Help me understand: MyMovies, MovieWall, Ortus, etc.

[Tomahawk51]

Hi,

Before I jump into implementing v7 Video UI enhancements, I thought I'd just see if I understand correctly (and for the sake of others). What I'm trying to understand is what combos fit a given user best (or do they ALL live together?).

Here are the enhancements that are on my mind. Let me know what I've missed or gotten wrong please:

-BMT: Pulls in artwork for TV and Videos
-Phoenix Fanart: Displays this artwork

-MyMovies: separate application for getting content and artwork for Videos (note: some $/"points" required for artwork)
-Sage MyMovies: displays this content & delivers a very nice interface

-MovieWall: Is this for v7? New interface, but no difference in acquiring artwork?

-Ortus: Team working on very nice improvements (not yet released). Does this overlap with MyMovies Interface? Is this an alternative to that, when it comes out?

[jptheripper]

BMT - Batch Metadata Tools - useful for getting and modifying metadata and artwork
Phoenix fanart - displays artwork (correct)

Mymovies - standalone Movie collection management software, for inventorying your collection

Sage My Movies - interface to display cover and poster art (and backgrounds if $ or contirbute, but can be used completely free) from Mymovies above

-Ortus - looks like a complete interface replacement, and since Pluckyhd (SMM author) is on the ortus team, my guess is intergrated with SMM, but nothing annouced.

Moviewall was Pluckyhd's product for v6 prior to SMM development.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

BMT - Batch Metadata Tools - useful for getting and modifying metadata and artwork
Phoenix fanart - displays artwork (correct)

Mymovies - standalone Movie collection management software, for inventorying your collection

Sage My Movies - interface to display cover and poster art (and backgrounds if $ or contirbute, but can be used completely free) from Mymovies above

-Ortus - looks like a complete interface replacement, and since Pluckyhd (SMM author) is on the ortus team, my guess is intergrated with SMM, but nothing annouced.

Moviewall was Pluckyhd's product for v6 prior to SMM development.

From what I've been told pluckyhd is developing smm seperatly from any of the new interfaces and it will have to be ported into the new ui's.

If I'm wrong I'm sure he will correct me.

[Tomahawk51]

Thanks for the clarification. So it seems like my plan will be to use:

1) BMT, Phoenix (as I def. want TV art - already using this anyway)

2) setup MyMovies and use Sage My Movies (as the UI is pretty sweet looking)

n) wait to see what Team Ortus delivers in time (as this also looks very promising)

That should give me the best of breed Video experience, without known conflicts...and impress my guests for the next movie night . Any other modifications in this realm that I should be looking at?

[Qusix]

Based on the vidoes below, It looks like Ortus has its own movie views. You might not have to use SMM if you are going to use Ortus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LrGEEX7Gy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH65UBCnjPs

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Qusix

Based on the vidoes below, It looks like Ortus has its own movie views. You might not have to use SMM if you are going to use Ortus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LrGEEX7Gy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH65UBCnjPs

SMm will still work with ortus as well. Just for clarifcation, but yes you can use just ortus as well.

[Tomahawk51]

Qusix: Yes, it does seem that perhaps I can just wait for Ortus and not get My Movies going. Now I'm having second thoughts about getting setup with My Movies.

I've read quite a bit on My Movies, but I am struggling to see how it would benefit my household. It's the UI and Artwork that compels me more than other metadata.

Maybe I should wait for Ortus to avoid the additional configuration and maintenance work (presumably)...but Sage My Movies looks so nice in example movies now.

I'll have to think about this a bit more...

[mayamaniac]

SMM is mostly eye candy, and for that it is very well done. But the dependency on MyMovies to function requires a learning curve to get it to function correctly. For fetching data and artwork, I think BMT+Fanart is much easier to set up and use. If Plucky actually makes SMM work with BMT to replace Fanart, then that would make it a lot easier to use.

Give BMT and Fanart a try, they can be installed straight from the UI and it works right away with little to no configuring.

As for Ortus, don't hold your breath for it. It may come out this week or never at all because it seems like a huge undertaking. I'm happy enough with v7 UI and the MBDiamond theme plus BMT+Fanart, so I don't have to wonder about Ortus's release date.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

SMM is mostly eye candy, and for that it is very well done. But the dependency on MyMovies to function requires a learning curve to get it to function correctly. For fetching data and artwork, I think BMT+Fanart is much easier to set up and use. If Plucky actually makes SMM work with BMT to replace Fanart, then that would make it a lot easier to use.

Give BMT and Fanart a try, they can be installed straight from the UI and it works right away with little to no configuring.

As for Ortus, don't hold your breath for it. It may come out this week or never at all because it seems like a huge undertaking. I'm happy enough with v7 UI and the MBDiamond theme plus BMT+Fanart, so I don't have to wonder about Ortus's release date.

Man nothing gets under my skin more when people call my work just eye candy not realizing or understanding all the function or work that is in it or the code. I mean considering about 1/4 of the time went into the ui and the rest was backend coding... If you dont like mymovies collection manager that is fine everyone has a preference and that is why there is options. I am irritated so I will save the rest of my words....

[PiX64]

yeah i agree with PluckyHD on this. Eye candy is an extremely poort choice of words. Try using SMM and you will see that although it has an extremely aesthetically pleasing appearance, when you really think about what has been done from a MyMovies integration perspective, as well as SageTV integration perspective, you will be PRAISING plucky and his efforts rather than glossing over them as if they were some theme you could slap on top of sage.

[wrems]

I think you’re reading into mayamaniacs use of eye candy too much. As far as I can tell, he’s not saying anything bad about SMM. He’s actually saying it’s very well done. All he’s trying to do is explain what SMM is and for people to be aware that other tools are involved that require time and patience to set up/maintain and adds a learning curve to get SMM working correctly. It’s a caveat not a slam. SMM is eye candy, but that’s not a bad thing. I think most will agree that they want form and function. SMM has/does both.

[panteragstk]

My Movies and BMT are not the same thing. They are similar though. I prefer my movies for movies of course because it will recognize the exact version of the movie you are trying to load into it. BMT is very general on that side of things. Granted that isn't important to everyone. BMT is awesome and woked very well for me before I started using my movies.

One thing people need to understand is that my movies has been aroud in the WMC community for a while. Lots of people in that community use it and I for one really like what it does on the server side. Also, for people converting from WMC to sagetv it will be very easy to movie their movie collection over to sagetv now that SMM exists.

To each his own. And BTW, SMM won't use BMT as far as I know. Phoenix fanart maybe, but not bmt because the way bmt handles the metadata is not the same as my movies and SMM won't work without My movies.

Trust me. My movies isn't very hard to set up so don't worry about that. If you don't want to use it you don't have to.

[Fuzzy]

I, too, agree that MyMovies Collection Management is a bit overkill, when nearly everything it does could be saved in the core SageTV library. To me, the main reason to use MyMovies is to attract former MCE users. MM doesn't really do anything for me, except allow me to use Plucky's UI. This is why i'd also prefer Plucky's UI, but just using the built-in metadata. This would just be so much simpler for a lot of users.

I'm not saying anything bad about SMM, the work Plucky put into it is quite extensive, and very good. I just don't see the reasoning behind most of that extra back-end work, when most would be happy with updated SMW UI for v7, using the metadata they've already been retrieving by other means (BMT, IMDB, etc).

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I, too, agree that MyMovies Collection Management is a bit overkill, when nearly everything it does could be saved in the core SageTV library. To me, the main reason to use MyMovies is to attract former MCE users. MM doesn't really do anything for me, except allow me to use Plucky's UI. This is why i'd also prefer Plucky's UI, but just using the built-in metadata. This would just be so much simpler for a lot of users.

I wouldn't say nearly everything it does can be recreated with core.


1. Box sets
2. Multi Disc capabilites under one title.
3. Automated ripping and metadata gathering by disc id.
4. Collections and special edition (by disc not by movie for movies)
5. Similiar movies.
6. The built in filters built into CM.
7. Chose of auto generate coverstyles (no one is using this which suprises me really lets you make the covers look like whatever you want)
8. Custom group support
9. Integration with WHS console (which is huge for WHS users)
10. Offline collection manager (suprised how many email I got on people loving this feature).
11. Online management of collection (which allows me to see what movies I have when I am at work wanting to order a new movie) I can see my complete DB online.
12. Iphone collection manager (Same as above) as well as a droid one. and the next Iphone app it going to take it much further.

so I would say not almost everything can be done in the core. You may not care about a single one of those features but allot of people do and that is why MM has been so popular over the years in WMC community. They have over 100k registered users on their forums so that says something right there...

Overkill...That is a matter of opinion this app and my addin are made for people that like movies. So yeah if you don't collect and care to manage a collection of movies then maybe so.

cheers

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I just don't see the reasoning behind most of that extra back-end work, when most would be happy with updated SMW UI for v7, using the metadata they've already been retrieving by other means (BMT, IMDB, etc).

Because some people, me included, haven't gotten BMT, etc running yet. Actually I did sort of have BMT running but found it a pain to setup and use properly (V6, I don't know if they did something for V7 because I knew I was switching to SMM). With MM you just install the addin, install the client, put movies in client and you are done. Easy peasy. So for people new to Sage it is an easy solution.

Also, as was stated, MM finds the exact version of the movie you are using a lot easier, imo.

Finally, SMM can leverage the work done by the MM team in future releases. So when MM supports TV episodes better (supposedly planned for sometime this summer), SMM can leverage the MM API and integrate those features into SMM without having to to do all that extra heavy lifting.

To each their own I say, but I think these are some of the benefits from my perspective. YMMV.

[bits]

I have been using MM for a long time and not because it could be integrated into WMC but because it is first and formost a DVD cataloguing package. It provides me with the ability to sort and search for the DVDs I own, to print out a listing of the DVDs I have. I find this to be very useful in helping our family not buy duplicates. I also agree that it is very useful to have the capability to be more precise in what DVD you actually have.

Setting up MM soley for cover art should not be the only purpose for getting MM!

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I wouldn't say nearly everything it does can be recreated with core.


1. Box sets
2. Multi Disc capabilites under one title.
3. Automated ripping and metadata gathering by disc id.
4. Collections and special edition (by disc not by movie for movies)
5. Similiar movies.
6. The built in filters built into CM.
7. Chose of auto generate coverstyles (no one is using this which suprises me really lets you make the covers look like whatever you want)
8. Custom group support
9. Integration with WHS console (which is huge for WHS users)
10. Offline collection manager (suprised how many email I got on people loving this feature).
11. Online management of collection (which allows me to see what movies I have when I am at work wanting to order a new movie) I can see my complete DB online.
12. Iphone collection manager (Same as above) as well as a droid one. and the next Iphone app it going to take it much further.

so I would say not almost everything can be done in the core. You may not care about a single one of those features but allot of people do and that is why MM has been so popular over the years in WMC community. They have over 100k registered users on their forums so that says something right there...

Overkill...That is a matter of opinion this app and my addin are made for people that like movies. So yeah if you don't collect and care to manage a collection of movies then maybe so.

cheers

That is my point, it's NOT something that is needed by everyone. I'm not a movie 'collector' i guess. I don't have much of an offline library... the movies I want to watch, are on my hard drives. I don't see the reason for specific box set support, when box sets are either just groups of movies, which I'd rather treat as what they are (individual movies) or TV shows, which should be viewed in a TV show centric UI anyways. Regardless, Box Set support could be added just as easily in the core with a 'SetTitle' custom metadata property. Most the other things you mentioned are benefits of Collection Manager, such as WHS console, and web access... those aren't something that really add anything to the SMM UI. I just prefer to keep things as simple as possible, and managing TWO databases with almost the same info is just NOT simple.

You say the UI work was only 1/4 of the effort. This is why i was asking long ago if that part would be available separate, as that is really all I'd be looking for. I prefer to treat my ripped/recorded movies as content, not keep them tied to whatever disc or box they were once stored on/in. I guess that makes me not much of a 'movie lover'.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by bits

Setting up MM soley for cover art should not be the only purpose for getting MM!

Kind of my point though.. That IS the only reason I have it installed. All I really want is the nice fanart-centric UI that plucky made, but have no need to manage my 'collection'.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Kind of my point though.. That IS the only reason I have it installed. All I really want is the nice fanart-centric UI that plucky made, but have no need to manage my 'collection'.

You realize it is automatic just like BMT you really don't have to manage unless it doesn't match right occasionally like BMT?

So much of the UI ties into my java code is the issue with making it work with the default. I build allot of my menu's and such in java. Plus all the properites are kept in a mymovie share. So it isn't going to be as easy as flipping a switch or changing a few things for core support. Is on my list but down a bit.

[Tomahawk51]

Actually, I think I'm with Fuzzy for the most part.

I'm not much of a movie packrat, so my preference would be to just get the sweet (and we can all agree with how freaking good it is) UI. Frankly, just getting display for fanart backgrounds/banners in the default UI(on TV shows as well as movies, like I had in v6) would probably meet >80% of my desire!

I use a headless Windows box for Sage, and a Macbook for all my computing. To manage my collection in My Movies, I'm going to have to remote into that box or run a VM - as I understand it. I do realize that My Movies is pretty automatic, so maybe it won't be often. I'll still need to use BMT for the Sage TV recordings.

With all that said, I'm actually thinking I will indeed install MyMovies just to get the UI. The *cost* to me will be increased time to configure, and probably money to buy points to use backgrounds. I agree with Fuzzy that the other features, which are probably key to many people, don't really resonate so strongly with me. Maybe after I give it a shot I'll feel differently. - and I'll report back if so!

Finally, as a user, I can't thank all of you devs enough for seriously improving SageTV. It's a nice debate to have: how to make it EVEN BETTER with these add ons.