Media Center- Setup Movie Library

How to Setup a Media Center Movie Library in Windows 7​

   Information

This tutorial will show how to manage your movie library in Media Center, including poster images & full synopsis information.

   Note

Windows Media Center is not available in Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic editions.

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The N and KN editions of Windows 7 have all the features that normally come with each individual Windows 7 edition, except for Windows Media Player 12 and related programs, such as Windows Media Center or Windows DVD Maker.

The N editions of Windows 7 allow you to choose your own media player and software required to manage and play CDs, DVDs, and other digital media files. If you choose to use Windows Media Player 12, downloading it, along with related software, is free. Download Media Feature Pack for Windows 7 N with Service Pack 1 and Windows 7 KN with Service Pack 1 (KB968211) from Official Microsoft Download Center

Examples: With & without poster information.


Before you start:
NOTE: Special thanks to DemonSeed for the file2folder batch file. 1. Click on the Download button below to download the file2folder.zip file and extract the file2folder.bat file to the drive containing your movie files (e.g. G:\MOVIES). Run the file which will create directories based on the movie file name (e.g. Babylon A.D.avi will have the directory Babylon A.D created) and the movie file moved to the directory.

Download

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2. Search for & download a file for the movie you would like as a poster and save it in the movie folder and name it folder.jpg. Do this for each movie.

   Warning

I would advise at least 2GB of memory as due to the size of the folder.jpg files there is a lot of memory used. You could (like me) resize all folder.jpg files to a width of 300 pixels & maintain aspect ratio.

Here's How: 1. Run Media Center and navigate to Movies
2. Open movie library, you should notice no movies shown
3. Right-Click within the inner (empty area) and select Manage Library, you will be shown the 'Add folders' wizard. Select 'Add folders to the library' and click next
4. Select the location where your drive with the videos is stored, and click on next.
5. Navigate to the folder where your videos are stored (e.g. G:\MOVIES), and click next.
6. On the final screen select 'Yes, use these locations' and click finish


Now your folder is added, Media Center will show the Video folders (with posters if you downloaded an image file for each movie).

   Note

If you wish to include metadata you will need to download Yammm. The meta data will download the DVDID.XML file which will allow for Media Center to download full synopsis information for each movie

Recommended Yammm settings

   Note

These setting will automatically rename folders/files, download folder.jpg & DVDID.XML files for Media Center to read from.

Update

The Yammm application has been updated to include Image Resizing


This will allow Media Center to use less memory when rendering folder images.

   Tip

It's recommended that you use a setting of 92 Quality & 300x420 medium size as this will greatly reduce the amount of memory used by 7MC when viewing a large movie library

Update 2: More Synopsis

I thought i'd include an example of how the DVDID.XML file works.

1, Full synopsis information
2, Similar Movies shown, with posters
3, Click the similar movie to get full details of that movie
4, Cast & Crew information
5, Click on a name to see a fimography (film list) relating to that actor/director

Enjoy

 

[Orbital Shark]

It can sometimes take a while. I've noticed that not all movies have cast & crew/similar movies details.

 

[ego4th]

Orbital Shark, do you have blu-ray movies in your movie library and are you able to launch a blu-ray player?

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hello ego4th, welcome to the forums.

Unfortunately i don't have any Blu-Ray movies but i'm sure someone may be able to assist in your queery.




Jeff

 

[TripOG]

i have bluray wmv hd rips in my library they play fine, dunno about playing an actual bluray disk though

 

[edrik]

Great tutorial Orbital Shark +rep

 

[mustangman16]

Hey Shark I think i'm lost.

I followed the steps, got the program options set up as they should and have it pathed correctly to my movie folder but I have no DVDID.XML in my movie folders. Does the program download them all for me or do i need to find them for each movie I have?

-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi mustangman, you need to make sure that the 'Windows 7 Media Center' metadata option is selected as well as the User checkbox selected

Set it up like the image below & you should be ok

 

[mustangman16]

Damn quick response! Am i paying you? lol.
Ya mines the same I just got 2 users.
I'm still getting no synopsis or info for my movies in MediaCenter.
-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Do you have all the movie files in seperate folders? You need to have the folders named correctly too E.G. Fast & Furious (2009), Iron Man, The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008).

 

[mustangman16]

Heres what my movie layout looks like.

-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Strange

1 thing you could try is to restart the service. Type 'services' into the start menu & press enter, then scroll to the bottom & highlight 'Yammm' then click 'restart' & see what happens.

 

[mustangman16]

The only problem is that its not showing up on the restart. I restarted my computer and windows media player still has nothing added. Once again, do I need to manually add the info for each movie or does the program automatically do it?

-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Before putting your attention on Media Center, what are the current contents of just 1 movie folder?

 

[mustangman16]

Here they are
-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Sorry, went to bed

It's only downloading an NFO files which is not going to show any Synopsis information. Can you post a screenshot of the following settings please?

Library
Settings
Metadata

Cheers

 

[mustangman16]

Heres ur requested shots.

-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi, sorry for the late reply (7600 leak & all that )

I would look to move your movie location. You could try the http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html to take ownership of your 'My Movies' folder.

It could be that as Windows/System32 is a system folder (normally owned by TrustedInstaller), Windows is halting all attempts by Yammm to automatically download new data

 

[mustangman16]

Good news Shark!

All i did was delete all directories that WMC accessed for movies, then added them back in and took ownership of my movies folder and the program works perfectly. Thanks again for the help +1

-stang

 

[Orbital Shark]

Excellent mate, good work

 

[onlytanmoy]

awesome....just awesome...i love it...many thanks bro.