What Sayeth You?: MyVideos

What Sayeth You?: MyVideos

#2 (1/21/2012)

This week's blog, as the title implies, is our 2nd 'What Sayeth You?' blog, and it is all about MediaPortal's stock videos/movies database handler, MyVideos. There has been a ton of work already done in it in 1.2 and so many more on the way. Just like our last WSY blog (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly), this one will use a theme from a popular movie or TV show.

So let's take MyVideos ...

b2tf-logo

Now, before we jump in the car to head back to 1955 (MyVideos 1.0) and start our look at MyVideos, I want to give everyone a breakdown of the blog. We will be looking at MyVideos recent history of the version included with MediaPortal 1.0, a look at it's present state and current features of 1.2.2, as well as a look at some of the plans and possibilities of any future versions 1.2.x/1.3.x.

Oh, and please don't be confused by my attempt to be clever by using the Back to the Future timeline years (1955, 1985 & 2015)!!

delorean

MyVideos 1.0

|---[1955]--------------------1985--------------------2015---|

I wont go into too much detail about MyVideos humble and, if I may say, somewhat catastrophic beginnings. The truth is, it worked. It might not have all the bells and whistles that the average movie collector wanted, but it worked. The fact that it could not fold your laundry and flip your pancakes like Moving Pictures could was never a factor. If that was what you needed, then get Moving Pictures. That is what it is there for. Actually, the number one reason for the stagnant growth of MyVideos was simply, Live TV. As anyone who has or is helping to develop the MP TV Server engine (or anyone from one of the numerous projects trying to develop their own) can tell you, it is hard stuff to get working. That had been the main focus of many team MP developers... until someone decided to change it.

MyVideos 1.0 would watch your shares and import your videos. It used a rough scraper script to parse information and artwork from IMDb. It offered very few importing options and the database fields were restricted to just a handful.

MyVideos 1.1 brought about very few changes.

MyVideos 1.2.x

|---1955--------------------[1985]--------------------2015---|

After a lot of hard work MyVideos 1.2 brought about so many new features and bug fixes that a whole blog could be publish on that alone. The reason for this is, the jump from 1.0/1.1 to 1.2 is almost an entire rework. New scripts, menus, importing options, new database fields and not to mention all the bug fixes. MyVideos will never be a replacement for serious movie collectors, but the improvements made give the casual user so many new options that it can appear to be a whole new plugin!

1.2.2 brought about many bug fixes:

  • Upgrade movie covers tool (from older MP versions to 1.2.0) in Configuration cause crash.
  • Back function in some cases produce corrupted VideoInfo screen, also can lead to unusable My Videos plugin
  • My Video do not position on first page with custom view title sort by date
  • File name and path casing causing minor problems in My Videos (especially with DVD rips)
  • Video Plugin thumb & icon problem as folder .jpg not visible on network shares root
  • In My Videos Group view (genres, years..) after selecting move and view it's info, user review field is empty.

MyVideos 1.3

|---1955--------------------1985--------------------[2015]---|

Now, of course, it will not be 2015 when 1.3 becomes stable and the current version, but stay with me, the parochial movie theme is almost at an end. Now we, that is the "royal" we, can't officially say what will and will not be included in 1.3 (well, not yet anyway... unless you get us really drunk first), there are a few ideas and some working progress being made in several areas:

Share view screen:

  • Watched time in percentage for videos,
  • Mediainfo icons,
  • View video-info first on click (configurable) - override with play button for instant play,
  • Scan new movies without need to position on folder(s) to add them into video database (MP will scan for new videos only shares checked for scanning in the VideoDatabase Configuration),
  • Handling and scanning BluRay folder rips or ISOs like it handles/scan DVD images and folders now.
  • Default Grabber selecting and Grabber update
  • Fanart support on movie folders

Database view screen:

  • Media info icons,
  • View video-info first on click (configurable) - override with play button for instant play,
  • Scan new movies to add them into video database (MP will scan for new videos only shares checked for scanning in the VideoDatabase Configuration),
  • Rename movie Title,
  • Watched time in percentage,
  • Search movie by name,
  • Search actor by name.
  • Default Grabber selecting and Grabber update
  • Fanart support on movie groups (Year, genres, actors...) - randomly selected fanart for movie inside group following rule for movies
    restricted by PIN
  • Repaired last selected item positioning in list

Movie info screen:

  • Media info icons,
  • Cast list rework, it's browsable with actors Picture,
  • Refresh menu command has 2 functions, 2nd function is triggered if you are in cast list and it refreshes actors for movie and update their roles for the movie (this will not download their infos or pictures) (only if Movie have IMDBid),
  • Click on actor/actress will update his/her info and Picture (if available) if actor was not queried before and will open actor/actress info screen (only if movie have IMDBid),
  • Rename movie title.,
  • Actors internally uses actorIMDBid to prevent possible mistake to fetch wrong info, roles and movies.

Actor info screen (new screen works only if movie info have IMDBid, otherwise old screen will be visible):

  • Full fanart support (showed fanart varies on place from where you enter this screen),
  • Actor thumb file names are unique (no more overwriting actors pictures with the same name),
  • Full rework of that screen, list of actor movies with covers and short movie info,
  • Play trailers for selected movie in movies actor list (needs online videos),
  • Auto update of missing infos (in background),
  • Manual update of entire actor/actress movie list (refresh all movies and infos in case you want to have latest changes on IMDB),
  • Visible mark for movie you have in video database (can be played from here),
  • All infos and covers are saved and will not be fetched next time, even if we are on different actor and he/she participate in already fetched movie.

Configuration + Scan:

  • Actors info fetch while scan movies is discarded and replaced with new function in Movie Info screen,
  • Actors and roles for movie will be fetched internally if scanned movie info have IMDBid,
  • New views: Date Added (database view for easy find and play recently added videos with configurable number of days to limit how many days to look back), and Date Watched (database view for easy find last watched videos with configurable number of days to limit how many days to look back).


Fanart rework for database movies 1.2.0B+

  • Changed fanart handling so that fanart will be unique per movie (uses Mp videodatabase movieId for fanart file name),
  • Movies with the same name will not have any more problems with overwriting fanart for previous movie with the same name (case when you have movies with the same title but different versions or years),
  • One fanart covers both share and database views (less space needed),
  • Shared folders which contains database movies in share view will show for one of those movies inside that folder on select folder,
  • Database group views (Year, Genre, Actors) will show fanart for one of the movies inside the selected group,
  • Full support for protected content (no fanart visible for locked movies) from any view,
  • Users who not use videodatabase do not need to worry for their custom fanart, they still will be visible.


+ many internal bug fixes and improvements for video databases (auto cleanup and self fix from redundant entries and errors) and MyVideos plugin.....

Well this is the part where we would LOVE to hear from you... the users. Let us know what you think about MyVideos past, present and future!!!!

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