My Movies for Windows Home Server

[elootos]

I got around to installing My Movies (again) at the weekend and this time I actually took the time to read and understand how to use it properly and I can now say that it's a damn fine piece of movie-library software! (you all knew that anyway ). My previous reluctance to install it was down it having a less than impressive interface on my XP and Vista Media Centers, plus it had just too many options in its film database for my liking. However with the less than stable operation of Media Browser over the last week I have given My Movies another go and all is forgiven!

I plumped for the full network install, so that's the Home Server version (as an Add-in on the server) and then the standard My Movies on each of the client Media Centers (lounge, kitchen and bedroom/bathroom). Each install of the standard My Movies on the client Media Centers allows you a choice of database access from which I chose 'client' version and selected the 'server' as the master database location. So now when I access the My Movies 'Movie Management' from any PC, it links to the database on the server creating a network-wide film library.

   


The Home Server version installs without a hitch and inserts a few options in the settings section allowing full configuration of the database services that run.

   


There is also a fully functioning disc copy service on the Home Server with access and control of an installed version of AnyDVD. However I do not have any need for this feature though with all my film ripping being done on through AnyDVD on the kitchen PC across to the server's video folder. If my Home Server were more accessible somewhere else in the house rather than in the attic then I would probably use this method of ripping via My Movies instead.

   


On the server, My Movies has an auto-scanning service that monitors selected video folders and creates a film entry in the database as soon as it sees a new film/file. I did have to manually add '.iso' as a file extension though for the film database to recognise my files.

   


Upon first installing My Movies on the server and entering which folders contain my Video_TS/ISO files, it slowly built its database up with only about 5% of films not recognised for one reason or other (most likely due to incomplete entries in the online database which you can add to yourself earning points in the process - more points equals more available features, or you can just purchase them in one go to save all the work. Feature table here).

   


So back to the Media Center PCs themselves, and I have a My Movies entry in the main menu, from where all the films come up; DVDs and Blu-rays together with Blu-rays having a 'Blu-ray' style disc cover to differentiate them. I'll post about that though in the Media Center forum section later this week. However should you have just DVDs and be happy with the standard Movie Library in Media Center, then My Movies can be configured to manage that by adding XML files in each film folder that trigger Media Center to go online and scout for film artwork/info.

   


So my setup now consists of: the Home Server storing all my films and any new ones that I rip from the kitchen Media Center across to it getting picked up by the My Movies monitoring service. And on each Media Center PC in the house I can easily access and watch my film library via the My Movies section in the Media Center menu.

[newstuart]

Another very useful feature of My Movies is it automatically trancodes your movies to be watched with MCE extenders (Video_TS files do not normally play on extenders) although you do not have chapters or menus

From memory you need to purchase a number of points to enable this though

[northan]

Welcome to my movies elootos
you don't have to spend too much to unlock all their features but tbh I think I bought 500 points to open the better menu options. So I can choose how it looks now.
Transcode works really well.
There is an option that gives you 30 days free trial of all the extras. Good way of working out what you need and don't.

[elootos]

(03-17-2010 05:53 PM)newstuart Wrote:  From memory you need to purchase a number of points to enable this though

(03-18-2010 11:17 PM)northan Wrote:  Welcome to my movies elootos
you don't have to spend too much to unlock all their features but tbh I think I bought 500 points to open the better menu options. So I can choose how it looks now.
Transcode works really well.
There is an option that gives you 30 days free trial of all the extras. Good way of working out what you need and don't.

Yeah, I have the standard 21 day trial giving me the max 2500 points for full features. Maybe I should try some sort of reward scheme like that for this site's wiki

I'm loving My Movies so far, the last time I used it fully was over 4 years ago and boy has it grown up a lot since then

[northan]

Hey don't forget the people who kept the faith.

[dunks517]

The voices in my head at this particular moment are: 'I told you so...'

Welcome to the fold gents

[elootos]

(03-19-2010 11:02 AM)dunks517 Wrote:  The voices in my head at this particular moment are: 'I told you so...'

Welcome to the fold gents

Yeah, but that doesn't mean you're yet forgiven for recommending Sky TV over Media Center, booo hissss!!

[dunks517]

40 HD Channels on Sky as opposed to 1.5 oh, and Luxe TV on DVB(S). I would drop Sky like 3rd period French if I could get more free HD channels on DVB(S) or DVB-T2.