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[Jaqqe]

Wouldn't it be nice if I could make a database of all my DVD-movies into Media Center and then have a section there for the soundtrack, where all my songs from that soundtrack could be linked and played..

[Jaqqe]

Sorry, but codewriting is not my area of expertice. What I meant was that It would be great if I could write in all information from my DVD-collection just like with mp3's. I could have columns for title, actor 1-5, director, producer, genre, year, duration etc etc. Then there would (somehow) be links to mp3's already in my collection that appear on the movies soundtrack. Does anybody understand what I mean ?

Or have I understood something wrong, is this already possible with 9.1 ?

[kiwi]

It is already possible, as you can create your own fields.

In fact, you can create lists of fields:

Main Actors:
Actor 1; Actor 2; Actor 3


I imagine that all of this information is getting stored in the DB, and not in the files though.

Linking it to the soundtrack would be quite cool!

kiwi

[jleerigby]

Thankfully kiwi, as ever, comes to the rescue.  The only thing I'd add is that, if you haven't already found it, you need Tools> Options> Tree and view settings.  From here you can add extra 'custom' fields.  You can also specify which category they appear in which is useful as you can set the Action Window to show fields by category (middle icon in top of action window).  Good luck.

[nila]

I want to use it for my DVD's too but currently it just doesn't quite cut it.

I'm using collectorz.com - Movie Collector - U enter the movie name and it automatically fills in all the info for you - I have no plans to spend all my time tagging stuff - the more that's done automatically, the happier I am.

Pity MC cant do this - or a plugin for it

[Jaqqe]

Movie Collector - U enter the movie name and it automatically fills in all the info for you

Sounds nice and simple. One might think that a program called Media Center already had this feature Well, maybe in the future...

I also do not really feel like writing the data of 300+ DVD's manually, though I propably would anyway...

[kiwi]

Yeah,

I've been looking at the collectorz movie program.  I wonder whether you could export the movie info and easily bring it into MC.

Do you know whether or not you can play movies stored on your HD directly from collectorz (well, start a program to play them?)

Thanks JLee for completing that.  I had definitely forgotten to write that part in.  It would be great to have a collection of tips and tricks somewhere.  Then people could be directed at that.   I fear though, that after all the work to set it up, people would still tend to just ask questions w/o doing any searching.  (not in respect to jaqqe's post, but rather in just general terms of posts on the board... and something that I've done on more than one occasion.)

kiwi

[nila]

As far as I know it WONT play movies from our hard drives (pity).

It WILL export all it's data in whatever format we want.

I've already been considering making a *says it quietly so this thread doesn't get moved* 'plugin' to import all that data and add it to MC but it's just another step and more work - something I dont want to have to do - the whole point of all this - is to relax and have an entertainment system - not to take up all my time managing it

[Jaqqe]

Actually I wasn't originally looking for the possibility to play DVD's through MC (I use DVD player), just to have a database with all of their information. I already have the information written down in an Excel file, which might or might not help me in this matter. I'm so new to MC, I haven't really gotten grasp of all it's funcitonalities yet.

[sraymond]

As far as I know it WONT play movies from our hard drives (pity).

It WILL export all it's data in whatever format we want.

I've already been considering making a *says it quietly so this thread doesn't get moved* 'plugin' to import all that data and add it to MC but it's just another step and more work - something I dont want to have to do - the whole point of all this - is to relax and have an entertainment system - not to take up all my time managing it

Nila,

We don't need a plugin to import XML data into MC.  Collectorz exports to XML.  A simple XSLT will transform its exorted XML into an MPL that can be imported into MC.  The only "problem" is that the MPL import doesn't allow an update - so you need to remove the item from the library and do an insert.

I keep hoping that someday soon JRiver will allow an update functionality with MPLs...  but maybe scott_r will beat them to it with a plugin.  A plugin wouldn't be as elegant, but it'd probably have more functionality.

By the way, I noticed something really cool that Collectorz does:  it presents the file details using an XSLT template.  This is *really* cool - although it doesn't allow for updating records.  Though maybe something like XForms will allow both.  It's also got some neat bar-graphs (I'm still struggling with SVG!).

Scott-

[nila]

I know nothing about XML or XSLT - care to elaborate a bit on this 'simple' transform it does and how I do it and how that's gonna work with MC?

[sraymond]

Nila,

I'm working on writing a short primer on XML and XSLT...  it will explain what happens behind the scenes.

For now, if you have an XML document containing data that you want imported into MC, I will write you the XSLT that you can apply (using Microsoft's built-in XSLT transformer) to the XML document - the result will be a MPL file that can be imported directly into MC.  Rembmer, though, no update - just import.  But if update is essential, there is a way around it.

Scott-