Why Would I Use My Films? (1 Viewer)

[Lomax]

Hi all,

Pardon my ignorance, but why would I want to use this plugin over standard MP functionality?

I've just started setting up MP and noted that this seems to be a popular plug-in and am wondering what it can do for me.

I have many movies in .avi (divx) format, and am assuming that "out-of-the-box" MP will be able to pick up these movies, get info from IMDB, and present me with a nice list of movies under "My Movies". I am also assuming that MP can present this list of movies in different ways, ie. by title, or year, or genre, etc. Further, I see that in the MP Configuration screen I am able to manipulate the movie info pulled from IMDB.

So, what does the "My Films" plugin do beyond the above?

Any info appreciated!

'max

P.S. I'm not being a dick here, just trying to get all the MP feature sets correct in my head.

 

[zebons]

Hi all,

Pardon my ignorance, but why would I want to use this plugin over standard MP functionality?

I've just started setting up MP and noted that this seems to be a popular plug-in and am wondering what it can do for me.

I have many movies in .avi (divx) format, and am assuming that "out-of-the-box" MP will be able to pick up these movies, get info from IMDB, and present me with a nice list of movies under "My Movies". I am also assuming that MP can present this list of movies in different ways, ie. by title, or year, or genre, etc. Further, I see that in the MP Configuration screen I am able to manipulate the movie info pulled from IMDB.

So, what does the "My Films" plugin do beyond the above?

Any info appreciated!

'max

P.S. I'm not being a dick here, just trying to get all the MP feature sets correct in my head.

The two plugins are based concepts differents :
MP scans HD and amovibles Drives to find movies and display only those.
MyFilms is based on a movie collection database and all movies aren't presents on HD at any time. When you want to launch a movie which isn't stored on HD, it asked and prompted you usefull information (that you have to define) to mount the right support....

Here a list of some discrepencies :
1. MP display only movies stored on HD or present on amovible Drives with standard MyVideos. It doesn't manage a collection of movies stored on differents supports (CD, DVD..). in another hand, you have to enter new movies in your AMC database to see it with MyFilms :-((
2. You cann't display informations (like synopsis) to choose the movie you want to see before launching it. You only have OSD informations after launching the movie
3. as it's not a movie collection, you cann't manage borrowers to know who have the movie you want to watch ! But no matter in MyVideos because thoses movies aren't displayed..
4. My Films is more customizable, you can define your own views, add some specifics items that you want to see...
5. With MyFilms you van define specifics views by theme. So you can define a specific view for your childrens and protect by password a specific collection that you donn't want yhey watch (hards movies....)
6. as MyFilms is based on an external free software (ANT Movie Catalog) and because that software enable you to choose the IMDB server for movies informations, you can choose the best site for your needing. There is a lot of movie site proposes and ANT Scripts are always updated by users if sites changed. It's hardcoded in MP so evolutions are more difficult and you cann't choose the site in MP (IMDB or FRDB..).
7. Scan informations in MP is very very slow and you cann't change wrong informations (you have to go in serup Movie databse to do so... With MyFilms, you can change all informations in AMC and some in MP (rating, borrower, ... and other you choose with settings)
8. an advantage for MyVideos : it's integrated to MP Core so evolutions are always made with new versions. MyFilms is an external plugin so adaptations can take a little delay...but SVNs help us to anticipate that problem
9. as MP scan directories, all movie file present her are displayed even if you don't want so you have to organize your storage with that point.
10. With MP, movie information is retrieved by using filename so it must be correctly defined. With AMC, filename is only an attribute, you give the real name of the movie and if more than one movie is founf by scripts, you choose the good one. You cann't do it with MP. So you can have wrong informations in your MP database.

In defavor of MyFilms :
1. You have to manage your database with an external software
2. Movies not added to your AMC DB are not visible in MP
3. setup of MyFilms a little bit complexe to understand all possibilities
4. plugin not integrated in the MP's Core
5. less skins as only 4 skins are already maintained (you can try to put BlueTwo files in another skin, it sometimes work)


I hope that help you...

 

[Lomax]

Thanks for the comprehensive info. It has cleared it up for me. I think I'll check it out

 

[evecadu]

My Films 2CD Movie

Hello all, I was wondering if its possible to set up My Films when theres a movie split in 2? and also is there a plug in on functionality that lets me switch from 2 different sub files?

thanks

 

[THDBASED]

Just a general wondering and slightly off-topic but why not integrate these changes into the "My Movies" core of MP instead of building a new plug-in?
Maybe this will be easier and better when next-gen MP will be released, where everything is a plug-in...

 

[Lomax]

I agree with THDBASED.

At the moment there are too many ways to do the same thing in MP, and it leaves my head spinning. Sometimes less is more.

 

[Ashius]

@ Lomax and THDBASED

I have to disagree, I think the MyFlims and MyTVSeries along with MP MyMovies function have all you bases covered.

See MyFilms and TVSeries both use databases to hold information, which means some work on your part, to obtain information for your video. Now it depends on the situation for each plugin, but to watch something that is both new and obscurer can be a pain.

This is where the MP MyMovies function works well. Say you get a whole bunch of short clips. They don't really fit in the TVSeries or MyFilms plugins. Sure you could work out way to add them, but its just easier to use MP's function.

I hope that made sense. I really think there are a solid mix of features that with all 3 functions, have all your video watching bases covered.

 

[HappyTalk]

MyFilms is great for tv series too, using Ant scripts you can grab info from tv.com for 1,000's of entries unattended. I use the built in MyMovies just as a file explorer to play stuff on hard drive (recent downloads etc) for the rest I use MyFilms. MyMovies cannot compete with using Ant Scripts to obtain info/covers etc from tv.com, imdb.com, amazon etc and is hard to use for offline stuff. If you already have info setup in MyMovies format you can easily convert it to ant format for use in MyFilms (search for script I posted on here to do it)

 

[fforde]

MyFilms is great for tv series too, using Ant scripts you can grab info from tv.com for 1,000's of entries unattended. I use the built in MyMovies just as a file explorer to play stuff on hard drive (recent downloads etc) for the rest I use MyFilms. MyMovies cannot compete with using Ant Scripts to obtain info/covers etc from tv.com, imdb.com, amazon etc and is hard to use for offline stuff. If you already have info setup in MyMovies format you can easily convert it to ant format for use in MyFilms (search for script I posted on here to do it)

Hrmm, I think it really depends on what you want to use MyFilms for. As a plugin to cataloge an external DVD collection, MyFilms is a great plugin, but as a plugin to manage locally stored movies, it is very crippled. When it comes to managing local media files the user should have to do very little if anything to add a new movie to the database. It should be as simple as dropping a new video file in your movie folder and opening up Media Portal. At this point all the movie's metadata should automatically be retrieved from the internet database of the users choice. Unfortunately it is not as easy as this.

I think the real problem comes from MyFilms being different things to different people. I know I am new around here so my opinion may not carry much weight, but I think MyMovies could gain quite a bit by borrowing code from the MyFilms project. I am not sure if they should be completely merged together or not, but there is definitely a lot of overlap between the two plugins. I would really like to see MyFilms turn into something more dedicated to offline media with MyMovies for online stuff. And sharing the same interface here makes a lot of sense to me!

 

[HappyTalk]

If you want metadata you're probably not going to get that happening automatically, that said I wrote fully automated ant scripts for imdb.com and tv.com + amazon for covers so they could be easily recoded in c#. I personally found MyVideos awkward to use and very hard to maintain the metadata (may have been buggy back then) hence why I moved to MyFilms. MyFilms works great whether your files are on local drives or external media.

It would be relatively easy to have MyFilms scan for files on local drives and using the folder hierarchy stuff make them appear with the rest of the entries in subfolders. It could pick up video_name.jpg & video_name.nfo for pic and info to give a basic cover and description entry for those who can't be bothered to run ANT (It could store these entries in a temp ant db so you could easily merge it with your main ant db if required). That way I wouldn't need to use MyVideos at all anymore for the loose stuff on my drives but not in the ant db.

Last thing I'd wanna see is MyFilms take on the bloat of adding stuff from other plugins. I've seen some parts of MP suffer the bloat of badly implemented, buggy, feature overload. MyFilms is lean and solid and doesn't need much more added. If it ain't broke...