I've been really busy lately with my full-time job so I didn't have time to do to much work on this program.  Keeping chapter information is the first thing on my list right now. I am also looking at the 'Auto-Fill' feature and possibly a WPF (.Net 3) port so it can be run from within VMC.

You are the man!!! Looking much forward to auto-fill.....keep up the most excellent work!!!

Circuit:

Works great for me, only one thing I could ask though. If its possible to either add chapters to cache info or even if thats not possible to leave any existing chapter info alone.

This would make the program perfect for me as I have chapter info for a lot of my DVD's and have to cut and paste each one to avoid losing it.

Hi Circuit, I put up a new version which will keep the Chapter information. It cannot edit the information but if it finds it it will keep it. There is one limitation though at this time, it only works if you have one title in the DVD (most movies are like that). It will read all the chapters but it treats them as being part of one title.  DVDs with more than one title are usually the ones including multiple episodes of a show.

I may change it to work with multiple titles depending of the need out there so please let me know if this is sufficient right now or not.

Auto-fill is the next change in line. I am still very busy at work and travelling again on business next week but this time I'll have VPN working and I can still work on the program.

Ok, new version up. One of the users (Whit Hamilton) found a problem that would crash Media Center. It looks like curly brackets {} in the synopsis crashes Media Center. I changed the program so that on save it converts those brackets to round brackets.  If you've had issues with Media Center crashing when trying to see the movie metadata just re-save the data for that movie and it should clean up the curly brackets. Definetly a strange one.

taranu:

Hi Circuit, I put up a new version which will keep the Chapter information. It cannot edit the information but if it finds it it will keep it. There is one limitation though at this time, it only works if you have one title in the DVD (most movies are like that). It will read all the chapters but it treats them as being part of one title.  DVDs with more than one title are usually the ones including multiple episodes of a show.

I may change it to work with multiple titles depending of the need out there so please let me know if this is sufficient right now or not.

Auto-fill is the next change in line. I am still very busy at work and travelling again on business next week but this time I'll have VPN working and I can still work on the program.

I am a happy person, this application really is the bee's knees now.

Can not ask for any more, thank you I tried it last night and it is perfect.

 

 

I'm loving this program!  It's the best!  Exactly what I needed!  It sure was a pain editing xml files manually.  Thanks a million!

THANK - YOU - VERY - MUCH!!!!!!!!!!

This is absolutely exceptional work!!!  I had been patiently awaiting an app like this and am DELIGHTED to see it.  Thanks so very much for this work.....

I am digging on this and know it's been asked a ton- but the fact VMC can read the DVR-MS files and playback from within DVD Library it just seems so possible there has to be something (or someway) to allow other file extensions .AVI, .MP4, .WMV to sorted within this bunch.... 

I can't believe this is hard-coded but possibly?

THANKS AGAIN AND PLEASE keep it up....!!!!

taranu:

Ok, new version up. One of the users (Whit Hamilton) found a problem that would crash Media Center. It looks like curly brackets {} in the synopsis crashes Media Center. I changed the program so that on save it converts those brackets to round brackets.  If you've had issues with Media Center crashing when trying to see the movie metadata just re-save the data for that movie and it should clean up the curly brackets. Definetly a strange one.

Nevermind.....no need for screen shots

Bug maybe? - Sharing the CACHE folder ....  and different folder point on a single box.

So I have 3 or 4 VMC's I want to point back to a single DIR with my XML's.  I am ok with letting the art land in the Video folder as that seems like a good place for it (actually not a bad place for the XLM either).

So I got aggressive on setting this up last night - then babystepped back as I seemed to have some issues.  On the main VMC I planned to save the XML's to - locally it seemed to have an issue with Library Manager if the Cache folder was NOT the default................   So on that box, unless the XML's were in the default path - DVD Library in VMC would not read them.  HOWEVER - DVD Library absolutely would and saw them..........

This to me sounds like (is there a flag being flipped in a registry on this change in Library Manager?).

I am working thru this and will report back.  For now I have the local DEFAULT on the box working.  But plan to try another of the boxes.

Input - ?  I have several steps to test and any way I look at it I am way ahead as a result of this app.  Heck I can copy them to the different PC's if needed.

I always think about 1) SHARING 2) RECOVERY of the VMC box.  Is there a reason since we place the folder art in the VIDEO folder that an option for the XML would not be there?  Then every machine would see it / read it and recovery would be rather easy?

I am sure I am missing something.

Thanks again - advice?

UPDATE:

I have verified permissions and about everything - and on the main box I mention below, I can not get DVD VMC to read XML info from a folder other than the default.  LIBRARY MANAGER reads it properly - all looks well - but then VMC loads and does not see the data.

I guess that is topic #1.

Topic #2 would be how others (I believe Jitter) were able to then point another box towards that share and get this to work.  That leads me to believe it actually did/should work as I am only trying this on 1 box and the share does not work for me either.

I will keep plugging but have quite a few hours on this one so feel clearly I hit a block.

--- Is it something that gets Registry flipped on that change of directory for the Cache?  I am going to view with Regedit --

ckolibab1:

Bug maybe? - Sharing the CACHE folder ....  and different folder point on a single box.

So I have 3 or 4 VMC's I want to point back to a single DIR with my XML's.  I am ok with letting the art land in the Video folder as that seems like a good place for it (actually not a bad place for the XLM either).

So I got aggressive on setting this up last night - then babystepped back as I seemed to have some issues.  On the main VMC I planned to save the XML's to - locally it seemed to have an issue with Library Manager if the Cache folder was NOT the default................   So on that box, unless the XML's were in the default path - DVD Library in VMC would not read them.  HOWEVER - DVD Library absolutely would and saw them..........

This to me sounds like (is there a flag being flipped in a registry on this change in Library Manager?).

I am working thru this and will report back.  For now I have the local DEFAULT on the box working.  But plan to try another of the boxes.

Input - ?  I have several steps to test and any way I look at it I am way ahead as a result of this app.  Heck I can copy them to the different PC's if needed.

I always think about 1) SHARING 2) RECOVERY of the VMC box.  Is there a reason since we place the folder art in the VIDEO folder that an option for the XML would not be there?  Then every machine would see it / read it and recovery would be rather easy?

I am sure I am missing something.

Thanks again - advice?

OK - maybe I am misunderstanding now.....  I dug thru the Registry and this does not look to be there.  Soooo - maybe after all of this I actually mis-understood???  Is this different path only for the purposes of EDITS / CHANGES but not the actual read of the DVD LIBRARY?

If that is the case - the CACHE FOLDER would have to somehow be manually synch'd among the various machines. --- OR --- perhaps XML WRITTEN to the DVD Folder --- then upon launch of DVD MANAGER they are READ and populated within the CACHE FOLDER (synch'd) perhaps....

Ok - unscramble my mind and ideas  ..... but as I said I am still way ahead as of this app.

Thanks for any input ---

ckolibab1:

UPDATE:

I have verified permissions and about everything - and on the main box I mention below, I can not get DVD VMC to read XML info from a folder other than the default.  LIBRARY MANAGER reads it properly - all looks well - but then VMC loads and does not see the data.

I guess that is topic #1.

Topic #2 would be how others (I believe Jitter) were able to then point another box towards that share and get this to work.  That leads me to believe it actually did/should work as I am only trying this on 1 box and the share does not work for me either.

I will keep plugging but have quite a few hours on this one so feel clearly I hit a block.

--- Is it something that gets Registry flipped on that change of directory for the Cache?  I am going to view with Regedit --

ckolibab1:

Bug maybe? - Sharing the CACHE folder ....  and different folder point on a single box.

So I have 3 or 4 VMC's I want to point back to a single DIR with my XML's.  I am ok with letting the art land in the Video folder as that seems like a good place for it (actually not a bad place for the XLM either).

So I got aggressive on setting this up last night - then babystepped back as I seemed to have some issues.  On the main VMC I planned to save the XML's to - locally it seemed to have an issue with Library Manager if the Cache folder was NOT the default................   So on that box, unless the XML's were in the default path - DVD Library in VMC would not read them.  HOWEVER - DVD Library absolutely would and saw them..........

This to me sounds like (is there a flag being flipped in a registry on this change in Library Manager?).

I am working thru this and will report back.  For now I have the local DEFAULT on the box working.  But plan to try another of the boxes.

Input - ?  I have several steps to test and any way I look at it I am way ahead as a result of this app.  Heck I can copy them to the different PC's if needed.

I always think about 1) SHARING 2) RECOVERY of the VMC box.  Is there a reason since we place the folder art in the VIDEO folder that an option for the XML would not be there?  Then every machine would see it / read it and recovery would be rather easy?

I am sure I am missing something.

Thanks again - advice?

I have my cache working correctly located on my Windows Home Server. 

I created a share on the server called "DvdInfoCache" and made sure I had read/write access by creating files and deleting them from the client Vista machine.

On the client, I went to the "c:\users\mname\appdata\roaming\microsoft\ehome\DvdInfoCache" directory and copied the XML files there to my share on the WHS.

I then went up a directory level on the client to the "ehome" directory and deleted the DvdInfoCache directory. (I seem to recall I had to kill one of the processes of media center or it created a new cache directory)

After the delete, I used the command "mklink /D DvdInfoCache \\WHS\DvdInfoCache" to create the new link.

The link name needs to be "DvdInfoCache" because, I believe, that is the name Media Center will look for.  If it's not named that and in the correct location with the right permissions, Media Center will not find the files.

I have been using this configuration for weeks with hundreds of DVDs on my server and it all works great.  All of my MCE Vista machines are linked this way so I can run DVD Library Manager on any of them to keep my collection updated.

This is one great application.  Many thanks...

 

Jitters - exceptional and thanks for the response.  You essentially confirmed this works for me so now I can plug away and continue.

2 things I zero in on here are the 1) Folder name (that may be part of my issue)  2) A process auto-creating that folder in eHome and expecting to find the data there....

#2 is the part concerning.  When we make this change in MANAGER where is it actually being made within VMC to tell it where to read?

Thanks so much -
Chris

Jitters -

Did every step - it absolutely upon DVD Library entry is recreating that Cache folder.....  This is clearly my snag for the moment.

I made the Link but will need to understand that a little more but for now whatever VMC is using to point to the Cache appears to not be sticking.......???

Any ideas - I am pretty certain this is my main issue then can muddle thru the rest.  I will look at the process list ...

Thanks -

 

 

 

 

 

Jitters:

I have my cache working correctly located on my Windows Home Server. 

I created a share on the server called "DvdInfoCache" and made sure I had read/write access by creating files and deleting them from the client Vista machine.

On the client, I went to the "c:\users\mname\appdata\roaming\microsoft\ehome\DvdInfoCache" directory and copied the XML files there to my share on the WHS.

I then went up a directory level on the client to the "ehome" directory and deleted the DvdInfoCache directory. (I seem to recall I had to kill one of the processes of media center or it created a new cache directory)

After the delete, I used the command "mklink /D DvdInfoCache \\WHS\DvdInfoCache" to create the new link.

The link name needs to be "DvdInfoCache" because, I believe, that is the name Media Center will look for.  If it's not named that and in the correct location with the right permissions, Media Center will not find the files.

I have been using this configuration for weeks with hundreds of DVDs on my server and it all works great.  All of my MCE Vista machines are linked this way so I can run DVD Library Manager on any of them to keep my collection updated.

This is one great application.  Many thanks...

 

In SETTINGS if you DISABLE retrieve info from the NET it appeared to not re-create that foldet but have not fixed the rest and not sure that is a good long term solution for other data.  May be a trade-off....