My Movies - Enhanced Media Scanning for Control4

[ExtraVeg]

Movie Magic! :cool:

It's all about the content. If you have movie content on DVDs and

Blu-rays and then you are looking for a simple, reliable and cost effective

way of managing this through their Control4 system. You want accurate

metadata lookup for all of their content instantly, not via an

overnight scan.

If you thought this wasn't possible then we are going to show you how

this is possible and how a cost effective fully featured movie server

solution can now be created with Control4

You Tube Video http://youtu.be/dO_lhey3icM

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Control4 Movie Management

Control4 has a movie database system built in. It can display

cover-art, synopsis and other movie details. Movies can be listed by

title, director, actor and genre. The weakness though is the metadata

lookup.

The Control4 system was designed for DVD megachangers and so will only

lookup details for DVD folder structures. It can't lookup Blu-rays or

single file movie rips. It's also a controller intensive process that

is best run overnight. It is time for something better...

__________________________________________________________________

My Movies

Step forward My Movies. At its heart My Movies is a movie

collection management system. It is designed to quickly and reliably

provide meta data for movies no matter how they are backed up.

Our integration with My Movies provides massive enhancements to the

process.

* My Movies with AnyDVD HD can rip your customer's DVDs and Blu-rays

* My Movies scans all media types – DVDs, Blu-rays and single file

rips like MKVs and DIVX.

* My Movies will constantly monitor movie locations.

* My Movies does all the ‘heavy lifting’ of looking up the meta data

from the Internet

* My Movies metadata is highly accurate and detailed and will match

what is shown on the disc cover.

* The Control4 driver has a very low processor overhead and

constantly monitors My Movies for new information.

* New movie information will be on your customers touch panels and C4

mobile Apps within 60 seconds using Control4 movie database.

* No restrictions on Blu-ray format ripping for reliable playback.

* Customers select movies from Control4 and these can then be played

on supported players:

+ Popbox

+ Popcorn Hour

+ Windows Media Center (My Movies plugin)

+ Dune

You can read all about My Movies on their website. http://www.mymovies.dk

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Rip, Tag Play

Providing a movie mangement and playback solution can be defined as

Rip, Tag, Play.

Rip the movie onto a NAS hard drive

Tag the movie with the correct metadata

Play the movie on a playback device

Designing a system using Control4 to provide these features is simpler

than you may think. If you are prepared to use your own computer

as the ripping device it is very cost effective.

The basic schematic is attached to this post.

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Larger 'Off the Shelf' Solutions

The great news is that My Movies is already at the heart of some great

movie server solutions. diamond design, Vidabox and Logicom amongst

others all make movie servers based on My Movies.

diamond design are also the US importer of Popbox and Popcorn Hour

players so are ideally placed to help you with a larger more upmarket

solution based around My Movies.

__________________________________________________________________

Updated Windows Media Center Driver

We have also updated our Windows Media Center driver. The new driver

works directly controlling My Movies on Windows Media Center for playback.

It no longer requires any add-in program and it also allows control of

Total Media Theater for Blu-ray playback.

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More Information

For more information on how your Control4 system can be upgraded to

include this new functionality contact your local friendly Control4 dealer.

[Prakash.Rola]

i was just thinking developing a App like this and you did it..... Thanks

[wappinghigh]

The great news is that My Movies is already at the heart of some great

movie server solutions. diamond design, Vidabox and Logicom amongst

others all make movie servers based on My Movies.

diamond design are also the US importer of Popbox and Popcorn Hour

players so are ideally placed to help you with a larger more upmarket

solution based around My Movies.

__________________________________________________________________

That's a bit cheeky..

Funny how your MM management driver only works with the corresponding EV player's driver and not the DD ones..

Have you "locked" this down?.. or is there more to this?

[wappinghigh]

Whilst I think this is awesome and I have spent hundreds with you guy's on several of your other drivers, on this one, I support DD.

I use *their* terrific Dune driver. I'm a loyal bastard. James has helped me out several times before, so count me out on this one

[digitaltrader]

Does this require the extravegetables Dune driver or can it work with certified DD driver as well?

[ExtraVeg]

This only works with the EV Dune driver and there is a good reason for this. We need to be able to store more information on the movies than it is normally possible to do in the C4 database. We've cooked up a special way of doing this which requires our corresponding player driver to decode.

In the case of the Dune this has some real benefits. The Dune has three playback 'engines' and previously you had to be strict on how you ripped your movies. DVDs to be ripped into folders not .iso and Blu-rays into .iso. If you didn't do this then the playback would fail on the default engine and move onto the next. The Dune needs to be told which engine to use. Now with the MM integration we can always tell the Dune the correct engine to use as we can get that information from MM.

If you read the post all the way through you will see that we are working with diamond design to promote the excellent range of Popbox and Popcorn Hour products that they are now distributing in the US. James will be on our booth at CEDIA with his 'My Movies' movie server as well as some 'Pop' devices.

[digitaltrader]

Well this is awesome news!!! The only question I have is: will an existing MyMovies database that has been manually maintained alongside my Control4 database be automatically merged or do I need to erase the Control4 database and allow it to import the entire existing Mymovies database 1st?

[ExtraVeg]

If you have an existing My Movies database that will automatically get imported into Control4 as part of the process. Whilst you can keep you existing C4 scan I think it would be better to replace it with the My Movies one.

If you are the kind of person that likes to edit the entries then any time you make an edit on the MM Collection Management software it will be updated on the Control4 system within 60 seconds. So if you change the cover art, write your own descriptions -whatever- then these are automatically transferred across.

[wappinghigh]

As always, with all these movie database solutions. Doesn't matter what they are MyMovies, JRiver, XBMC, Plex whatever... nobody ever announces the *one* big omission. Apple DRM.

So from the lack of anything said in the OP, I am assuming you clever lads's at EV, haven't managed a workaround on this (yet). I don't suppose you could somehow integrate your excellent AppleTV1 "solution" and get a C4<>MM media library populating coverart and directing movie streaming from that? :cool:

[dgbrown]

EV - any chance you can filter out disks with no network location ? Multi disk sets look like they're syncing - each one showing with their own cover art (limitation of c4's interface) - if theres a missing disk 2 for bonus material for instance, it shows in c4 but is not playable.

[WillEV]

EV - any chance you can filter out disks with no network location ? Multi disk sets look like they're syncing - each one showing with their own cover art (limitation of c4's interface) - if theres a missing disk 2 for bonus material for instance, it shows in c4 but is not playable.

This should be happening already - offline discs are skipped. Is there a location for this disc in Collection Management?

[dgbrown]

Will - Thanks for getting back ! I think I have that sorted now, it's working as advertised. I did run into one use case you might be interested in.

I had a multi disc set (5 discs one MM title). The first disk had a prefix of "Disk 1" which caused it to be sorted below disc 2-5 (note the k instead of c in disc). I then changed the "Disk 1" to "Disc 1". The driver started complaining about a collision between "Disc 1" and "Disc 2". I re-saved the title. Same results.

In MM, the first disc in a multi disc is usually cataloged as an "Online Folder", with the rest being "Online Files". This was the case in this instance. The only way I could get the error to go away was by changing Disc 1 to an "Online File".

If you'd prefer a case to be opened let me know. I thought since MM was not a dealer tool, the in's and out's of this might be useful here.

[WillEV]

Will - Thanks for getting back ! I think I have that sorted now, it's working as advertised. I did run into one use case you might be interested in.

I had a multi disc set (5 discs one MM title). The first disk had a prefix of "Disk 1" which caused it to be sorted below disc 2-5 (note the k instead of c in disc). I then changed the "Disk 1" to "Disc 1". The driver started complaining about a collision between "Disc 1" and "Disc 2". I re-saved the title. Same results.

In MM, the first disc in a multi disc is usually cataloged as an "Online Folder", with the rest being "Online Files". This was the case in this instance. The only way I could get the error to go away was by changing Disc 1 to an "Online File".

If you'd prefer a case to be opened let me know. I thought since MM was not a dealer tool, the in's and out's of this might be useful here.

Each disc should be in it's own folder for MM to work best, so each one can be marked as an online folder. This is straight from Brian at MyMovies, so I assume he knows what he's talking about

In this instance, you could have pressed the 'Reset Memory' button in Composer and it would have rescanned the MM library from the top and the problem would also have been resolved. In cases where there's a collision in location like this, there's not much I can do as the purge to remove the old file from the database wouldn't have run until they'd all been scanned in. I'll add it to the troubleshooting list.

[diamonddesign]

One thing that is important to note, in mymovies collection management, you can add coverart with family photos of home movies. It cannot be done right on our server so what I do is run the free (fully licensed) collection management that our server includes on a desktop (it links and syncs with the servers movies), find the home movie, edit the cover art and info ("Graley Myrtle Beach trip 2011 starring James, Jessica and Garrett") and use a photo on the beach as the cover art and choose not to update the mymovies internet database (making it an internal adjustment only). Then you have a home photo for a home movie with actors, etc.

Talk about impressing guests

This works the same way with collection management and no server (i.e. a NAS or just a desktop computer storing movies)

[pstuart]

As someone who is about to buy MyMovies, is there any advantage going through a dealer vs direct? Since I didn't buy a system from a dealer, I don't know?

[dgbrown]

No advantage that I'm aware of. Just register at the MM .dk site, buy your points, and download and install the software -- and you're off to the races.

[tebery]

Nice article:

http://www.cepro.com/article/cedia_find_extra_vegetables_brings_rich_media_integration_to_control4/

[qVAMPIREp]

I have 2 questions:

1) How does this driver handle TV series? Is that still broken with each disc or episode showing up as a separate video?

2) How does the driver handle movies stored on my Sony 400 disc changer? I don't have a HTPC with WMC connected to the the Sony so am I correct in assuming no support? In other words manual cover art and meta data entry for discs on my Sony player?

[thecodeman]

1) this just backfeeds into the control4 interface, so until that gets updated to better handle tv shows it will be one jacket per disc as it is now and not "treed"

2) dont have a changer so i cant say

I just got this setup at my house and its amazing. So happy that i dont have to edit metadata anymore. Plus the mymovies phone app is sweet - i can keep better track of what i have and what i want to see/rent/buy.

For those interested i run mymovies full version on a "server"/"nas" thats a windows 7 ultimate box with raid 6 drives and use a dune.

[bk]

I have just imported a new blu-ray that has a 3d version and a standard blu-ray feature disk.

Neither has updated into the c4 database. Each is in it's own folder and is represented as an online folder in My Movies collection management.

Has anyone else seen this?

[dgbrown]

1) this just backfeeds into the control4 interface, so until that gets updated to better handle tv shows it will be one jacket per disc as it is now and not "treed"

2) dont have a changer so i cant say

I just got this setup at my house and its amazing. So happy that i dont have to edit metadata anymore. Plus the mymovies phone app is sweet - i can keep better track of what i have and what i want to see/rent/buy.

For those interested i run mymovies full version on a "server"/"nas" thats a windows 7 ultimate box with raid 6 drives and use a dune.

Out of curiosity are you using the EV driver or the certified C4 driver ?

[thecodeman]

1) this just backfeeds into the control4 interface' date=' so until that gets updated to better handle tv shows it will be one jacket per disc as it is now and not "treed"

2) dont have a changer so i cant say

I just got this setup at my house and its amazing. So happy that i dont have to edit metadata anymore. Plus the mymovies phone app is sweet - i can keep better track of what i have and what i want to see/rent/buy.

For those interested i run mymovies full version on a "server"/"nas" thats a windows 7 ultimate box with raid 6 drives and use a dune.[/quote']

Out of curiosity are you using the EV driver or the certified C4 driver ?

The EV driver - I switched for the reasons in post #6.

[ExtraVeg]

Hi

To answer a few questions. You can't use an Apple TV for playback. It is simply that you cant issue a command to 'play this file from over there' to the Apple TV like you can with the Pop players, WMC and Dune.

TV series are shown by disc on the C4 interface. So if Season X of Show Y has Z discs you will see Z entries on the Control4 interface each as Disc 1, Disc 2 etc.

The external DVD changer is not supported, the driver is looking for the paths to playback the movies on the network. It *might* be something we look at later for support of BD changers.

If you are having problems with anything scanning then please raise a ticket on our helpdesk. Everyone has quite diverse collections and if there is anything we have 'missed' we'll get it into the driver ASAP.

With regard to whether there is any advantage of going through a dealer for the MM part it all really depends on your level of comfort with fiddling with your PC. I guess most folks here will be very comfortable. It is worth remembering that if you buy the diamond design package then this will include both MM and the MM Collection Management driver.

[dgbrown]

1) this just backfeeds into the control4 interface' date=' so until that gets updated to better handle tv shows it will be one jacket per disc as it is now and not "treed"

2) dont have a changer so i cant say

I just got this setup at my house and its amazing. So happy that i dont have to edit metadata anymore. Plus the mymovies phone app is sweet - i can keep better track of what i have and what i want to see/rent/buy.

For those interested i run mymovies full version on a "server"/"nas" thats a windows 7 ultimate box with raid 6 drives and use a dune.[/quote']

Out of curiosity are you using the EV driver or the certified C4 driver ?

The EV driver - I switched for the reasons in post #6.

Thanks Cody. Must have missed that.

[thecodeman]

Out of curiosity are you using the EV driver or the certified C4 driver ?

The EV driver - I switched for the reasons in post #6.

Thanks Cody. Must have missed that.

No problem. The only downside is I've been having to move my files into folders, which is just tedious but has been well worth it.