Manual

 

Storing movies

Media Center Movie Info can handle physical DVD's, ripped DVD's as well as separate movie files (like .avi, .mpg, .mkv et cetera).
For ripped DVD's and separate movie files it requires that each movie is stored in its own sub-folder, because the application stores the information about the movie in the same folder as the movie itself; the same goes for the movie poster (of DVD cover).

So, if you want to start adding information to movies that are stored on your harddisk (or on some other machine in your network), please make sure that each of those movies is stored in its own sub-folder!

 

Activating Media Center Movie Info

Before you can make use of Media Center Movie Info, you have to activate it.

The first time you start the application, you'll see this screen:

As you can see, you need an activation code to be able to activate the application.
You can get one, by clicking the link called "Activate" to the left of this webpage.
On the webpage you then see, please enter both your name and your e-mail address and you will receive an activation code in your inbox.

Once you've received the activation code, please enter both your e-mail address and the activation code in the screen shown above and click the "Activate" button.

 

Movie information on extenders

If the application detects that an extender is connected to your PC, it will automatically ask you if it should restart itself with administrator privileges:

If you run the application as administrator, it will make sure that you can view the movie information on your extender(s) as well.

 

Configuring the application

The first thing you should do when you first start Media Center Movie Info is to tell the application where it can find your movies.
You can do so by clicking the option called "Settings" in the navigation pane of the application:

The settings screen provides the following options:

Add Press this button to add a folder that contains movies (in sub-folders, as explained at the top of this page).
Remove Press this button to remove the selected folder from the list.
Automatically search Press this button to automatically start searching for information, if you select a movie in the movie list (see below) for which no information is available yet.
Search language Movie information is available in a number of languages, although at this moment English and Dutch provide the best results.
Select the language of your preference from the list.
Rename movie folder If you check this option, the folder that contains the selected movie will be renamed to the title of the movie, when you save the movie information.
Overwrite movie poster If you check this option, any movie poster that is already present in the sub-folder that contains the movie will be overwritten with the shown movie poster, when you save the movie information.


You don't have to add your DVD drive(s) to this list.
If a DVD drive in your PC contains a movie DVD, than that is automatically detected by Media Center Movie Info.

 

Adding information to movies

The main purpose of Media Center Movie Info is to add information to your movies.
If you click the option called "Movie overview" in the navigation pane of the application, you'll be taken to the main screen of the application:

Using this screen, you can select any of your movies and add information to it.
As you can see, the screen consists of the following panes:

Navigation The options in the navigation pane take you to other parts of the application, like the settings (see above) or the option to copy movie information to your PC (see below).
Movie list The movie list shows all sub-folders, located underneath the folder(s) you specified in the "Settings" screen, that contain a movie.
As you can see, it is best to name each sub-folder to the title of the movie it contains.

If the DVD drive in your PC contains a movie DVD, then that DVD is also shown in the movie list.

When you select a movie from this list, then:
  • If information about the selected movie is already available, that information will be shown in the movie information pane.
  • If no information is available yet, the name of the movie sub-folder will automatically be entered in the search criteria box.
    And if you checked the auto search option in the settings screen, the application will automatically start searching for information about the selected movie.

The contents of the movie list can be refreshed by clicking the button.
Search criteria You can also enter (or modify) the movie title you want to search for by hand and then start searching for information about that title.
Search buttons Use the search button(s) to search for movie information in a specific language.
The button for searching for information in the English language is always available.
Search results The search results overview shows the list of movies that match your search criteria.
If you select a movie from this overview, the information about te movie will be shown in the movie information pane.
Movie information This pane shows information about the selected movie:
  • The title.
  • The release date.
  • The names of the actors, separated by a semicolon.
    By default only the lead performers are shown; if you want to see the names of all actors, please check the option "Show all actors and directors".
  • The name(s) of the director(s).
  • The genre(s).
  • The synopsis (plot).
    If the 'movie' actually concerns a TV series, you can check the option "Add information about episodes" to add information about each of the episodes of the TV series to the synopsis.

Although it's easier to get your movie information from the Internet, it's also possible to enter it by hand.
You can simply enter the information in each of the fields. If you click the movie poster, you can even assign a (locally stored) image to the movie.
Save options Use the "Save" button to save the movie information to the movie sub-folder.
Both the information and the movie poster are saved; if the folder already contains a movie poster, that poster is overwritten only if the option "Overwrite the existing movie poster with the shown one" is checked.
If you checked the option "Rename the folder to the title of the movie", the movie sub-folder will automatically be renamed to the title of the movie.

  

Synchronizing movie information

As mentioned above, Media Center Movie Info stores the information about a movie in the same folder as the movie itself.
This makes is possible to maintain the movie information from multiple PC's.

Media Center, though, requires that all movie information is stored locally, on the PC it's running on.
So, if you maintain your movie information from one or more other PC's than your Media Center PC, please run the Media Center Movie Info application on your Media Center PC and use the option called "Copy movie info" in the navigation pane to collect all movie information locally to that PC:

You can also use this option to copy movie information to the user accounts of newly connected Media Center extenders.

 

Movie information in Media Center

Once you've looked up, edited and saved the information about your movies, you can view the information whenever you select a movie in Media Center's movie library: