Complete News Buletin from My Movies. Enjoy.
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Introduction
Welcome to this newsletter, regarding the release of My Movies 2.30, for Windows XP Media Center 2005, Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate for the Media Center integration, and Windows versions from 2000 and up for the Collection Management part.
The new features of My Movies 2.30 serves as mainly as background services that hopefully will make the use of My Movies much easier and will require less time for the both initial setup and general management than previous releases have required. The main idea for this release with its added intelligent folder monitoring is to improve the general way of working with My Movies, and the release introduces the background management that will make a good base for later user interface improvements.
In this release you will also see the firsts steps of benefits to the contributing and donating users, as some features, such as Online Collection options will be enchanced for users with a specific amount of contribution or donation points. System Builder installation will by default have all enchancements available.
System Builder Activation
All System Builders have already been informed about changes in the way System Builder installations is handled, where System Builder installations now requires activation against the My Movies WebService.
There have also been some situations where some System Builders are pre-installing My Movies without being registred, and by doing so, they are in violation of licensing terms, and they cheat both other System Builders who correctly pay for their licenses, and all the end-users using My Movies, as the income is not available to improve the project.
I hope that all of you will pay close attention if you meet commercial products with My Movies pre-installed, without it being a registred installation. This is easy to see by navigating to the Settings, About part of Media Center which must specifically mention that the installation is licensed, and which company installed it. If you see any non-personal installations of My Movies in any way, please report them, so that we can deal with them.
New System Builders is very welcomed into the program, if they whish to pre-install My Movies. Please see details on the
My Movies website.
.NET Framework Changes
My Movies have in previous versions requied both .NET Framework 1.1 and .NET Framework 2.0. My Movies 2.30 have made some changes which means that .NET Framework 1.1 is no longer required. I know that this have been a reason for many not to upgrade to Windows Vista, or to not use My Movies on Windows Vista, due to the warnings that .NET Framework 1.1 gives you when installing it on Vista. This means that you no longer have to install any additonal items on Windows Vista to get My Movies up and running.
Folder Monitoring
This will track all changes in the folders you decide to monitor, and automatically add and remove titles within this area, based on "best guess" on the folder names. It will (if access) save information about the data in the folders, which means that if you change a source, manually edit the title, change data source ect., it will pick up the same thing if other clients monitor the same folders, which means that this will be another and easier way to run multi-zone, and, if you move things around, they will show up with the correct data in their new locations, because all meta-data and source information is located in the folders.
Sony XL1B/XL1B2 and Niveus IceVault FireWire DVD Changer Support
This will have My Movies automatically index all DVD's that are inserted into the changer, and automatically remove the ones that are removed from the changer. This will be based on disc id's, so My Movies will try to automatically index the titles if the disc id is know by the WebService. If the titles are unknown by the WebService, the discs will be added with just a label, and you can manually change the data source on the titles. My Movies is able to enable and disable AnyDVD in the disc detection process, allowing FireWire changers and AnyDVD to co-exist. Later on, a bulk loading mechanism will be created based on the DVD Changers to allow batch copying of up to 200 DVDs at a time.
Online Collection Web Site of your collection on Web
This will allow you to open up an online collection on the My Movies webserver, either fully open, or password protected, and will give you a full overview of your collection online, either for own use, or to send to others. Usage scenarios is sharing information with friends, checking which titles you have when you are on the run, ect. It works by synchronizing your locally added titles with the webservice, so the webservice knows which titles you have - this means that only "My Movies only" titles can be included, and listed will be the online profile, and not a profile with your own individual changes. See example of an online collection here.
Copy DVD feature re-write
The Copy DVD feature have been re-written, mainly to move the process into the background service, allowing the user to leave the process after it have been started, and either return back to it to see the progress, or let it run and receive a message when it's finished. This re-write also implements an automatic search for the title based on the DVD disc id, a process that requires disabling and re-enabling of AnyDVD. The process of enabling and disabling AnyDVD can take up to a minute, and because of that it is an configuration option if the automatic identification should be turned on or not.
HD DVD and Blu-ray integration*
My Movies autodetects if PowerDVD** is installed, and if, asks if it should integrate it into Windows Vista Media Centers auto-play function, so that Media Center launches PowerDVD** when an HD-DVD or Blu-ray title is inserted into the drive (like when you press Watch on a offline title, and insert an HD/BD title). Autoplay can only be integrated into Windows Vista.
Integration also means that My Movies will detect and launch PowerDVD when online HD-DVD backup is located on harddrives. This feature is available on both Media Center 2005 and Windows Vista. My Movies can not launch online Blu-ray backups due to limitations in PowerDVD Ultra.
* My Movies recommends supporting the Toshiba HD-DVD format because it does not have region protection, and because of cost benefits. An Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is cheapest HD solution available, and works on HTPCs and with My Movies as an native USB drive (no drivers needed).
** PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 or later is required for HD-DVD and Blu-ray integration, other players are not supported.
Macrovision Flic Barcode Scanner Support (Serial/USB versions only)
This allows you to scan up to 500 barcodes as a batch, and re-connect the scanner, and in the "Add Titles" dialog you will automatically get a list of all the scanned barcode to quick and easy add these. If you scan a single barcode, the program checks to see if it's in your location, and if it is, locates it, otherwise it opens the "Add title" dialog and searches for it. This indeed does make it very quick to add items to your collection.
Change of Media Center "Add Title", "Change Data" to the My Movies Web service.
This means that all Collection Management from within Media Center will be for the internal WebService only, allowing you to search by barcode or by title.
Other changes
Several other changes have been added:
• IMDB cast import button added to the Collection Management program to allow easy loading of cast information when adding or improving DVD profiles.
• A dialog have been added to the Collection Management program to view title updates, allowing you to compare your profile with the one updated on the WebService.
• An "Upcoming" tab have been added to the "Add Title(s)" dialog, allowing you to specifically search for titles that are upcoming releases between two specific dates.
• Moderation tools have been integrated into the Collection Management program to allow moderators to roll back contributions, delete titles, change barcodes, ect. Be sure to use the "Report Incorrect Data" tool each time you receive incorrect data from the service.
• Meta data options for Audio Tracks, Video Format, Edition and Sort Title have been added to the Collection Management program.
• Full configuration section have been added to the Collection Management program, allowing you to configure all options of the Media Center interface, that were previously only available directly from registry.
• DVD Profiler 3.x import have been added to the Collection Management program, next to the option to import from DVD Profiler 2.x.
Where to now?
This is all for me this time. I will now be focusing on moving the User Interface of My Movies to the new available MCML technology in Windows Vista, which means that 2.30 will be the definete last release of My Movies with introduced features on the Media Center 2005 platform.
Changes in the WebService and the Collection Management program will to the extend possible be followed by a minor release of the 2.30 version, along with any required bug-fixes, so users of Media Center 2005 won't be left behind, however all future improvements to the program will be focused on the Windows Vista platform.
I am happy to see that contributions and usage of the WebService is going well - the 2.30 version is now already introducing features that could only be created because of this, such as the Online Collection feature, the Copy DVD auto-identification, and the fact that all adding or changing of data within Media Center is now able to show you cover thumbnails along with the title, instead of just the title.
I really hope that you all will continue to improve the data on the WebService, and will spread the word, to gain even more users, either Media Center users, or users who just uses the Collection Management program and the Online Collection part, also over the summer where development due to the user interface change wont produce any immediate results. I have created an online list of country devided titles that has been downloaded more than average, with a complete percentage below awerage that you can use if you whish to improve the WebService data for your country - it is available here.
We will also over the summer throw another contribution competition - we however may need to get some more moderation going before doing so. You will for sure hear about it, when time is.
For now - thank you for supporting the My Movies project! And - not to forget - the My Movies 2.30 release is available for download
here.
Regards,
Brian Binnerup
My Movies Author
MyMovies 2.30 is out!
