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]

Hi jimpict, welcome to the forums.

Not sure about extenders as i've never used 1. I hope that someone with more experience with extenders may be able to help, maybe even mikinho himself


OS

 

[jimpict]

i got it worked out. it was a stupid mistake on my part.

thanks a lot for the tutorial, and thanks especially for yammm.

 

[selliott]

i got it worked out. it was a stupid mistake on my part.

thanks a lot for the tutorial, and thanks especially for yammm.

What did you do that was "stupid"? I appear to be having the same issue and would like to know how to fix it.

Thanks

 

[scrote]

Hi, i have extracted file2folder.bat to my /movies directory (which contains both individual movies as well as some existing movie folders). however, when I run the file nothing happens to the file structure. I get a brief black window with text and then back to explorer. Any suggestions?

 

[dgenx210]

Nice. Just in time because I need to rebuild my messy library of movies

 

[Net Scavenger]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share some information with you all that is sort of related to the discussion. I recently just switched from media browser to yammm, and I wrote a batch script to help me delete the files that I no longer needed left over from MB.

The following code is to be pasted into notepad and saved with the extension .bat (you can name it whatever you want to):

del /s "C:\YOUR MOVIES DIRECTORY HERE\*.xml"
del /s "C:\YOUR MOVIES DIRECTORY HERE\*.url"

Do NOT try to use this code before you read ALL the following information!
This code will erase all files with .xml and .url file extensions from the specified folders and their sub-folders. You must replace the "C:\YOUR MOVIES DIRECTORY HERE" with where you store your movies, making sure you keep the \*.url and \*.xml extensions, or it will delete everything in those folders!!! You can of course include other commands to delete other types of files.

Good luck!

 

[CBers]

Hello, I was just switching from using media browser to yammm, and I wanted to share something.

Hiya.

Just wondered why your are "switching from using media browser to yammm" ??

I started with YAMMM but went the other way to Media Browser.

Just curious.

 

[Net Scavenger]

I made the switch because Yammm is automated and resizes pictures so that MC loads faster. I would rather not have to worry about metadata, but maybe there are features in media browser that are of interest to others.

 

[mikinho]

EDIT:
does anyone know why the extra info, such as synopsis, etc, does not show up on extenders?

In the Metadata tab did you check all the extenders accounts? If not, it won't be there by default.

 

[descendent87]

I've installed yammm and set it up as shown in the guide but there's still no covers or info for any of my movies. The movie folder is correctly set in yammm (D:\Films) and I used the file2folder script to move all my movies into folders (all of which are properly named). I've gone into services and tried to start the yammm service manually but it tells me:
"The Yet Another Media Meta Manager service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs"
Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi descenent87, welcome to the forums.

The best I can suggest for that issue is to uninstall Yammm then remove any sign from the Program Data folder in your root folder e.g. C:\Program Data

   Note

You will need hidden files & folder viewable. Explorer -> Organize -> Folder & Search Options -> View

Then try re-installing it to see if that resolves the issue as I had the same happen early on to me.

 

[mikinho]

I've installed yammm and set it up as shown in the guide but there's still no covers or info for any of my movies. The movie folder is correctly set in yammm (D:\Films) and I used the file2folder script to move all my movies into folders (all of which are properly named). I've gone into services and tried to start the yammm service manually but it tells me:
"The Yet Another Media Meta Manager service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs"
Any ideas?
Thanks

Any errors in your Event Log?

 

[descendent87]

Tried uninstalling and removing all program data, made no difference.
Checked event log and can't see any errors to do with media center or yammm.
EDIT: Solved it, had to use the take ownership shortcut on my movies folder, it's downloading all the data at the moment. Thanks for the help though

 

[Thrasher]

What file structure in DvdInfoCache, for MC adds 'Similar Movies', 'Cast & Crew' & 'Reviews' to the movie data? May be post any example?

I used DVD Library Manager, for adds synopsis and actors to movie library but 'Cast & Crew' and other not visible for me.

 

[mikinho]

"Similar Movies" and "Reviews" is not cached in the xml file. A new version of Yammm will have this functionality to cache it using an alternative method. But for now the best you can do is either whatever you have to rename the folders so that Media Center can pull that information.

 

[Thrasher]

Help me please! Where MC cached this files? My Language is not english, and I want manually adds same information in movie library. And what's about 'Cast & Crew' this info present in the xml file, but not visible in MC?

 

[mikinho]

It isn't cached. I am doing it programmatically with Yammm, as fas as I know you can't do it manually.

 

[plee]

Thanks for this info, I look forward to giving it a go tonight.

On a similar note, I'm struggling to find any info on how to force an update of the WMC library, having noted that they are a bit different to the standard Windows 7 library. Is this meant to happen automatically... or to a schedule? as I don't want to have to jump through a heap of hoops every time I put a new file in.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[mikinho]

Thanks for this info, I look forward to giving it a go tonight.

On a similar note, I'm struggling to find any info on how to force an update of the WMC library, having noted that they are a bit different to the standard Windows 7 library. Is this meant to happen automatically... or to a schedule? as I don't want to have to jump through a heap of hoops every time I put a new file in.

Cheers,
Paul

It should be automatically updated when a file is added. Sometimes you'll need to close Media Center and re-open for it to pick up the change though.

 

[chazmicks]

thanks in advance

Hello to all!!! First time here, first time with Media center, so please bear with me. I have browsed through a couple post on here trying to figure out how to rip dvds and save them in media center. I Tried the "file2"thing and the "yamma" with no results. I hate being the new guy...lol. Can someone point me in the direction of a "newbie" tutorial or any other info. I was using dvd shrink to rip movie, i placed it in a folder and setup folder in WMC. I could watch movie but had no pic for dvd or any info etc. Im sure I am missing something simple but just too new to WMC to begin figuring it out. Thanks for any help in advance!!!