Features I would LOVE to see.. (1 Viewer)

[mlburgoon]

I have my media pc set up in my home theatre and so do a few of my friends that I have built media pc's for. NONE of these pc's have a keyboard or mouse attached to them in any way and we never exit mediaportal to do much of anything.

So for me, having the ability to do MORE from the GUI would be fantastic.

Like:
1. being able to handle multi-disc movies (lord of the rings, pearl harbor) from within the gui would be a great additional feature.
2. Being able to handle and add movies that don't auto import would be of great benefit as well. I hate it when I rip a movie with MediaSlayer (from the MP GUI) but then it does not show up when I go into my movies.

I have given many suggestions to the author of MediaSlayer so that rips there could be easily imported into Moving Pictures without having to exit the GUI. That part of this whole process I am trying to get to is done. Now if I ould get these features added to moving pictures, the combination of Moving Pictures with MediaSlayer would be perfect. No need for most people to need to exit the GUI.

I know I posted a thread on here several months ago about this and am sad to see that these great features are not even listed in future versions (I could have missed it, though).

Currently I am using the internal Video database to store movies and I would much rather use Moving Pictures, but can't (yet).

Thanks for any information on these.

 

[fforde]

Thanks for your interest and suggestions. As for multi disk movies have been supported for some time. If you are dealing with physical disks rather than images or transcoded rips, you will probably have to manually combine the two disks in the Importer. We are planning on including in-GUI approval of movies in 1.5.

 

[mlburgoon]

See, I was right. I did miss it in the features coming soon!!!! that is great. thanks for the work.

Now for the multi disc movies. how do I handle them from within the GUI? I know I am missing something on how to set this up if I can truly handle the multi-disc movies from within the GUI.

thanks

 

[fforde]

You have to pair the disks in the Config screen in the Importer itself. If you already have each disk imported separately just send them back to the importer and group them there. In the GUI when you play a movie that consists of multiple disks a popup will automatically appear prompting you which disk to play. This only applies when you have physical disks or image files paired. Paired video files will be treated as part 1 and part 2 of the same feature.

 

[mlburgoon]

Ah, so I can't pair them from within the GUI? That is the feature I am requesting. Being able to select a movie, bring up the "more info", select an option to pair it with another movie, and be done.

that would be awesome to be able to do from within the GUI. My wife could then leave me alone for MOST of the movies!!! LOL

 

[gshipley]

Ah, so I can't pair them from within the GUI? That is the feature I am requesting. Being able to select a movie, bring up the "more info", select an option to pair it with another movie, and be done.

that would be awesome to be able to do from within the GUI. My wife could then leave me alone for MOST of the movies!!! LOL

That could be a cumbersome GUI for people with large collections. I prefer to just do it via the config screen.

 

[mlburgoon]

Right, So on a system with no keyboard and no mouse, I am supposed to quickly and easily pair discs of a movie. I have my media pc integrated into my dedicated home theater. It is treated as a home theater component, not a PC. I modify the skin(s) I use to not have a way to exit media portal. We can reboot the PC with the remote if we need to (very rarely do). For my setup, getting out of MP and into the config is not an easy task. My friends systems I have built are the same way. Even though 2 of those are not in dedicated theaters, it is still treated as a component. These are not treated as PC's to mess around on.

I also think that the GUI would not be that cumbersome. you are not going to pair Pearl Harbor Disc 1 with Lord of the Rings Disc 2. I simple search pulling up very similar movie titles would be very easy to do, and it would provide a short list of "discs" to choose from. Maybe even have it totally automated. If I have stored "Pearl Harbor Disc 1" and "Pearl Harbor Disc 2", automatically pair them. If the only difference is the disc number, that could be an auto pair function. It could be set in the config to choose weather or not to auto pair, like the check box in the config for the auto import.

thanks

 

[mcmanuss8]

One solution that's worked for me is to install VNC on the HTPC, and if you need to use a keyboard and mouse, simply connect via VNC from your laptop (or another desktop in the house), and do all the approving/installing/whatnot you want without having to get a keyboard and mouse just for the HTPC.

 

[MrCrispy]

As an alternative to VNC, the builtin Windows Remote Desktop also works very well. But sometimes for htpc you have to connect a keyboard/mouse, esp when things go wrong

Athe auto pair already exists in MP, e.g. if you have "movie cd1.avi" and "movie cd2.avi" they will be paired. If you mean pairing "Star Wars 1" and "Star Wars 2", i.e. different movies, then I believe there is already some work in progress to link movies in a series together. This information is available thru themoviedb but I think not their API, so its not automated yet. Look at -

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/moving-pictures-284/group-series-movies-together-49819/

Issue 229 - moving-pictures - Allow grouping of movies in the movie list - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

[gshipley]

One solution that's worked for me is to install VNC on the HTPC, and if you need to use a keyboard and mouse, simply connect via VNC from your laptop (or another desktop in the house), and do all the approving/installing/whatnot you want without having to get a keyboard and mouse just for the HTPC.

I 2nd this. I use VNC to log in from a different machine. I also use my HTPC with no keyboard and mouse and treat it as a non-computer.