Media Browser: Great alternative to DVD Library/My Movies/Movie Collector - Page 104

Nope. It just wont be developed anymore for new features, but you can continue to use as is

Right. I was just clarifing that since this is a thread for Media Browser that people don't get confused that Media Browser is charging. It's the Meta Browser application that is going to a pay model. Media Browser itself is still free.

I just rebuilt the HTPC in my theater from RC...It finally ran out. I installed MediaBrowers and pointed the configuration tool to all the shares on my server. Other than a few little tweaks it was really easy. BTW the current version seems to launch MPC-HC much cleaner then older versions. It does show the desktop briefly when closing MPC-HC and restoring WMC, but none of the problems where MPC-HC would come up behind WMC.

I have yet to understand what Metabrowers would be used...MediaBrowers by itself has about 99.5% hit rate on finding the Meta Data for movies on my server.


Mike

Mike,

The new MediaBrowser fixed the need to run the externallauncher to get MPC to the front which is the issue many of us had.

One thing I like about metabrowser, or really any metadata program, is that I can see my library without having to open up WMC. I also prefer to have control over the poster/fanart that is used

It is awesome that MB now launches so smoothly with MPC HC. That addition really made everything finally come together. Also I agree with Dbone about the Meta Programs, they seem to provide a little nicer touch to things. Also have the ability to see your collection without going into WMC like Dbone stated.

i guess i wont be upgrading the current version works great.

I tried searching through the thread regarding the best way to organize Movie/TV series box sets. The previous post suggested using shortcuts to link to the separate discs in the box set. I'm wondering if there is a way to import the organization and info for my movie library from My Movies Collection Manager? I like the front end for MediaBrowser better than My Movies, but the Collection Manager for My Movies is pretty nice (and I've already got everything setup there as well)

Any suggestions?
Thanks,

http://community.mediabrowser.tv/per...dia-collection

Thanks for the link. I was afraid that was going to be the answer

Hi everyone. Hopefully this is the right place for this.
Here is my problem I just purchased a brand new computer, (the gateway slim mentioned in a thread around here) and I am working on setting up WMC7. I already configured WMC7 with Media Browser on my office computer to use as a demo for my wife to see what the capabilities are and it worked fine. For this new computer I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Then I installed the necessary drivers, the Shark codec pack and the latest MediaBrowser. On my office computer I used Metabrowser to gather the meta data for the movies and that info was put in their respective folders. Then I dropped the movie collection onto the homegroup network and transferred a movie to the new computer. Here's the problem. Media Browser works fine, but it appears that its not showing my movie art or the xml meta data. Did I forget a step? Was there another file I should have installed? I don't need metabrowser installed on the living room computer do I? I mean the meta data is self-contained in XML files. I hope this doesn't sound too confusing. Im currently at work and going off the top of my head, but this is something I was going to tackle this tonight and having a clear direction would save me time. I am also having problems with my homegroup transferring files extremely slow (35 mins for a 4 gig movie file!!WTF!) I am googling trying to solve that problem but if you have any ideas that would help I am open to them. I have a Linksys Wireless N router for that and a Belkin Wireless N USB network card plugged into the downstairs computer. Any info helps. Thanks!

The reason for using a third-party program to gather data rather than just relying upon Media Browser, is that Media Browser doesn't save this data locally with your movie files. There a couple of great advantages to having this data stored locally:

• Third-party programs offer you more control over searching for and selecting movies, so that 99.5% hit rate becomes 100%.

• If you need to clear your cache, you don't have to redownload everything from the net, it's already stored on your hard drive.

• If the TMDB or TVDB websites go down, you can't access their data in the result of a cache update.

• Saving the data locally means you can edit it to your own personal tastes. You can adjust the genres to exactly what you want, amend the descriptions, choose exactly what backgrounds and covers you want... Then you can use StarkCovers to really customise your cover art.

good points, but i'm lazy and would rather just have MB get all my metadata instead of me having to go through all my movies and do it by hand with a 3rd party app. and then again every time i add a new movie.

Metabrowser does it automatically as long as you keep it running in the background.

I agree!

I use Salami's Movie Organizer (0.2.6.10) to scrape and edit metadata for my movies (it uses the IMDB) and TV Meta Data Finder (an older version, 1.8.0.1833) for my TV shows (it uses the frequently offline TVDB). Both of these programs work with Windows XP, which I use as my work system. I save all my metadata into the "local" folders containing the videos. I have more control over the info that way.

+1 can't think of a better way for us lazy folks

I have what is probably a stupid question. I checked out the latest Vanilla this weekend and I like it a lot more now than when 2.0 was first released. However, I'm not getting the EHS backdrops to show up. It is only showing as the basic colored backdrop. I have Xzener's backdrops in the Startup folder and that works for other themes. I would like either those backdrops to show or the "newest items" backdrop visible when a title is selected. All of the Vanilla EHS screenshots that I see show a backdrop.

I have all my BD rips in MKV container in which some have TrueHD or DTS-HD (MA) audio track. For all of these containing only HD audio no audio type icon is displayed and video bitrate does not display; its blank with only the resolution.

MKV's with legacy audio tracks (DTS, AC3) all display icons and bitrates. Since HD audio is VBR I expect to at least see the audio type (TrueHD, DTS-HD (MA) or DTS-HD HR icon along with video bitrate. I'm using the Chocolate theme, mediainfo plugin installed, Win7 x86. I also tried replacing the mediainfo.dll with the very latest. Has anyone else experienced this issue with MB 2.2.2? I've also posted this issue in the MB forum but no replies yet.

i know i've tried metabrowser before, but if it makes the lazy folk happy, i'm going to give it a second look!

Yes...That's my feelings too, I'm lazy...I'm amazed at how good a job Media Browser does on it's own. Kudos to the the guys that wrote it! I'm at only about 250 movies and I do not see any speed problems. Perhaps with more files I will start to see performance issues.

Mike

The more files you add shouldn't make a difference as for every new file Media Browser adds to cache, so it is storing it locally

After much searching, both here and other forums, I've yet to find a solution to seamlessly add Recorded TV to Media Browser. I'm using MB 2.2.2 running on WMC7 and it doesn't appear to like the default file name convention that WMC7 uses when it records a show. I've seen hints at solutions to rename the files, create renamed shortcuts to the files, etc but that has the effect of messing with WMC7's instructions for recording a series and/or requires a lot more manual intervention than I'm willing to employ.

I just want to open my Recorded TV folder in MB and see the show names and metadata just as I would in the WMC7 interface (it would surely be prettier in MB and more convenient).

Media browser would be perfect except that I don't get MPAA ratings and I don't know how to add individual metadata that Mediabrowser doesn't find automatically.

That's what software like MetaBrowser or Media Center Master can do for you, it will get all that metadata and populate Media Browser with it.

I've been giving Media Center Master a try the past few days and I really, really like it. Much better then Meta Browser frankly and it's still free. It handles TV series as well. Only thing it doesn't do is support "season" specific backdrops and poster covers.

It also pulls in a lot more data then does Meta Browser, especially when it comes to actors and their thumbnails.

There's an MPAA fix on March 5th.

I got my backdrops to show, but I assume Vanilla has a bug in the EHS menu. I had to switch to the Maelstrom theme, navigate to the popup menu, toggle the backdrop option, then switch back to Vanilla. For some reason Vanilla is missing the backdrop toggle.

If anyone tried Vanilla 2.0 when it was released and didn't like it you should check it out again. In my opinion it has improved a lot, especially with the EHS. I also like the way it works with the music plugin.

I didn't see that. Can you link me to the download with instructions? I need the MPAA ratings for filtering my collection for the kids.

Also, is the any way to manually download metadata for movies that aren't automatically found by mediabrowser? Does Metabrowser and Salami automatically integrate into Mediabrowser or do I need to somehow disable the mediabrowser metadata gathering plugin and add one of these other programs to Mediabrowser?

Thanks,

Joe M.

It's all automatic using Metabrowser or MCM or other metdata program. Just tell Mediabrowser to not get metadata and these other programs do it for you. There is some configuration in some cases but once configured these programs save the metadata to the same files that Mediabrowser would create itself and thus it just displays the metadata as if it got it itself.

Throgmorton has his own site dedicated to his themes, http://www.throgsoft.com/. I'm sure he would appreciate a heads up about the bug.

I downloaded and ran MCM and Metabrowser. MPAA ratings are not being collected and need to be entered manually. Am I doing something wrong? Also, how do I tell Mediabrowser which metadata gatherer to use? I have both MCM and Metabrowser running and for all I know, Media Browser is using it's own data gatherer for my movie collection.

Joe M.