Hacking Windows7 MediaCenter

The latest update to Media Browser, the popular movie library add-on for Windows Media Center, gives the plug-in a bit of a facelift. Though not enabled by default a new theme has been added to the options inside Media Browser. If you haven’t tried this wonderful program yet now is the perfect time to do so. Download the latest version of Media Browser from mediabrowser.tv’s forums.

Once you’ve got a copy of the latest version of Media Browser installed you will need to enable the new theme from inside the plug-in. At this point the configuration program included with Media Browser is fairly slim but hopefully at some point it will include more configuration options outside of Media Center. Instead, open up Media Browser inside Media Center’s Extras Library then click the small wrench icon to open the configuration then Navigate to the themes section and select Vanilla from the Visual Themes.

Once you’ve got your theme set to Vanilla you’ll notice a drastic difference in Media Browser’s appearance. This new theme adds quite a bit to the visual style of Media Browser’s various view options. All the view styles have been converted over to the new Vanilla theme including a new view specifically for Vanilla called Strip. Most of the options from the default Media Browser theme are available through the wrench icon in the Vanilla theme, however, to have access to the wrench from folder views you will need to enable it from the config options under Vanilla.

Under the new Vanilla theme, fan art is a much more prominent feature of each view. You will immediately notice that, while the default theme kept fan art fairly low key, this new theme displays fan art as a full screen background to each view. Though some of the views are much better suited to this new style than others such as the recently introduced Coverflow view.

To have access to the sort and filter functions you will once again need to have the wrench icon displayed on each view. This can be somewhat distracting depending on the view style though it is apparent that consideration was taken to custom tailor the wrench placement for each view. Once you have the icon displayed clicking it will bring up the options for sorting and filtering the current view.

This new theme definitely adds a lot of flair to the Media Browser interface and is a welcome addition to the default package. There are a few issues with the theme that I would like to see addressed, however. Adding a better integrated method of accessing the sort and filter options being first on the list. Secondly, on certain views the selection box contains a blue background which can be distracting. This is of course done due to the fan art backgrounds and to increase readability of the title, though simply shading the box with a semi-transparent dark background may be better suited to the theme.

The new Vanilla theme, included as the main feature in the eleventh beta release of Media Browser, is a definite win for Media Browser users. The slick new interface and prominent fan art placement adds much to the cool-factor of Media Browser. The few minor issues with this new theme are easily overlooked in favor of the hot new look and shouldn’t turn off many users of the plug-in. Be sure to go download Media Browser and give it a try if you haven’t already!

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Written by MHealy | 3 comments

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Tagged As: media browser, movie library, plugins

Getting your movie collection into order, especially when you’ve got a rather large one, can be quite the chore. Each movie needs to have it’s own folder, cover art and synopsis information. Getting these to cooperate with Media Center’s native AMG information grabbing can be equally tricky. These tips can get you on your way to a great looking movie collection inside Media Center’s native Movie Library as well as the popular movie plug-in Media Browser.

Get some structure

The first step to getting your collection into shape is to get your folder structure together. If all your movies are just clumped into a single folder there’s a simple .bat file that can get things into top shape. Just download this movie organizing .bat file and place it in your movie folder. It will take the filenames of your movies (and any extra subtitle or similar files), create a directory with the same name and place all the files inside.

Find cover art and details

Finding cover art and synopsis information for each of your movies is going to be slightly trickier. There are several tools which can assist in getting the proper files downloaded, though many of them don’t quite work as well as they did in Vista Media Center.

The first such tool, DVD Library Manager, works fairly well for retrieving cover art and even editing the details of each movie. DVD Library Manager can automatically retrieve movie information from Amazon or IMDB, including the ability to save cover art as a folder.jpg file to each movie’s folder. This handy little tool can save quite a bit of time but the xml files created aren’t compatible with all features of Media Center, such as AMG information retrieval.

To get the most out of the native Movie Library you will need to use a resource like DVDXml.com. Sign up for DVDXml.com to be able to search for and download Movie Library compatible XML files for each of your movies. Downloading one of these XML and placing it in each movie’s folder will allow Media Center to automatically retrieve cover art and movie details, including AMG information. Though this method does produce better results in the native Movie Library it does not allow you to edit the details. Choosing the right solution for you, or a combination, is key to getting the best of your collection.

Extra tips for Media Browser

For those of us using Media Browser for our movie collections there are a few additional steps we can take to beef up our collection’s display. For instance, add actor images to the movie actors display inside Media Browser using ImagesByName and the collection of images already compiled by the group on Google Code. Go even farther and add encoding information to Media Browser by using the MediaInfo project and adding the right .dll to your Windows system directory.

While you’re at it you may also want to take a look at your TV series  collection inside of Media Browser. Take a look at MediaScout, this handy program will help you retrieve all your series information in one easy to use application. Recent build of MediaScout even add support for movie collections, though it’s not as beefy as some other options.

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Once you’ve gone through these steps you should be well on your way to having a more enjoyable movie collection on your Media Center. Restart Media Center to find your newly organized movie collection along with cover art and synopsis information. Media Browser users of course will have a few added features over the native Movie Library. Either way you go you’re movie library will be looking good from now on.

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Tagged As: featured, install, media browser, movie library

One of the best hidden features of Media Browser is the ability to add images for just about anything you have metadata for. Certainly you’ve noticed when browsing through your movie collection there is an actors tab for each movie. However, once you click this tab you’re greeted with a number of actor’s name with question mark icons by them. Luckily there’s a way to change all that.

The first thing you are going to need is images of all those actors you want to see mug shots of. I know what you’re thinking, there must be thousands upon thousands of images you need to get. Don’t worry, someone else has done a lot of leg work for you already.

The ImagesByName Google Code Project has already done a great job of starting a downloadable archive of not only actor images but movie studios and genres as well. To get started all you need to do is download the files, for example “R11_ImagesByName_Peoples.part1.exe” and “R11_ImagesByName_Peoples.part2.rar”, from the Google Code site then extract them to your hard drive.

Once they’re extracted you will need to copy all those actors’ folders into a main folder for Media Browser to access. The normal location for this directory is “\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\ImagesByName\”. Make sure that your folders are in the root of this directory, not in an actors subfolder, or Media Browser will not find them correctly. Once you’ve got your ImagesByName folder you will need to set the directory in the Media Browser config.

Currently, the Media Browser configuration program doesn’t include support for setting the ImagesByName directory so you will need to open the xml config file in notepad. To find the config use notepad to open “\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\MediaBrowserXml.config”. You should see a tag labeled “<ImageByNameLocation />”. Remove the slash from the tag and after the tag type the location of your ImagesByName folder. Afterwards enter the closing tag, “</ImageByNameLocation>” and save the file.

If you’ve done everything correctly that should be all there is to it. Restart Media Center and enter Media Browser to check that the new actor images are being displayed.  If not double-check that your “ImageNameByLocation” value is correct and be sure that each actors’ directory is under that folder, not inside any other subfolders such as “actors”.

For more Media Browser tricks check out how to get TV Series Metadata with MediaScout and Encoding Information inside Media Browser.

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Tagged As: media browser, movie library, plugins

Not familiar with Media Browser? Check out this article on Trading Movie Library for Media Browser!

One of the fastest up and coming movie browser plug-ins for Windows 7 Media Center, Media Browser has recently gotten an exceptionally nice overhaul to it’s configuration interface. The newest beta (2.0.9.0) includes a new application built on Windows Presentation Foundation that allows users to set up Media Browser from outside of Media Center.

The little program includes the ability to set multiple watch folders and even assign images to the folders. This is quite an improvement over previous versions that only allowed users to set a single starting directory and left image handling up to Windows’ built-in folder.jpg usage. Unfortunately, at this point it doesn’t include support for edit your movie information such as images and other metadata. Hopefully this feature is being considered for future versions.

Aside from setting up your movie collection folders the configuration includes the ability to setup support for extenders using Transcode360. You are able to set whether or not Media Browser should use Transcode360 as well as what file formats are natively supported by your extender.

On top of this new program Media Browser Beta 9 also includes a number of fixes from previous versions. You can read the full release notes on the Media Browser site right here. Special thanks to Simon from The Digital Lifestyle for the heads up about the update.

Check out the original article on Trading Movie Library for Media Browser as well as adding TV Metadata and Encoding Information to Media Browser!

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Tagged As: media browser, movie library

Thanks to Simon at The Digital Lifestyle for this tip on not only checking what encoding your video files are using but also adding that information to Media Browser as well. Unfortunately, Media Browser doesn’t let you sort out your HD from your SD videos but at least you will be able to tell which is which from inside Media Center.

Getting this hack going is simple. First go to Media Info and download the proper version of the program for your Windows. There is a version available for both x86 and x64 systems, make sure to get the correct version. If the wrong version is used for this Media Browser will suffer from frequent crashes. Sadly, the x64 version doesn’t include a GUI for use in Windows but the x86 version will serve that purpose just fine.

To install the media info to work with Media Browser get either the GUI version (if on x86) or the dll version zip (comes in both x86 and x64). If using the zip: open the zip file and extract “mediainfo.dll” to the “/Windows/system32/” directory. For the GUI version: install the program then locate the “mediainfo.dll” in the programs folder and copy it to the “/Windows/system32/” directory.

That’s all there is to it. Open up Media Center and go into Media Browser. You should now see the extra video information including resolution, format and codecs.

As an added bonus (actually intended purpose of Media Info) installing the GUI allows you to check the encoding of your various video files from windows. Using the Media Info program is fairly straight forward. Simply open the program and select the file to get information from after setting a few preferences on the first run.

More on that perhaps in another article. For now enjoy your new Media Browser functionality and be sure to tune into the Hack7MC RSS Feed or Follow on Twitter.

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Tagged As: extras library, media browser, movie library, plugins, programs

While Media Center has no trouble playing back your ripped movies, videos and music there has been no love lost in the between it and TV series DVDs. The Media Browser plug-in for Media Center eases the situation a bit adding support for TV series’ within the plug-in interface. Once it’s in there, however, it still lacks metadata in most cases making it no better than the default video section.

Luckily for those of us with plenty of TV series DVDs there is a simple program to help alleviate the situation. MediaScout will go through the television series folders and track down the metadata for each series and season. Backdrops and posters will be pulled down along with episode information and life will be good again.

The first step to TV series bliss is to download and extract MediaScout somewhere onto your hard drive. Opening up the program by running “MediaScoutGUI.exe” and going to the settings panel we can see some of the options available. The ability to choose the folder where the television series videos are stored, season folder name and what metadata to pull down off the internet. On the right there is even an option to rename the files once episode metadata is found.

One important item of note is that each video filename must contain a season and episode identifier. It can be anywhere in the filename but must be in the format S00E00 for best results. For example, the first show of the second season would need “S02E01” in the filename. This helps MediaScout find the appropriate metadata info for any particular episode. Videos without this information will lack quite a bit of extra metadata content.

To start fetching the data open the “TV” tab at the top and select “Browse” to choose your TV series location. You can choose to either do one series at a time or a whole directory full of different series’. If the directory contains many different series’ they will need to be in a directory structure with the series name on each folder. The box to enable batch processing beneath the browse input will also need checked. Once you have your directory selected simply press “Fetch Data”.

If MediaScout comes across a series title it doesn’t recognize it will prompt you to choose a series from a list. The program will also list the results in the box at the bottom with episodes that are unable to be properly retrieved marked in red for easy identification. Typically these just have a problem with the season/episode tag in the filename.

As long as your directories are setup correctly and each filename has a season/episode tag MediaScout should be able to get plenty of metadata for each series. You can easily check some of the metadata retrieved by MediaScout in the Manage TV tab or simply opening up MediaBrowser in Media Center.

Using the poster and new cover flow views in Media Browser won’t display most of the extra episode information picked up by MediaScout. The thumb and detail views do, however, display the episode description and name quite nicely. With a little bit of elbow work your television series setup can rival even the best of movie collection setups with MediaScout and Media Browser.

While you’re expanding Media Center’s capabilities why not add Weather and Shoutcast Radio, too!

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Tagged As: dvdxml, extras library, media browser, programs, synopsis

Windows 7 Media Center’s Movie Library is good, certainly much better than it’s predecessors, but still somewhat lacking. Features like fanart and automatic retrieval of metadata have long been standards in other media center applications. While 7MC has come a long way these features are still sorely missed.

This is where a plug-in called Media Browser comes in. Media Browser provides an alternative to the default Movie Library by scanning a your video folders and letting you browse a folder based structure instead of simply piling everything into one section. Just this makes Media Browser a worthwhile download for anyone who has several different types of videos such as Movies and Television Series DVDs.

On the first run there is a prompt that allows you to set some basic options that can also be changed through the user interface later on. Set the startup folder to the base folder for your movie collection and Movie Browser will begin to scan for content. This is where Media Center really begins to kick.

Not only will Media Browser display a list of your movies in several different display formats it will also automatically retrieve information for each of your titles. As long as your folders have the appropriate name for the movie a good amount of metadata including covers, description, fanart, actors, genre and more will be pulled down without having to do any extra work. This setup is much easier than locating dvdid.xml for each of your titles for the default Movie Library. It’s not a perfect system however, small differences in titles can be the difference between getting the correct metadata and getting nothing.

The various display types are easy to cycle through using the menus located at the top of the display. Media Browser can arrange your media on several different criteria from the metadata that has been retrieved. This level of customization ensures each user can find a display that is comfortable and easy to use.

While Media Browser has support for TV series metadata as well the base support isn’t quite as solid at this point as the regular movie sections. A trip to the Media Browser forums and you can find several solutions to finding the appropriate information for your series.

A strong community at present provides even further options for customizing the plug-in. There are several programs provided from forum goers for doing any number of tasks such as retrieving TV Series metadata and even HD movie trailers.

Media Browser is definitely a solid solution for anyone looking to move away from the default Move Library to something a little more robust. Though this plug-in doesn’t currently integrate with the main menu in Windows 7 MC it can still be found under the Extras Library and added to the Extras menu from there.

Head on over to the Media Browser forums to pick up your download of this fine plug-in and give it a run on your Media Center today, you won’t regret it. Be sure to check back to Hack7MC for more coverage of this app in the future as well. Follow on Twitter or subscribe to the RSS feed for even easier access!

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Tagged As: dvd, featured, media browser, movie library, plugins