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

[jptheripper]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk51

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.

This is INCORRECT. While you do need the collection management software on the sage box, you dont need to USE it there. I have my HTPC with sage and mymovies installed on it, but i ALSO have the collection management on my regular PC. Since SMM is really just using the mymovies server, it does not matter what PC you manage the collection from. Heck with their phone apps you can manage your collection from your iphone or droid.

You dont ever need to remote in if you have an iphone. Unfortunately the collection management software is not available for the Mac.

[Tomahawk51]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

This is INCORRECT. While you do need the collection management software on the sage box, you dont need to USE it there. I have my HTPC with sage and mymovies installed on it, but i ALSO have the collection management on my regular PC. Since SMM is really just using the mymovies server, it does not matter what PC you manage the collection from. Heck with their phone apps you can manage your collection from your iphone or droid.

You dont ever need to remote in if you have an iphone. Unfortunately the collection management software is not available for the Mac.

OK, so to understand this better, I run SageTV on a headless Vista machine but use a Mac for everything else. I don't have a windows PC that I use as a client in my house.

If I want to change the My Movies metadata for a title, or correct an error originating from My Movies, where can I do this? Can I do it all directly on my HD200? Can I do it from my Mac or a web browser? For example, I do this via a web browser when using BMT - on my Mac.

I was under the impression that interacting with the collection manager was something that could only be done on a Windows OS, per the installers I'm seeing on the My Movies site. Let me know if I'm wrong in this understanding please.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk51

OK, so to understand this better, I run SageTV on Vista but use a Mac for everything else.

If I want to change the My Movies metadata for a title, or correct an error originating from My Movies, where can I do this? Can I do it all directly on my HD200? Can I do it from my Mac or a web browser? For example, I do this via a web browser when using BMT - on my Mac.

I was under the impression that interacting with the collection manager was something that could only be done on a Windows OS, per the installers I'm seeing on the My Movies site. Let me know if I'm wrong in this understanding please.

Collection Manager can only be ran on pc true. You can manage from the web interface they have though.

[Tomahawk51]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Collection Manager can only be ran on pc true. You can manage from the web interface they have though.

OK, nice. Thanks for the clarification, that removes a significant barrier for my particular case.

[samgreco]

Well, I LOVE the UI in SMM. Very nice work indeed Plucky.

BUT, the way I have my stuff setup, and the way I like to navigate, MyMovies, just doesn't do it for me. My system has always combined Movies and TV, in fact all video media, in the Video menu. As folders. I like it that way. So I can't see how to use SMM effectively. If it used BMT, I could probably use it.

Am I seeing this all wrong?

[medwynd]

IMO, it seems like most of the arguments people are making against MM is that they are trying to shoehorn what it is into their particular circumstances.

Will/could it be expanded in the future, probably, as requests for features come in. But from reading the posts it just seems like people are trying to use the wrong tool for the job.

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by samgreco

Well, I LOVE the UI in SMM. Very nice work indeed Plucky.

BUT, the way I have my stuff setup, and the way I like to navigate, MyMovies, just doesn't do it for me. My system has always combined Movies and TV, in fact all video media, in the Video menu. As folders. I like it that way. So I can't see how to use SMM effectively. If it used BMT, I could probably use it.

Am I seeing this all wrong?

Maybe not wrong but just a matter of preference. For me, what you do would absolutely not work well. I have 2000+ DVD movies in Sage My Movies. I record TV regularly and watching recorded TV is the primary way I watch TV. When I want to watch my "shows" I go into the "All Recordings" menu and the most recently recorded items are all right there for me to see. When I want to watch a movie, I go into the Videos section. There is no way that I want to hunt through 2000+ titles in order to find last night's episode of "Hell's Kitchen"

So, I don't think you are seeing it wrong... your needs are just different. One of the great things about Sage... we both can have something that works well for us through the customisations available within Sage and from the great developers who share their work.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

So, I don't think you are seeing it wrong... your needs are just different. One of the great things about Sage... we both can have something that works well for us through the customisations available within Sage and from the great developers who share their work.

That is the best way I have seen anyone put it.

[Tomahawk51]

Totally agree with the spirit of this last statement, but....

One minor point: we can't ALL have our own way since SMM is the only improved UI available in v7. And this is a great benefit to all that fit the My Movie paradigm well.

The alternative, as I have seen it, is to use Phoenix Fanart...which doesn't really improve the UI in as dramatic a way. (If it brought in backgrounds...I think it would be "good enough" for many people.)

But yes, the beauty of the community is that someone may indeed deliver the functionality apart from SMM someday.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk51

Totally agree with the spirit of this last statement, but....

One minor point: we can't ALL have our own way since SMM is the only improved UI available in v7. And this is a great benefit to all that fit the My Movie paradigm well.

The alternative, as I have seen it, is to use Phoenix Fanart...which doesn't really improve the UI in as dramatic a way. (If it brought in backgrounds...I think it would be "good enough" for many people.)

But yes, the beauty of the community is that someone may indeed deliver the functionality apart from SMM someday.

I think you make a great point. Everyone wants the flas of SMM, but not everyone wants to put in the effort of using my movies to get it to work. My thinking on this is that ortus or phoenix will satisfy that need. It's just that this is the first one so that makes it very desireable for everyone...and for good reason.

We all need to realize that v7 isnt even oficially out yet either. I've been going nuts over not having tve anymore, but I can wait. How long? who knows...

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

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....

Sorry Plucky, didn't mean to hit a nerve there. First of all, your contributions to the SageTV community is always well appreciated, so thank you for all the hard work.

Second, I like what you are doing with SMM. Calling it the best eye candy plugin was really a great compliment because it is visually stunning to see the wall of art covers of the entire movie library on the TV. But I can understand why the word "eye candy" can be interpreted as an insult in the sense that it's "all looks and no brains", and I assure you that wasn't my intention.

My gripe with MyMovies was mostly because I didn't expect your plugin to require MyMovies, which is kinda ignorant on my part since it is called SageMyMovies. I thought it would be like SageMovieWall, but for v7, where it would just work with BMT. I said before in the SMM thread, that I understand why you went with MyMovies as it offers more features than BMT. I just thought it was a bit of a learning curve to get SMM working since MyMovies was required. And it didn't help that MyMovies didn't come with a manual or any help documentations. But for people who already have their entire movie library in MyMovies, having a plugin that interfaces it with SageTV must be a godsend.

So anyway, keep up the hard work on whatever you are working on and thanks for sharing your fruits of labor with the community.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk51

One minor point: we can't ALL have our own way since SMM is the only improved UI available in v7.

Many of us still think that SageMC is an improved UI and it is available in v7.

[sleonard]

I started from scratch with MyMovies Collection Manager two weeks ago. I had it mastered in one afternoon and the rest of the time has been spent ripping my DVD's. Another afternoon when SageMM was released and I had that mastered as well.

Plucky's import combined with Collection Manager may not be your cup of tea but its not a great hurdle.

S

[SWKerr]

First of All the myMovies plugin is fantastic. Visually and navigation wise it is great. I only run SageTV HTPC Clients from a central server but the UI is lightning fast.

I can't say having two metadata tools is optimal but once I got MyMovies setup to monitor the folders automatically it is really fire and forget. I had never used My Movies before but I already maintained everything in the correct format to support XBMC and Boxee as well. I think the MyMovies required structure is fairly standard at this point and works well even without MyMovies.

I really started playing with MyMovies about a month ago using Media Center and the Xbox360. (Brought back a lot of memories why I don't use MCE anymore.) The UI in Sage MyMovies is much better than the one in Media Center.

That said it is not perfect. The big weakness seems to be with the TV and Mini Series management. It does just not support them very well. I could never figure out how to get something like "Band of Brothers" DVD collection to work very well. At this point I am in between deciding to use the Folder view withing the regular Video section or make them all into SageTV shows. (At this point I no longer have any real DVD Rips they are all broken out into separate episodes in folders by season). I have a seperate TV Shows folder that I just don't Map in MyMovies.

This really is not anything new. I excluded TV shows from the old MovieWall plugin as well. (Nice option by the way) XBMC or Boxee don't do a better job either. I think it is just a complicated issue. I think you really need two different approaches to managing series as opposed to Movies.

What I would like to see is the return of TV Explorer in v7. It would include imported TV series without having to make them SageTV recording and combined with MyMovies would be deliver everything I really need.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

First of All the myMovies plugin is fantastic. Visually and navigation wise it is great. I only run SageTV HTPC Clients from a central server but the UI is lightning fast.

I can't say having two metadata tools is optimal but once I got MyMovies setup to monitor the folders automatically it is really fire and forget. I had never used My Movies before but I already maintained everything in the correct format to support XBMC and Boxee as well. I think the MyMovies required structure is fairly standard at this point and works well even without MyMovies.

I really started playing with MyMovies about a month ago using Media Center and the Xbox360. (Brought back a lot of memories why I don't use MCE anymore.) The UI in Sage MyMovies is much better than the one in Media Center.

That said it is not perfect. The big weakness seems to be with the TV and Mini Series management. It does just not support them very well. I could never figure out how to get something like "Band of Brothers" DVD collection to work very well. At this point I am in between deciding to use the Folder view withing the regular Video section or make them all into SageTV shows. (At this point I no longer have any real DVD Rips they are all broken out into separate episodes in folders by season). I have a seperate TV Shows folder that I just don't Map in MyMovies.

This really is not anything new. I excluded TV shows from the old MovieWall plugin as well. (Nice option by the way) XBMC or Boxee don't do a better job either. I think it is just a complicated issue. I think you really need two different approaches to managing series as opposed to Movies.

What I would like to see is the return of TV Explorer in v7. It would include imported TV series without having to make them SageTV recording and combined with MyMovies would be deliver everything I really need.

I agree you really need two different UI's for cinematic and episodic content. I don't think you will see an improvement in the episodic front for a bit though. I don't think RAZR's planning on porting/rewriting TVE for v7, as I think he's focusing on Ortus right now (which probably WILL have both a good movie UI, and a good TV UI). Personally, I'll probably be happy when the Malore screens are updated. This will get me most the way there, as I really think it is, functionally, the perfect back-end for episodic content. Once that is there, I am hoping to make a fanart 'eye candy' add-on for it, which will probably be all i need. That, though, will also be a while.

[PLUCKYHD]

Yeah I know Brian at mymovies is working on tv support and I believe already has users uploading tv fanart. Now how far away it is I have no idea. But I agree tv support is the on missing link for me in v7.

And to the original poster no offense taken sometimes I get gripey a bit before my morning doctor pepper. so sorry for my rant as well.