DVD Cover Grabber

Euan · **17th February 2006, 08:14 AM**

I have just knocked together an DVD cover grabber for people who have
the Windows XP Media Center Edition My DVD's reg fix enabled and want
to get the folder.jpg file.

http://www.madprops.org/DVDCover/

Basically run this app and 'Select Folder' then point it to your folder
of DVD's (not the DVD folder itself). It will then bring up the list of
DVD's you have. Click on a DVD and it will search Amazon and return
relevant covers. There is a 'Save' button that will then save the
currently viewed cover to the DVD folder and name the file 'folder.jpg'
which is required for viewing in MCE.

Its only simple and early days but makes things a bit easier to get
covers for your DVD.

It has been made in Visual Studio 2005 and required .net framework 2.0
I shall release the code before too long. I just want to neaten it up
and comment the code before its released. Check it out. Test it out.
Let me know what you think... and what you would like to see.

I know there are lots of things I would like to see.

Some technical foot notes:
Basically it does a simple query to amazon using the web services and
returns a xml file. I search through the nodes for the LargeImage node
(theres a bit of messing around for this). The main amazon file is
downloaded to the selected DVD folder (ie X:\My
Movies\Shaft\shaft.xml). Check it out... its relatively straight
forward. I then output my own XML file (ie ie X:\My
Movies\Shaft\shaft_images.xml) in the DVD folder. I then iterate
through each image and display in the app. The rest is pretty simple.
It just does does a save file when the Save button is selected.

Searches for each movie is only done once per day and only the
requested image is downloaded. I have not included caching for images
as yet.

Anyway let me know what you think.

Euan

PS. I know there is My Movies add on which does a nice job but this is just for people that prefer to use the DVD menu thing and want covers.

Euan · **17th February 2006, 09:13 AM**

Oh and if you do have suggestions for the interface I am happy to oblige.

Also I am looking in to the XML meta data caching that Matt Goyer speaks of over here:
http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/arc...005/10/21/1007

So before too long it will also support metadata hopefully. Probably not down to the level of the track details but the other stuff shouldnt be too hard.

*** I have just found some titles will throw an error. ie Friday the 13th. Please let me know what titles throw an error for you so I can isolate the issue. I am pretty sure its related to an XML node issue which is only minor.

simbot82 · **17th February 2006, 09:54 AM**

This looks quite nifty. Won't need it as I use My Movies (covers, movie rating etc) rather than MCE's own DVD library ut I am sure you will supply a niche.

Cheers

pac574 · **17th February 2006, 01:58 PM**

Hi Euan,

Great App, something I've been looking for for a while. For me My Movies is a bit "too much info" but your's is right for me and I bet a lot of others. Just a question for you, what is this "My DVD reg fix" you talk about? I have my DVD files under "My Video", i'm taking it I can use your app under this folder as well? Can you point me to info on the My DVD fix?

thanks mate,

Pete

Euan · **18th February 2006, 07:58 AM**

Hey Pete

Thats exactly how I felt. My Movies was just a bit too busy and a bit of informaiton over load.

Basically the reg fix was something microsoft has released to convert 'Play DVD' to 'My DVDs' so you could attach a multi-dvd device. But you can also just point it to a folder of DVDs on your hard drives (ripped in the VIDEO_TS etc format).

Matt Goyer from the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition team talks about it over here:
http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/arc...005/10/21/1007

Its really pretty simple but does require the XP MCE roll up patch 2 and then the reg fix.

Anyway I am glad your interested in the app. Simplicity is what I am really after and hopefully what I achieve.

At the moment there are a few bugs as its still fairly early. But dont let that put you off as the the bugs are very harmless. The only problems with the app at the moment is creating or reading XML files which can be a bit fiddly. Hopefully I will have the rest of those issues sorted within the week and then I will move on to downloading the metadata Matt Goyer was speaking about (simple details like Title, Description, movie date etc).
But if you use it and you find issues please let me know and I can address them reasonably quickly.

Regards,
Euan

simbot82 · **18th February 2006, 12:35 PM**

You have corned a niche and it looks slick, thanks for your efforts Euan

AlphA · **18th February 2006, 01:34 PM**

Fantastic, exactly what Im after, will give it a shot tonight!

getafix · **18th February 2006, 06:05 PM**

Hi there

The link seams to be down. Anywhere else I can try?

What I have done is this.
Ripped my dvds using DVD shrink - no compression into a VIDEO_TS folder.

What next?

Cheers
G

OffBeatMammal · **18th February 2006, 06:39 PM**

I guess my only suggestion/request would be for a 10' UI....

Euan · **20th February 2006, 03:01 PM**

OffBeatMammal: Im not sure what you mean by "a 10' UI...." Do you mean a 10 inch UI?
Could you elaborate?

Alpha: Let me know how you go?

getafix: How did you go? Gotdotnet.com was down for a little while and people couldnt download.

Ok lets assume on your hard drive its like this:

C:\My DVDs\Robocop
C:\My DVDs\Scarface
C:\My DVDs\Surf Nazis Must Die
C:\My DVDs\Anne

Open my program and select the folder My DVDs (either by the button 'Select Folder' or the drop down File option. There are two versions now)
Select a title and press the arrows to go through the images

Let me know how you go... I am releasing fixes and things every few days so if you have any issues let me know and I will fix it asap.

simbot82: Thanks dude... Its a first project for MCE. But wont be the last.

Hopefully soon I will get the metadata off the ground too.

Heres a screenshot of the newer layout. It has drop downs to clean up the interface a little.

I have also taken care of a lot of the crash issues with the XML files now. Hopefully I will finish of a new load of changed tonight or tomorrow. They include a full caching of images and some speed increases.

getafix · **20th February 2006, 04:08 PM**

Nope, just tried GoToDotNet and still down

Any other site I could try.

Also have any of you managed to get Matt Goyers guide right with respect to get all the metadata info as well? I tried with a few dvd's and no joy

This is the guide where he uses Dvd Profiles and his "my dvd settings"

Cheers
G

OffBeatMammal · **20th February 2006, 05:23 PM**

the 10' (10 foot) UI is the 'standard' MCE interface (remote control on TV rather than keybaord/mouse on monitor)

Euan · **20th February 2006, 08:48 PM**

OffBeatMammal: Ah I have never heard of that. Although I am new to coding for MCE. So I will look in to it. Hopefully when I get the basics of this app down I would like to code it as a plugin for MCE and not just stand alone app.

getafix: Ah I think I made a boo-boo and had my project as private so if you could try and download it again please?
Oh and yeah I am looking in to the meta-data now. I just need to stop stuffing around with the code in the app

I have changed the interface again:

I will upload the latest version now.

It now has an option to set how long you would like to keep the data refreshed. This is just so people dont download the same pics and XML all the time.

Euan · **20th February 2006, 09:19 PM**

Ah ok I have the meta-data stuff figured out now.

Its not going to be quick as I need to do a double query on Amazon for the metadata once you define the movie your after.

But yeah I have the theory tested and it works. I have Matt Goyers example working. Although there is a small issue with it. His XML example is not correct so that could be the issue.

getafix · **20th February 2006, 09:47 PM**

Just a quick question

Does this app only run on MCE. I am at work on a WIN98 machine and am getting an error saying that a required .dll is missing.
Also can you run it from any location - I would think so.

What I did over the weekend was to manually download the covers from Amazon - a bit of a mission though.

A one click solution like this seems to be the answer - just got to get it to work.

Cheers
G