MyMovies Tutorial
or How to Add a Box-Set (multi-Season) TV Series in the new MyMovies
Ramblings from a heretofore casual user who was caught with the complexity of the new TV Series and Box Set editing with little documentation available.
This tutorial gently introduces more and more complicated procedures to eventually enable you to understand editing a
Box Set (multi-season),
TV Series (multi-episode) referencing an online disc image. With the new
MyMovies introducing
TV Series and
Box Set concepts, the potential reward is great but at the cost of a much more difficult editing process.
Basic Philosophy
Key to understand from the start is that
MyMovies has
TV Series that are distinct from single or multi-disc
Movie Titles (including
Box Sets). And that although both can be edited from similar screens in the same
Collection Manager, the sharing of data between the two groupings is only via the WebServer and not your local
Collection Manager (i.e. computer or database). Once this is clearly understood, and that you need both for
TV Series from Discs, then the intricate steps needed to edit, save, contribute (i.e. upload), download and continue editing will be better understood.
Also, over the past two years or so of development, the moderators of the service and software developer have diverged in how they wish to treat the messy and complicated release of movies. Specifically, distributors are releasing multiple titles on a single disc. And 3 or more disparate titles in a loosely themed or defined collection, with only a single cover and barcode. The software/service tries to force ID'ing entries by barcode and product (and restrict source of information in the database from that material only; or what can be scraped from IMDB) while the user often wishes to have a way to browse and select movies based on title, content, rating, actors, crew and the like. These are in direct conflict more and more.
Finally, all the development seems to be going into the Andoroid App for smart phones and tablets. And features appear there that are not available in the Microsoft Media Center (Desktop, Home Theatre Personal Computer or HTPC) edition. Again, needs diverge from what they are supporting. Personally, I use the App for browsing the collection while in a store to understand if I have the title or not. Would also like to use the Tablet app to select and play the MP4 / Digital versions of the movies which are different and in a different location than the ISO HTPC versions on the server.
Thus this tutorial is expanded to include how I personally have chosen to utilize the software and service as a tool most useful to my needs while trying to maintain some semblence of their contribution requirements.
The scenarios of adding information in the
Collection Manager covered here are given below; in order of increasing difficulty and building on the description before.
- Movie Title with one or more single or double-sided discs
- Box Set of a movie title series where each movie title may have one or more discs that each are usually packaged for individual sale with barcode and cover
Now there is some divergence for the more complicated issues. First, TV Series:
- TV Series (one or more seasons) that you wish to reference locally as individual episodes (common for portable devices or non-DVD formats)
- TV Series (one season) that you wish to reference locally as discs from your box set where the information is complete and previously entered
- TV Series (one season) that you wish to reference locally as discs where the information is non-existent, partial or incorrect
- Box Set of TV Series (more than one season) that you wish to reference locally as disc
It is these last two that are more complicated and involves editing and contributing both a
TV Series and multi-disc
Title or two to complete.
Now for Movie Titles:
- Box Set of a movie title series where each movie may or may not be on its own disc. And there is usually only the cover and barcode for the overall box set.
- Box Set of a movie collection where the movies are loosely coupled. These may be (a) packaged for individual sale titles each with their own barcode and cover, or (b) grouped titles on a single or multiple discs but without individual covers and barcodes and possibly unconnected titles sharing the same physical disc side.
Each is covered in more detail below. But before covering each, lets introduce a little background and a few more important terms. Note you can click on each title below to expand or collapse its information.
What Changed?
Traditionally, there was only one form of editing in the
Collection Manager — adding a
Title. What continued to complicate this further was the seemingly endless and varying ways that production houses re-mastered or repackaged movies. The distinction between unique optical discs and their collection in a product started blurring; especially how users wanted to view the products as well. Further complicating this is the larger-disc release associated with TV Series, the need for handling transcoded movie files of TV episodes and movies (especially for portable devices), and the ability for DVD Players to bypass the main menu and jump to specific content inside the disc. As technology and marketing have matured, this has creeped down into movie title releases as well where loosely coupled titles are now clumped together into a single side of a single optical disc — thus complicating the DB use for perusing and selecting individual movie titles to play that may now exist on the same disk.
What has also changed is the push by the MyMovies service to restrict the movie title entries to only include what is physically available from the title as purchased. So content for the database associated with a barcode must all be sourced from the material supplied on that barcode. Only divergence is the ability to "import" associated IMDB information. This restriction is in direct conflict with wanting to make a seemless interface to users for selecting movie titles for play.
Additional complications come from the large number of titles that are released as director's cut or similar. And so they go from being Rated R to Unrated whereas in reality should likely be listed as NC-17. Sorting based on rating now becomes moot as these titles are intermixed with G/unrated family movies as well as Pre-1960's movies that were created before the rating system existed. Hence, one wants to diverge from the true use and classification of rating to a more personal one that is then locked.
To address these new needs and multiple, confusing collection management conventions developing, two new features were added. The
Box Set and the
TV Series. Both have implications in the MyMovies viewer and selection for play as well.
One should consult the existing
MyMovies tutorials and
videos in conjunction with this tutorial. Specifically:
Terminology and Conventions
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- Countries, Languages, and more
- Data is stored separately for each country or language of release. Hence the importance to get this correct when entering the data. The differences in the disc information can be large beside just the cover language.
- Title
- Often a single Movie, a box-set collection of related movies, or maybe a TV Series season or box-set of multiple seasons. The title is historically more tied to the product sold consisting of one or more optical discs — whether it be DVD, BluRay, HD DVD, VHS or similar format. Often a barcode is associated with a Title and uniquely identifies it (within a specific country). Most often, a title and Movie Title will be the same. But not always.
- Movie Title
- The name given by a studio on release of a printed film or work. More often today, IMDB is used as the more official source for a title and may be more accurate than even the product cover and disc label. Also, re-releases can sometimes change the title as happened with Star Wars when the Prequel trilogy came out and as we are seeing evolve with Star Trek to help identify its groupings based on different issues (original TV show cast, Next Generation TV show cast, Prequel series).
- Series
- A television series consisting of multiple episodes and possibly multiple seasons. Most often a season is a year but sometimes a weather season in addition to a year. Episodes are often the same length in time and periodically aired (e.g. a weekly basis) but not always.
- Disc ID
- A usually unique code or number stored on the optical disk that can be read at startup. The Disc ID is written in the inner rim area that is not writeable with writeable media and so is a unique feature of manufactured discs. There is a separate disc ID for each side of a multi-sided optical disc but only one if dual layer. Each disc in a Title will have a unique Disc ID and can usually be used to help determine the Title in the database. Note though that more often now multiple movie titles are included on a single side of a single disc. This is especially true of pre-1960 movie releases that do not have higher resolution, may be B&W only, and at most stereo audio. So more can be packed on a single DVD.
- 'UPC or EAN Barcode
- A commonly used and understood label on every product that helps uniquely identify the product. It is either 12 (UPC) or 13 (EAN) digits and often unique in a country if put on by a registered manufacturer.
- Chapters, Episodes, and more
- Within the context of an optical disc, there may be titles and chapters to divide up the material into index-able sections. Each disc (side) can have multiple titles with one or more chapters in each title. This is the structure of the disc. Note that the optical disc titles are distinct from the MyMovies Collection Manager Titles. A dual layer disc is just a double-length single disc in understanding this structure. Intro material in a Movie DVD, such as the illegal copy warning, are often a title. As is the main menu. Scenes, as identified in a menu of scene selection, are often chapters. For TV Series DVD's, each episode is often a title and there may be multiple chapters (or scenes) within that. Unlike movies, the chapters or scenes in a TV Series are usually not part of a menu, only the Episodes.
- Cover
- Traditionally, the printed paper inserts to the DVD, HD-DVD or BluRay movie case cover and supplying the only human readable information other than appearing on the optical disk itself. May also include the Inserts inside the case when talking about sources of information to enter in the DB. These Inserts may be a single printed sheet or small booklet. They are not scanned and included in the DB directly but the information on them may be. Often, the Chapter Titles are supplied this way. When a box set, the Cover is often a cardboard cover describing the multiple titles within (or possible episodes in a season of a TV series).
Because the same disc (i.e. Disc ID) may be included in multiple different packages, it does not uniquely identify a
Title. Only that disc. Similarly, the barcode is not always unique in a country as some retailers add their own unregistered barcodes local to their enterprise. Or a manufacturer may use the same barcode for slightly different editions of a product. So things are not absolute and doubt is a useful attribute.
Adding a Movie Title
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The
Creating a Title and
Editing a Title videos serve as a useful introduction. We augment with a few more refinements here.
Disc Location and Content editing
This is one of the most important aspects of title editing; especially in terms of adding useful local data. It is here you can attach the physical location of the disc image if you have loaded it into a DVD JukeBox or maybe copied the disc onto a magnetic storage device or server.
It is helpful to note that you are better off using a network address than a local disc hard coded path. This to allow clients on addition machines to access the titles with the same database and location names. Under MS Windows, this can be done most effectively by adding all your folders for movie storage to a library. Then sharing that library with the network (or possibly Homegroup if Win7). This way, the physical location and structure spanning one or more discs is not coded into the MyMovies DB reference. The library mechanism hides the physical path to each folder and simply exposes the content of each referenced folder directly. Use this network reference on the server when linking a Collection Manager Title to the physical disc location. If crafted correctly, this can be easily carried over to using a NAS device as you outgrow the need for a single HTPC.
Personally, have settled on having 4 major folders or collections of movie titles. These are based on original released format and thus the possible configuration required to play the title. These folders are
DVD,
HD-DVD,
BluRay, and
MP4. The latter sometimes being referred to as Digital copy. A possible additional category some may need is
UltraViolet. But as they are usually more restricted and tied to a specific machine, may not apply.
UltraViolet are currently not handled in any way by MyMovies and are outside the scope here. To an extent,
MP4 is not handled by MyMovies either but there is hope for the future ..
Adding a Box Set
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Note: They have changed philosophy on MyMovies and only allow the boxed-set cover to be captured and information used. Individual titles, whether combined on one disk or even separately packaged with separate bar codes, must be entered as special 000000000000 UPC code and use the box set cover. As this is not useful for selection of a title to play — no information per title captured and viewable including actors — we no longer use box sets. We add the box set container to the collection where there is a single cover to reflect what is owned and how to possibly find the disc when multiple titles per disc. But we hide this container in the interface. Instead, we simply add the title from the collection based on the DiscID for each title, if possible, and mark in the Personal Data section that this is a virtual title from a box set.
Now a Box Set title can simply reference individual movie titles, thus retaining all the correct specific information for each individual title. During selection in the MyMovies interface, this adds a level of hierarchy in the list mode (as opposed to pushing it down to the disc selection point after hitting Play). In summary:
- Create or download each individual Movie Title and complete as normal
- Include referencing to the disc, if online
- Use a category or personal note to realize this is a virtual title from a box set and may not have a cover or even individual disk
- Create or download a Box Set Title
- No need to reference the discs to the online title here even if the discs are already defined in the downloaded Title; but you can still do so
- See the documentation on minimal data normally required for a new Box Set Title
- Click the "Is a Box Set?" in the Box Set Title while in the editing interface (no longer done)
- Click the Series/BoxSet button at the bottom right of the Title edit interface (no longer done)
- In the dialog that pops up, add the individual movie Title's previously completed into this box set. (no longer done)
You are now done and the
NOTE: Do not delete the Box Set if you wish to retain the added Titles in your database. Instead, first remove the Titles from the series and then delete the box set. This might happen when you decide to no longer use a box set hierarchy and instead simply want the flat, individual movie list.
NOTE: Usually check the box Do not include holding title as part of the Series/Box in the Series/Box Set pop-up for a Box Set Title. Otherwise, if the Box Set description includes a list of discs, you will get those discs and their references to online files/folders in addition to the referenced Titles. You usually only want one or the other.
Background
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Historically, one used the cover art of the box set of multiple movies, merged the other information (such as actors, crew, rating, and such) into the Title, and then listed the discs of each of the movie members. As such, the Disc ID used in Add Title often pulls up the various box sets including the Title/product when the disc is a standalone product. These titles still and should remain in the database for those not wanting to use the more complicated, hierarchical Box Set methodology.
With the new software, one can now have a Box Set title that is distinct from the titles of the containing movies. This way, each movie (and disc) can be described separately and accurately using its own cover art, crew list and such. Then, if the collection or box set hierarchy is desired in MyMovie(, the Box Set title can be loaded (or created) and the individual movie Titles simply referenced from the Box Set title. In the MyMovies interface, the Box Set is shown and when selected, the individual movie entries are then shown. Thus adding some hierarchy to the collection and selection process. Historically, selecting a box set would then not allow selecting the movie until you clicked the play button that then brought up the disc selection.
If preferred, and this usually is for BluRay and HD DVD formats for simplicity, TV Series can be treated as box sets. Each Season is a Movie Title which just happens to have more discs on average, and then the overall TV Show is a Box Set. The arbitrary distinction of which episode is on which disc is not something you want to highlight and thus a Season is not treated as a box set itself. This method for a TV Series is simplest in that it involves no chapter / episode editing and distinction. But it is not possible to jump straight to an episode; only to the disc containing the episode. For that, use the TV Series method and make sure to copy the disk in directory mode and not as a single .iso image file.
One issue of going to box sets is the need to identify or group all discs of the Box Set into referenced Titles. So if an included disc of Special Features is part of the box set, it will now require its own entry (e.g. Title) in the MyMovies Web Service so it can be included in. This even though it likely does not have a separate bar code or availability outside of one or more box set products. For the new box set method, this is fine because such titles have UPC 000000000000 and use the box set cover.
Adding a TV Series (individual episode files)
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This is the simplest
TV series mode and the one most users may eventually end up using. But it can be difficult to get too from optical disk purchases of a season or more of the
TV Series. This because the optical discs incorporate multiple episodes on the same disc; often dual layer. And that you desire to access the material by episode independent of the disc it was put into.
Key to understand here is if you are solely using a
TV Series with individual files, you do not need to find, edit and save a
Title. You simply need to find or add the
TV Series title and attach your individual files to each episode. A
TV Series is distinguishable in the Collection Manager with a TV () as opposed to a Clapperboard () icon. This is important because later on we will see a Clapperboard top level with a TV icon below it.
One area of potential confusion or difference between people editing and creating such series is what to do with the special and extra features. Deleted scenes, additional featurettes, and such. For those going to the trouble to transcode the original material from optical disc may not care and deal with this, those staying with optical disc structure are more limited. Hence, it is key to follow the conventions of:
- putting all such material in Season 0,
- keeping the same structure as found on the optical discs so optical disc titles and chapters can map to it, and
- titling or labeling such "episodes" with the season they were packaged with (e.g. Season 2: Deleted Scenes) or some useful and similar method for similar material across multiple seasons (e.g., preview of upcoming seasons labeled Preview Season x).
Adding a TV Series (discs with multiple episodes per disc) already complete on the Web Service
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If the TV Series has been fully added by someone else already, then this is simpler and can be understood as an extension to adding a Movie Title. But if you get part way into this and discover the TV Series has not been fully entered (partially or not at all), then you end up having to perform two edits simultaneously and work to edit, save, contribute, then download to get your information passed appropriately.
Adding a TV Series (discs with multiple episodes per disc) partially complete or non-existent on the Web Service
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This is the complicated procedure as you have to perform two edits in two different modes of the Collection Manager. And confusingly at first, you have to edit, save, then contribute the information from the TV Series before you can then download and use it in the Title editing for that same series. But being familiar with the above other contribution methods helps you understand the steps needed for this below.
To help understand further, when finished, a TV Series which you retain as disc copies or references but which can be accessed by episode will appear like this in the Collection Manager:
Note the top level Movie Clapboard icon with TV Series icons below that. This as opposed to only Movie Clapboard icons at all levels in a traditional Box Set and only TV Series icons at all levels in a traditional TV Series accessed as individual files.
Note that this procedure is required even if other seasons are fully entered for a TV Series. Or if someone entered all the episodes but neglected to complete adding the special features. Of course, this complication is only needed and necessary IF the Title is on DVD (not BluRay or HD DVD), not just on a disc. This because BluRay and HD DVD software players on your computer cannot jump directly to a title in the middle of the disc like can be done with DVD Players. Hence, this complication and benefit is only for DVD's where you want to jump directly to an episode or special feature and start playing there; avoiding the disc menu to select your episode or feature.
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Personal Terminology and Conventions
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Here are conventions used by us to get around limitations in the software.
Groups are pre-defined by the software and cannot be changed. Only groups are available as selectors in the Web-accessible collection list (confusingly termed
online in the tool).
Categories are user-defined and available, like
Groups, in
Filters but not in the Web collection. The Mobile apps can use filters and Groups. We limit, more than the programs, the term
online to apply to titles that are physically on the hard disk of the Windows Media Center and ready for immediate playing.
Titles are a particular Movie, TV Series (season) or similar.
There are four ways to view and possibly manipulate the collection. Through the (1) Windows Media Center interface, the (2) Collection Management windows program, the (3) Internet Browser (aka "online" Web service), and the (4) Mobile App (aka "mobile" Web Service). The Web Service techniques are mostly view only and can be limited (as to what is visible) via the Collection Management program. Each mechanism has different capabilities for filtering and viewing the collection. Not even the Collection Management, which offers the most capability to view and manipulate the underlying local database directly, can easily view, sort and select by all the data fields though.
- We need to distinguish between Owned, Rented, Wished and Ordered titles. These are available Groups and so used as such. This allows one, using the Web Service interfaces, to peruse items needed or already owned while at a store or library.
- We need to distinguish the physical location of the original disk for online titles. Hence we use Categories for this and create entries such as @Dad's (for BluRays and HD-DVD's, in general), @Mom's (for India DVD's and TV shows of hers, in general), In Archive (for most DVD's, in the storage box), and Rented (to be complete and indicate when the original disk is not in our possession at the current time). As a result, all Titles should be in one and only one category.
- We need to distinguish which titles have a "digital copy" (i.e. MP4) available for phone and tablet viewing. This is more of a yes or no — it either exists or not. While it might be nice to overload the user-defined Categories again, Categories are not visible in the Web Service interfaces. Therefore, we use the Groups of Pre-Owned and Pre-Rented to represent titles that are Owned or _Rented but where a digital copy is NOT available. Only Owned or _Rented can have an image on the hard disk. Luckily, the Group is not mutually exclusive to view in the Media Center interface as it is in the Web-service interface so one can easily peruse all available titles to play in one list.
- We need to distinguish which titles are online versus only on the original optical disk. Online to us strictly means an ISO image on the hard disk that is directly playable in the Media Center application. The existence of an online copy is stored in the database and implied through the Disc's sub-screen setting. It can be used in a filter. But otherwise, in the Web-Service Browser and Phone/Tablet app interface, you cannot really determine if the title is online. In general, we have all Owned and Rented movies (including Pre-Owned and Pre-Rented) online and most TV Series are not.
The biggest nuance is that
Groups are pre-defined and exclusive-or in the Browser interface (if visible at all there). So one cannot use that interface to see all titles at once. You have to view by each
Group individually. If the Browser Web Services collection were dedicated to a single need (viewing digital copies only, viewing available titles only, viewing titles not yet owned only, etc), then the
Groups could be made invisible to the interface and only a subset of
Groups selected for export there.
Groups are not directly visible in
Collection Management under the
Titles General Profile Data section. You have to right click the title entry as if changing its value. The shading to indicate the currently set value is difficult to see as well.
Using
Groups to distinguish the existence of a digital copy introduces a greater potential for the database to be corrupted. This because of incorrectly changing the group after a change in just the digital copy availability. Care should be taken with batch, multiple-title changes made as a result.
Installation on a dedicated server
Backup existing MyMovies DB (to a separate drive if necessary for space reasons)
(started with clean server; 12.8GB available on C)
+Current as of Aug 2017 for MyMovies version 5.23 build 2 (115MB)
- Installs MS VisualC++ 2005 redistributable (x86 and x64)
- Installs SQL Server 2014 (5 components) which brings along:
- MS VisualC++ 2010 redistributable (x86 and x64)
- MS SQL Server 2012 Native Client
- MS SQL Server 2008 Setup Support files
- MS ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server
- Also install SQL Server Management Studio (17.2 available; used 16.5.3 to get more options for minimal install) (825MB)
- To redirect DbFileStream (and main DB in MDF) to D: drive
- Start SQL Management and connect to MyMovies DB; stop MyMovies services; detach DB
- Can try to move/copy DB files over:
- C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.MYMOVIES\MSSQL\DATA\My Movies* (500+MB with 2600+ titles)
- C:\ProgramData\My Movies\DbFileStorage\* (6+GB with 2600+ titles)
- xcopy <srcdir> <destdir> /h/i/c/k/e/r/y