Cheers Sam, I tried this and it works now.  I assumed it would just be querying the MyMovies SQL database rather than just parsing the xml files in the folder!  But the way you've done it is more flexible I guess.

I really like the simplicity of this one compared to MyMovies, and TV Library is to buggy and it looks like the developer has stopped working on that project.  Niall's Big Screen Movies is on the way but it looks like Big Screen TV has been halted, so this leaves your project as the only actively developed solution that can cope with all my movies and TV Shows!

If you extend and polish this a bit I think you could charge money for this, I for one would pay for something that works - shame Microsoft weren't up to the job!  Here's my wish list:


1 - Make the background transparent so that the blue background shows through.  I could then change my theme to a different colour using MediaCenterFX and have Video Browser in the same colour.

2 - Make navigation easier by making it follow the same usage as the rest of media center:
       a) Scroll backwards from the first item to the end of the list by pressing up
       b) Using the CH +/- buttons as a Page UP/DOWN function
       c) Pressing letters on the remote OR a keyboard to start typing and have the list jump to the closest match

3 - Only the OK button works when a movie is highlighted.  Maybe the OK button could be used for going to the sub page (or maybe use the i button) and use the Play button instead to jump straight into movie playback.

4 - I for one hate auto-generated thumbnails, they are not very useful and they slow my system right down when generating them, mostly just ending up with a black frame anyway.  So I'm glad you've chosen not to use them!  I prefer to add my images myself, but some users might like the option to use them (but it should not be turned on by default IMHO).

5 - Default list view is great, but it would be nice to have some other options available.  Standard DVD Library view showing DVD covers is a nice one to have, and the banner view used by TV Library is particularly good for TV Shows.  I think cover flow might be hard to implement, I don't know how flexible MCML is!

6 - Rather than editing and adding registry keys, it would be nicer to have options available form the interface.  The interface could also be used for choosing views, defalt sort order etc rather than having to manually edit an .ini file.

7 - The sub page could have lots of options borrowed from MyMovies, e.g. show trailers from the web, look up cast/crew info.  Maybe you could leverage the MyMovies SQL database for this?  Although I appreciate you may not want to be locked into using MyMovies and add suuport for other cataloguing formats.

8 - Having the ability to view by category would be nice.  I have a large movie library and if I want to watch a comedy film, it would be good to be able to see them all together on one page rather than having to navigate the entire collection.

9 - You should have the option to install the icon on either the Pictures/Videos strip, the TV/Movies strip, or a custom strip, á la MyMovies.  I for one would rather have it under TV/Movies, although having it under Pictures/Videos lets me keep MyMovies active as well (as I believe you can only add one icon per strip, plus one custom strip which I have already dedicated to Yougle).


I've not tried the Ruby script for my TV shows yet, but will let you know how it goes.

I know the MyMovies developer is working on an MCML version but it's taking some time...  In an ideal world I would like to see a collaboration combining MyMovies functionality, VideoBrowser's general MCML slickness, flexibility and TV show support, with the TV show metadata gathering built into the MyMovies collection management app...  Not likely though, I know!

any updates?

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http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Vengence_IRL

This looks awesome. I might have to install it tonight. Any thoughts making the software opensource so other people can help contribute?

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Ok I installed it and it's awesome. Great work. My First question is how do you gets images to show up for the season and for each episode?

how do i get this to work on an xbox/extender? bucz its not showing for me =[

Dannybuoy,

Sorry I have been slow to reply, I have been busy in the last couple of weeks writing my blog software.

I agree with pretty much all of your suggestion and will look into integrating them

where I differ is

#1.  I am still not conviced on this, I want video browser to have a consistent look and feel, MediaCenterFX is doing some pretty hacky things to get itself working, Vista MCE is not really built to be themed.

#9 I am not sure if about this, it gets really confusing having all these custom strips, something I have been toying with is replacing the whole front page altogether (optionally) and instead having a simplified view that give me a reduced set of options. On my set up I would like the top level navigation to have movies, tv, photos and music  at the top level - without the craze mce strips ... how I could get this all to hang together is a very complicated question ...

Hi Dirk,

Have a look at some previous posts on this thread and at my sites download section (www.samsaffron.com) for instructions on how to run the ruby script that fetches metadata.

Cheers
Sam

slig

Short answer, I have no idea I don't own an xbox 360.

Long answer, I doubt this will work on an extender cause to get it to work on an extender I would have to transcode all the videos on the fly (cause the 360 has a limited coded support)

I think there may be some apps out there that do this. Maybe someone else can help out and point you at the right direction

Cheers
Sam

Cheers Sam.  There's an app out now to let you organise your strips yourself, so there's no need for #9.  But forgetting about MediaCenterFX for a minute, it would be nice to have the default blue background instead of black.

I've not yet tried it myself as I've been fairly satisfied with the MyMovies/VideoBrowser combo and haven't had much time, but have you had a look at MC Organizer yet? 

Here's a video of it in action: http://mcezone.com/mco.php

Hi Dannyboy

This Strip organizer you mention, do you have a name and a link to that? Thanks!

/KingManon

dannybuoy:

Cheers Sam.  There's an app out now to let you organise your strips yourself, so there's no need for #9.  But forgetting about MediaCenterFX for a minute, it would be nice to have the default blue background instead of black.

I've not yet tried it myself as I've been fairly satisfied with the MyMovies/VideoBrowser combo and haven't had much time, but have you had a look at MC Organizer yet? 

Here's a video of it in action: http://mcezone.com/mco.php

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OML - Open Media Library - Product Manager

Slig,

When you setup the Xbox 360 as an extender, windows will create a profile 'MCX#'. # will be replaced with a number depending on how many extenders you have. You'll find the profile under 'C:\Users\' if you're using Vista. Go to the videos folder and create a shortcut to your videos. Then you should be able to see the videos through the Xbox.

KingManon:

Hi Dannyboy

This Strip organizer you mention, do you have a name and a link to that? Thanks!

/KingManon

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/vista-plugins-addons/25714-new-util-mc-menu-customiser.html

I have just updated the version of video browser

The new version includes the following fixes/features

• I fixed some of the crashing issues
• There was a bug where when navigating to a folder it would scroll down the list instead of going to the first item.
• By popular demand, you can now use the remote numbers to quickly jump through long lists
• You can also use the keyboard (note space and backspace are not supported yet for fast searching, its a major hack to fix this)
• Details view for movies
• DVD detection was a bit broken, it should now support nested folders with DVDs
• Holding the down button used to cause navigation to get “stuck” , this is now mostly resolved.

Please let me know if it works / upgrades correctly. Cheers Sam

excellent new, I'll try this out as soon as I get home.

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http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Vengence_IRL

Most excellent, can't wait to try it out!

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OML - Open Media Library - Product Manager

Love the new features!!

Small bug:

My folder structure is like

d:\movies\300
d:\movie\babel
d:\tv series\dexter

When I enter eg. movies then no description is shown for for the first movie, here 300. If I then scrool down one to babel and back up to 300 the description is there. Then a funny thing happens, because if I then press "back" on my remote, the 300 description stays there untill I press up or down. The funny thing only happens when I press back on the first item in the list, 300.

Update: Sorry to say, the video browser still crashed upon exit on me one time.

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OML - Open Media Library - Product Manager