Migrating from Extreme Movie Manager to MediaPortal/MyFilms (1 Viewer)

[Harald63]

I'm in the middle of migrating from Extreme Movie Manager to MediaPortal/MyFilms.

I've found, that the best solution for me, is to import EMM data via Ant Movie Catalog and save as XML file for future use with MyFilms/AMC Updater, but there is some drawbacks with the EMM import module in AMC too, because it doesn't import the correct/prefered data in some of the data fields. Therefore I'm now in a process with manipulating with the EMM data in a separate Microsoft Access database to get the prefered data.

I've some questions, that I hope you experienced folks can help me with:

1. I've the IMDB link to each of the 4,400 movies in the EMM database. In which field should this IMDB link be transfered to? Is it to the URL field?

2. How should it be presented? Is it as:

http://akas.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
http://imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
http://www.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
ttxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
or something else?

3. I want to reimport some IMDB information with the AMC Updater. Is it correct, that AMC Updater automatically can use this IMDB link to lookup without further inteference from me? I've tried with the http://akas.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx link in the URL field, but it still ask me for the most of my non-english movies. I've chosen "Try to find best match automatically". My movies is stored on several harddisks and in individual folders with the original title and year, ex.:

21 Grams (2003)
Central do Brasil (1998)
Invasions barbares, Les (2003)
Passion of the Christ, The (2004)
Wo hu cang long (2000) and so on.

and I've imported the full movie path to the Source field.

4. As you can see, I use the original titles and not the UK/USA aka titles. But I've found, that it would be a good idea to have the the UK/USA aka titles to get most hits, when importing covers and fanart. For best compliance with AMC Updater and MyFilms is it then best to have these international english titles in the Original titles or Translated Titles?

I hope you can help out

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Migrating from Extreme Movie Manager to MediaPortal/MyFilms

Hi Harald63,

are you aware, you can use MyFilms also with EAX?
See here how to use external catalogs and here how it is working with EAX.
If you're happy with what the EAX filter displays, you can also use that as a base for an AMC database - see here.

Edit: Of course post is about XMM - so this is the related page for MyFilms, sorry...
However, there are of course different ways possible.

I'm in the middle of migrating from Extreme Movie Manager to MediaPortal/MyFilms.

I've found, that the best solution for me, is to import EMM data via Ant Movie Catalog and save as XML file for future use with MyFilms/AMC Updater, but there is some drawbacks with the EMM import module in AMC too, because it doesn't import the correct/prefered data in some of the data fields. Therefore I'm now in a process with manipulating with the EMM data in a separate Microsoft Access database to get the prefered data.

I've some questions, that I hope you experienced folks can help me with:

1. I've the IMDB link to each of the 4,400 movies in the EMM database. In which field should this IMDB link be transfered to? Is it to the URL field?

Yes, that's what I recommend and this field is checked later to find IMDB-Ids.

2. How should it be presented? Is it as:

http://akas.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
http://imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
http://www.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx
ttxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
or something else?

Anyone is fine except the last one - it should contain "ttxxxxxxx", as this is what can be recognized later.

3. I want to reimport some IMDB information with the AMC Updater. Is it correct, that AMC Updater automatically can use this IMDB link to lookup without further inteference from me?

Yes, it can, but only for grabber scripts, that are based on IMDB-lookup - it does not work for grabbers not using IMDB-Id of course.

I've tried with the http://akas.imdb.com/title/ttxxxxxxx link in the URL field, but it still ask me for the most of my non-english movies. I've chosen "Try to find best match automatically". My movies is stored on several harddisks and in individual folders with the original title and year, ex.:

21 Grams (2003)
Central do Brasil (1998)
Invasions barbares, Les (2003)
Passion of the Christ, The (2004)
Wo hu cang long (2000) and so on.

and I've imported the full movie path to the Source field.

It should not ask, if you're using IMDB-Id based grabber scripts. However, it might happen, if the source files do not match what you have in the catalog, as it might think it is a new movie - best would be to post log and config files for that case you had, that should answer what happened or went wrong.

4. As you can see, I use the original titles and not the UK/USA aka titles. But I've found, that it would be a good idea to have the the UK/USA aka titles to get most hits, when importing covers and fanart.

Covers will be recognized by IMDB-Id - so the title should not matter, if IMDB-Id is present and you're using IMDB-Id-based grabber scripts. Fanart is indeed relying on title - and this the title is influencing the lookup results.

For best compliance with AMC Updater and MyFilms is it then best to have these international english titles in the Original titles or Translated Titles?

iirc, it will use the master title for the search - so it depends on your settings in MyFilms setup.

I hope you can help out

 

[Harald63]

Thanks for your fine answer Guzzi.

Actually I think, that I will keep EMM for a while and still import new movies in both managers, because it's a exceptional good movie manager . EMM has a ton of database fields and very good grapping scripts and functionality and an extensive report and search engine . It only lacks a proper and slick interface for your HDtv, like MediaPortal/MyFilms with all the nice skins.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: Migrating from Extreme Movie Manager to MediaPortal/MyFilms

Thanks for your fine answer Guzzi.

Actually I think, that I will keep EMM for a while and still import new movies in both managers, because it's a exceptional good movie manager . EMM has a ton of database fields and very good grapping scripts and functionality and an extensive report and search engine . It only lacks a proper and slick interface for your HDtv, like MediaPortal/MyFilms with all the nice skins.

Hi Harald63,
in fact I don't know, why I had meen talking about EAX - just realized that you were talking about EMM ... but anyway, EMM is also supported as external catalog (see here) and most of the answer still applies.

 

[Harald63]

Yeah, thanks Gucci I have seen that solution, but unfortunately the XML export program in EMM, doesn't work with special letters - scandinavien, german, slavian - those special letters are just blank in the output. I have reported, that to the EMM manager and he is looking into the problem.

Until this is solved, I will run both systems separately, and then I also have got some experience and can decide, which system is best in the end. Maybe I end up with, that I can live without all the information stored in EMM

 

[Dadeo]

Harald63 - it's really interesting what you are doing! And great that your found/reported the bug about special characaters in XMM export! Is that the only reason you are using AMC to import your XMM data? Or are there other advantages?

Could you explain a bit more about your goals? I am guessing you want to have a AMC/MF XML catalog so you can update it via MyFilms(MF) and AMCUpdater, is that correct? But how will you get the data back into XMM? If I can understand better what you wish to accomplish, there might be some alternatives that could help.

 

[Harald63]

Hi Dadeo.

Thanks for your comments.

First of all, when I stumbled over that special characters bug in XMM export and didn't know about the time frame for this to be fixed, I began to think about other solutions to solve this problem. And further I began to think about whether I can live without EMM and handle all the Movie management in MyFilms/AMC Updater. I can't make that decision without testing the full potential of MediaPortal/MyFilms/AMC Updater, and for that I needed an Ant Movie Catalog compliant XML file.

But when I imported the XMM Access database direct in AMC, there was several issues, such as

1. No merging of EMM's Genre/Subgenre
2. No cleaning of URL
3. Strange conversion of some special caracters
4. The Audio/Video bitrate in EMM contains Kbps and isn't cleaned out (this is also an issue with direct EMM/MyFilms export/import)
5. Because my EMM Access database is about 950MB, AMC also was very unresponsive in the import module and took forever to scroll to the sides to decide which fields to include.

Because of these issues (there was also other issues I can't remember right now) I decided to manipulate the data to get them correct and delete all the fields I didn't need to get the Access database (Movie table) in a size for better management in the AMC import module.

So to make a long story short, I haven't decided, which path I will follow, but in a period I will run both systems separately, so your guessing about "have a AMC/MF XML catalog so you can update it via MyFilms(MF) and AMCUpdater" is right. - and as you said, I can't get the data back in EMM. So until the EMM bug is solved, I have the time (and double work) to decide, what I really want.

 

[Gianlk]

Hi Harald63,
I'm a user for both XMM and MF, and I think that they both are really great!
I didn't know about the problem with special characters, I'm Italian and I have no problem with accent or other.
I'm still using and maintaining my db in XMM (even with automatic update from folder and automatic info about from scripts chain) but then I've alway export the db in xml format in order to use it in MF.
I remember that there was a post here in the forum with an XML exporter for XMM, this was able to export data in ANT compliant format or an xml with all data.
There was even the option of mapping the data to export by managing an xml file in the way of entering source field and destination field.
I don't know if the post exists anymore or if the program is still attached, if you need it and you cannot find the file just let me know and I will attach it here (I have a copy)!

I remember that I had a problem of character set upgrading from a version to another of XMM, but I don't remember which one was, but If I'm not mistaken I've solved it just by changing something in the international settings inside windows. XMM should already exports with UTF set.

I hope this was usefull!

G.

 

[Dadeo]

Cool - yeah I completely understand using a Database to manage/massage data. I often do that myself for many different things (though I am more a FileMaker Pro guy)

Guzzi and I have talked endlessly about a better long term option for MyFilms.The truth is that most movie catalog apps provide so much more functionality and it seems redundant to try to duplicate that in MyFilms (not to mention Guzzi is the lone developer now with already a ton to deal with to support all the different catalogs/features/use cases). The problem is that AMC really fell a bit behind over the years. Hence the addition of AMC Updater a few years ago by Orion Hall. In MyFilms 5, Guzzi integrated that into the main app to support batch import/update, which were functions not handled well by AMC.

We were really excited about Eax because it offered many more fields/features and supported a XML database we could use in MyFilms. But unfortunately, just as we were looking at switching to it for MyFilms, the developer disappeared and source code was never made available. I guess the upside is that at least Guzzi had not done all the work yet!

Alessio, the developer of XMM has been really supportive and helpful, even making changes to XMM to improve support for MyFilms. I did ask him if it was possible to provide an option to use an XML database, like AMC and Eax, but he said no, it would be a huge amount of work he cannot manage.

We are still hoping the new version of AMC (4.10) that SoulSnake is working on while offer more potential for MyFilms.

Of course, the intent/focus of MyFilms is to support your existing catalog and app of your choice. However, the option to manage data from within the GUI is pretty awesome, and I don't think many mediacenter apps/plugins provide the update options in GUI that MyFilms does. I am certainly hooked now, and so I stuck with AMC and use AMCUpdater even though I would love some of the extra fields/features that other apps like XMM offer. I guess it all depends on your priorities.

 

[Harald63]

Thanks for your fine explanations Gianik and Dadeo, that was very helpful for me, because it's always a challenging task to get a full overview, when you start on such a "project".

Gianik - thanks for your information about the program to export data in ANT compliant format, I will try to find it to test it out until the bug is solved in EMM.

Dadeo - I think you have a good point about it seems redundant to try to duplicate other movie catalog apps functionality into MyFilms like it seems redundant for ex. Alessio to develop a slick interface for EMM, when you have the best world by combining those two applications, as Giani does. I also saw, that you get some bonus information such as writer and certification with direct EMM/MyFilms catalog import feature.

Just a warning for those, who are using the XML export module in EMM - after some bug fixing in version 7.2.0.3. (I don't have any information about what was fixed) the XML file doesn't work properly with the MyFilms import. The result is no movies. So stick with 7.2.0.2. until this is solved out. Of course you can test it out and see if you also get this error. I have reported this in the bug forum in EMM, but haven't got any answer yet.