much easier maintenance of your movies.
So let's come to an end. I know that this summary of the difference is perhaps a little bit objective but it's my view on both plugins. In my opinion every user who is interested in a movie collection management plugin should try BOTH and see what is best for his or her own needs.
Conclusion of the conclusion:
MovingPictures is for guys who have a movie collection which shouldn't be permanent and where the data quality is so important and who don't want to do anything for there data.
MyFilms is for guys who have a huge movie collection which should keep the same for 2 billion years
and where the data quality is important because of the longer lifecycle but who are also willing to do something on their own sometimes.Wikis:
MyFilms Wiki
Moving Pictures Wiki
Ant Movie Catalog Homepage
Forum threads:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-erweiterungen-178/my-films-5-vs-moving-pictures-100975/
Forum:
My Films - MediaPortal Forum
Moving Pictures - MediaPortal Forum
