My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0) (2 Viewers)

[doveman]

Thanks guys, I was thinking I needed to get AMC all done first before using MyFilms and AMC Updater, but you've set me straight

 

[u28151]

Hi there, I am tryuing to d an unattended installation of MePo and most according do wiki doc it is possible with mpeinstaller.exe /S. However MyFilms displays some popups during installation even with the silent switch. So my questions is if it would be possible to remove those warnings?

 

[Guzzi]

AW: My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0)

OK, i'll try the updater.

I use the field category to create a default view. when i start my film there are 2 entries, film and others. i.e. in others i can find documentaries and live concerts. Can I filter this again to create something like 2 "sub folders"?

Hi Taky,
I would recommend to separate that via "configs" - I use deparate configs for "movies", "documentaries" and "private films".
Usually, only for movies there is info and artwork available on the net.
You could then use category field by just populating it via the scrapers (either AMC or AMCupdater) with genre info.
Edit: There is a possibility to use "subfolders" - but this is intended for stuff like "collections" or series like content - you use the "Group hieryrchy separator" in the name fields for that. In future version, AMCupdater will do that automatically when importing, but it can be done manually at least to get familiar with it if you like.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0)

I was wondering if there's any way to make all the different movie utils/plugins share the same images for movies?

At the moment, I have AMC, MyFilms, MovingPictures and Videos all with their own collections of images. Perhaps they use different, incompatible naming schemes or something so it's not possible to have a common folder for the images, but it seems like it would be nice if this was possible.

This is a known "issue" .... however, MyFilms is fully configurable for its pathes - so you can change MyFilms pathes to point to existing pathes. But noone can guarantee, that naming and format do match good enough though.

Also, does anyone have a good way of importing movies into AMC?
[...]

See other posts - I'd recommend using AMCupdater for that, should do most of the job (and allows some imho really nice features for maintenance).
If you have problems with DVDs etc., we can look specifically into it.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0)

Thanks guys, I was thinking I needed to get AMC all done first before using MyFilms and AMC Updater, but you've set me straight

The really nice thing when using AMC with MyFilms is its interoperability - you can update your catalog from either AMC, via AMCupdater or even from inside MyFilms GUI (e.g. when global fanart didn't find the right one, choosee manually - or create one from movie itself, etc.).

I usually import films via AMCupdater and use AMCupdater for certain maintenance tasks (glolbal updates of certain parameters, e.g. rating etc.).
There is also scripts for global actions available for AMC - so everyody can do to personal taste. If sitting at the desk, you probably prefer doing something in AMC or via AMCupdater - when you're in the livingroom, you probably don't want to use a winApp and prefer to update your catalog data via remote.
All changes reflect in your DB - regardless if done from AMC, AMCupdater or inside MyFilms.

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0)

Hi there, I am tryuing to d an unattended installation of MePo and most according do wiki doc it is possible with mpeinstaller.exe /S. However MyFilms displays some popups during installation even with the silent switch. So my questions is if it would be possible to remove those warnings?

Will talk to mpe specialists about it - will you share the silent install for MP plus plugins? Sounds interesting for ppl having multiple clients....

 

[u28151]

The silent installation I am using is based on the information from wiki page:
TV-Server Installer (NSIS) - MediaPortal Wiki.

You use the 2 components package-mediaportal.exe and package-tvengine.exe from downloaded MePo Installation files.

I have attached 2 command files used to install MePo totally unattended (except for Myfilms, which does not work totally silent at the moment).
Previously I installed all the plugins and mad a snapshot before/after to get the difference in files for each plugin and made a copy job in the batch to "install" plugins that way.
Problem with that procedure was that the MePo installtion did not sence plugins as installed when using MEPInstaller GUI. It became more cumbersome to update versions...
So no i wanted to change te concept using silent switches installing the plugins with all files necessary and afterwards only copy configuration specific files like databases and so on for each plugin. So whenever a plugin version is updated, I only have to replace the .MPE1 for plugin in question and rerun installation.

Now I must say my environment surrounding this is a bit more than what common users have to support automatic installations in their home - I am using SCCM to deploy my software
But this would work trigger the installtion from a network share, running the batch files with slight modifications.

So please have a look at the attached cmd files and hope you find them useful in some way!
...and hope you find a way to remove those popups when silent swith is used, or I have to revert installation method to a filecopy job for this plugin.

Best regards

//Ulf

 

[Guzzi]

AW: Re: My Films 5.1 released (19.09.2011) - V5.1.0.1468 (MP 1.2.0)

The silent installation I am using is based on the information from wiki page:
TV-Server Installer (NSIS) - MediaPortal Wiki.

You use the 2 components package-mediaportal.exe and package-tvengine.exe from downloaded MePo Installation files.

I have attached 2 command files used to install MePo totally unattended (except for Myfilms, which does not work totally silent at the moment).
Previously I installed all the plugins and mad a snapshot before/after to get the difference in files for each plugin and made a copy job in the batch to "install" plugins that way.
Problem with that procedure was that the MePo installtion did not sence plugins as installed when using MEPInstaller GUI. It became more cumbersome to update versions...
So no i wanted to change te concept using silent switches installing the plugins with all files necessary and afterwards only copy configuration specific files like databases and so on for each plugin. So whenever a plugin version is updated, I only have to replace the .MPE1 for plugin in question and rerun installation.

Now I must say my environment surrounding this is a bit more than what common users have to support automatic installations in their home - I am using SCCM to deploy my software
But this would work trigger the installtion from a network share, running the batch files with slight modifications.

So please have a look at the attached cmd files and hope you find them useful in some way!
...and hope you find a way to remove those popups when silent swith is used, or I have to revert installation method to a filecopy job for this plugin.

Best regards

//Ulf

Hi Ulf,
indeed, that looks like a bigger setup ;-)
Re silent install - I just tested latest myfilms mpe using mpeinstaller <myfilmspackage.mpe> /S
It did run without any userinteraction - only showed progress for deinstall of old version and progress for install of new one - no info panels and also the config wasn't launched after install.
I did that calling from command line; so that should work, shouldn't it? Or do you require an install without ANY output?
Guzzi

 

[u28151]

Hi Guzzi,

Yes the silent install is working if you have all dependencies installed before. However I only use MyFilms as a library and have no need for Trakt, Subcentral and Browse the Web plugins.
So it would be great to have those dependency warnings removed if running setup with silent switch. If the GUI shows progress or not doesn't matter, but with /S switch, all popups should be suppressed.

..ohh, and by the way - thank you for a really nice plugin!

I have a question to which I hope you can answer. I use the AMC Updater to download fanart for my movies and wonder if it would be possible from the configuration GUI to download fanart for actors/producers at the same time? As I understand you can only do that from within MePo...
I have a file share for all my fanart pictures which all clients point to, which makes it easier to update an manage. So if I can preload a folder with actor/producer images that would be really great!

//Ulf

 

[doveman]

Hi wouter1971 - it would be really helpful if you could describe specifically what you find hard to setup. In most cases you just use the Setup Wizard and it sets up everything with presets for you.

Guzzi has considered ways to make the Setup look/work easier but it is hard to know what is the most confusing for others. So, he wanted to get feedback from a lot of users before making major changes. Thus, your feedback would be really valuable!

My Films allows customization of almost everything imaginable and supports so many different setups and movie catalogs that you are right, it is not easy to make setup easy for everyone. But we'd like to try! So the first step is for you and other users to identify the issues, and maybe even make some suggestions, so Guzzi can work from a clear set of specs/requirements.

Thanks!

Having just installed MyFilms again, I'd like to give my input on what I found confusing (after the Wizard had finished, that bit was straightforward). Note I'm using AMC Unofficial, so some things might be different, although I don't think I'm using any Extended Fields (in fact I can't see any extra fields compared to normal AMC).

On the General tab:
Item for Storage File Info: Source (now I've read the Wiki I know what this is, but perhaps it could be renamed to something clearer, like "Field containing filename". The Wiki suggests that URL is commonly used for this, which doesn't make much sense as AMC stores the path\filename in Source)

Scan media on start: unticked (wouldn't most users want this ticked, so that MyFilms can show which films are and are not available to play?)

Only Exact Matches: unticked (this isn't explained in the Wiki. I'm guessing having it unticked means that if the filename is something like "moviename (year) [Director's cut]" it will still be able to find and grab the correct film details, but I'm not sure)

Search in Sub Folders: unticked (wouldn't most users want this ticked?)

Ant Identification Item: boxes empty (this isn't explained in the Wiki and I have no idea what these are for!)


On the Trailer tab:
DB Item for storing Trailer Info: Borrower (I want to use this field in AMC to keep track of who I've lent films to. I'm not sure there's another field spare to use as default instead (URL perhaps?), but currently it would seem to mess up the user's lending list, so I would like to at least be able to disable this and just do without trailers).

On the Update tab:
Field used for Watched Status: Checked (I don't see a Checked field in AMC, so I'm not sure what this refers to)

Enable database deletion options after movie is watched: unticked (I don't want to be able to delete movies from the database after watching them, but what does "Update db entry and keep movie file" do?)

On the Internet Grabbing tab:
Script: IMDB.xml (can the IMDB+ script be used here? It has some major benefits (short synopsis, so no spoilers, renaming series' of films and it would be nice if MyFilms and MovingPictures would both show the same details)

Don't use default script (always ask): ticked (wouldn't it be better to have this unticked? Do most users really want to choose the script each time. Is this setting per movie or per grabbing session?)

Try to find best match automatically (how well does this work, as obviously it's nice to be able to have AMCUpdater/MyFilms grab the info whilst I go and do something else, but if I then have to go through the list manually changing a lot of mistakes it might be quicker just to sit there and check each one as it runs)

Title Search Handling: Folder Name + Internet Lookup (I mostly have genre\moviename.avi but sometimes have genre\moviename\moviename.mkv, so I'm not sure what I should use here?)

Purge Orphan Records: unticked (if this is ticked, will it delete from the database anything that's not found on the HD each time AMCUpdater/MyFilms is run?)

On the Artwork tab:
Cover Images Path: E:\Media\MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms (this is where I've saved my .xml file and where AMC stores the images)

Picture Prefix: AMC Unofficial_ (I've set AMC to use no prefix, so can I clear this?)

Picture Handling: Relative Path (says cannot be modifed but I can change it to Full Path, I presume Relative is correct for my situation?)

In AMC, under Preference - Picture Importation, I've set "Copy picture to catalog folder, and link it to catalog" and "Use formatted movie title" (with this set to "Keep original name" I either get filenames with only the catalog number, or something even stranger like "mv5bmtc2mdiymjc3n15bml5banbnxkftztcwnzqzodawmq@@._v1._sx327_sy475_.jpg") and unticked "Use catalog name as prefix for the picture name".

"Use formatted movie title" gives names like "Aliens ('Alien 2' - Japan (English title)).jpg" and "Alien 3 ('Alien³' - USA (original title)).jpg" which I'm not sure are compatible with AMCUpdater/MyFilms.

Once I know how to use it properly, I will use AMCUpdater mostly, but I need to know that if I open the database in AMC, it's going to a) be able to open the images created by AMCUpdater and b) if I add a film, it will save the new image with the right filename for MyFilms.

In AMC, under Preferences - Folders I also can set the folder to use for "Load movie picture", but this doesn't seem to make any difference, so I presume AMC stores the path to the images in the database somewhere or just doesn't need this setting if the images are in the same folder as the .xml.

Incidentally, I don't think it's possible to share images between AMC/Myfilms and MovingPictures at the moment, as MovingPictures stores it's images in thumbs\MovingPictures\Covers\Fullsize for the covers and thumbs\MovingPictures\Backdrops\Fullsize for the fanart and uses filenames like "{Another.Earth} [-xxxxxxxx].jpg" and each film can have multiple images with different numbers for -xxxxxxxx. Whilst MyFilms could be pointed to those folders, I don't think AMC can (maybe using Junction Points, but I haven't really got the hang of those yet) and the filenames are incompatible anyway.

I currently have a junction point from C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs to E:\Media\MediaPortal\thumbs, which works fine and keeps my thumbs safe if something happens to my C: drive (or I mess up when updating/uninstalling MP!). I could only get it work if the folder on E: was named thumbs though, as it appears to insist on using the name of the destination folder (I thought I might be able to redirect C:\...\thumbs to something like E:\Media\artwork but I haven't found a way to do that yet).