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Page Revision: 2011/05/03 15:57


Introduction

Welcome to the My Movies 4 Pre Release - with this document we will try to answer some of the questions about what My Movies 4 is and is not, compared to our prior My Movies 3 version.

My Movies 4 brings extended TV Series support to My Movies for Windows Media Center and My Movies Collection Management. You have with My Movies 3 always been able to add TV Series on DVD, Blu-ray or HD DVD to your collection, and users of TV series in online single file structures have been able to have their TV series supported to some extend by using the Series/Box set functionality along with the option to add multiple discs to a disc title profile.

With My Movies 4, we are extending this functionality to what some will refer to as proper TV series import, monitoring, management and browsing. The pre release is intended for users who would like to participate in reviewing, testing and giving us feedback for My Movies 4. The pre release requires 1,250 points (excluding trial points) or a licensed installer license file to participate - this is done to limit the amount of participating users to a level that we are able to handle support wise.

The functionality implemented for TV series is similar in requirements to what was originally created in XBMC, and today is used in various projects.

We have created a forum specifically for the My Movies 4 Pre Release, allowing you to report issues, post requests or discuss the release in general. You can find this forum here.

Important Notice

Before you install the My Movies 4 Pre Release, create a backup of your database in the Collection Management program. This is very, very important, because if there is any bugs in the pre release that affects your database, you are sure to have a backup from prior to the Pre Release.

Screenshot Gallery

For users interested in browsing screenshots of My Movies 4, we have created a special section on our website for this purpose.

Click here to open the screenshot gallery page.

Download

Before you download the My Movies 4 Pre Release, we strongly recommend that you read this page fully, as it contains important information that you need to be aware of before downloading and installing.

When you have read the page, the program is available for download here:

My Movies for Windows Media Center 4.00 Pre Release 9 (Includes Collection Management)

My Movies Collection Management 4.00 Pre Release 9

Changelog is available in the bottom of this page.

Pre Release 8 Upgrade Notice

If you are upgrading from a Pre Release 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 to Pre Release 8, we recommend that you delete all your TV series in the Collection Management program and import them again using the folder importer. This ensures that any problems with the data that have been solved in the updated pre release version will not be present, and it also means that if new problems have been added, we will catch these.

Service Changes

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For products such as XBMC which currently supports similar functionality for TV series, with few exceptions, the meta-data for the TV series is loaded from an open source service TheTVDB.com. As it has been a priority for us to be able to ensure both stability and speed, as well as handle some management things a bit differently, we have per agreement with TheTVDB.com created our own structure for the data and have loaded the data available from TheTVDB.com into our own services.

This means that during February, we inserted a new database server, transferred the prior database server to become a new webserver host for our disc title webservice, while the TV Series service was placed on the prior webservice host. These changes were made to ensure that our capacity is good enough for the load the TV series service will gain.

We expect that these changes, along with the structure and hosting capacities will ensure a high speed of operation on managing TV series.



File Structure Support

The TV Series functionality made available in the pre release is created for users who have a structure of files in online folders. The structure is aimed to follow the specifications used by XBMC and products that follows it's specification, to ensure that users with existing structures can use these.

Due to the large change it has been to create a new structure for the TV series data on our service, including changing the technology around searching for series and episodes, there can be existing structures that function with XBMC and other products, which for some reason do not import as expected into My Movies 4. One of the main purposes of the pre-release is that such situations are solved.

If you are having structures that does not import as expected, it is recommended to remove all the TV series from the database, and use the import functionality again - this will re-import your file structure, and create a "TVSerieLog.txt" into the My Movies debug directory, which you can open from "Help", "Debug" in the Collection Management program. By sending this file to support@mymovies.dk along with a description of what is not imported correct, we will be able to reproduce the import of your structure in our systems.

You can read a detailed specification of the required file structure for TV series support here.

Disc (DVD, Blu-ray, HD DVD) Support

As of My Movies 4 Pre Release 7, TV Serie support for DVD's have been added. Disc titles that are marked as having "TV Serie" content will be placed in the "tv serie library" section of the application, but otherwise will be browsed the way they have always been in My Movies 3 until a TV Series and episode mapping have been made on the profile.

Once a TV Series and episode mapping have been made on the disc title profile, the linked TV Series and episodes will be displayed below the disc title in the Collection Management title list, and the disc title will be removed from the viewing in Windows Media Center, and instead replaced by a proper TV Series entry with individual seasons and episodes.

When playing an episode, My Movies will request Media Center to start playback of the specific mapped title set or chapter, meaning a direct playback of the selected episode. Notice that for this functionality to work, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is required.

There are a few things to notice in regards to the TV Series support for disc titles:

- The support is for DVD's only. My Movies currently does not allow for title and chapter reading of Blu-ray's.

- For direct playback of episodes, the media must be in VIDEO_TS format. ISO files containing DVD's will be started into the menu as with normal playback.

- Direct playback of episodes requires usage of the internal Windows Media Center player. My Movies cannot pass specific title or chapter playback to external players. We will later on be checking if some of the external players supports passing of direct title or chapter playback, and if so, support these players for this functionality.

- There are some DVD's that always forces Windows Media Center into a language selection menu, and from that to the titles main menu, and thereby ignoring the direct title or chapter playback. This is unfortunately a limitation with the Windows Media Center SDK.

- The mapping of TV Series and episodes on DVD profiles in the database is currently limited. We recommend anyone to help contributing mappings for these. The easiest way of checking which title set that refers to which episode is to use Windows Media Player and use the DVD's menu to select a specific episode, and then make a notice of which title or chapter Windows Media Player starts playing.

Interfaces Supported

While My Movies primary interface is for Windows Media Center, our Collection Management today stores meta-data for both Dune, Popcorn Hour and other products that allows for TV serie support. These other front-ends will not initially be supported by the update to My Movies 4 - once we are sure that the interface and background functionality is as required for Windows Media Center, we will be looking at extending the support to these front-ends as well.

This will be either during the pre release period, or soon after.

Windows Vista vs. Windows 7

Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 is currently supported by My Movies 4, however some functionalities are only available in Windows 7, such as the extended configuration options for the start menu.

There are changes in the Windows 7 SDK for Windows Media Center that we currently do not make use of, but consider making use of. Due to this, we are also considering if we whould make My Movies 4 a product exclusively for Windows 7, and deprecate support for Windows Vista.

This is something we would like to hear your thoughts of on our forums.

Importing TV Series

It is recommended that you use the Collection Management option "TV Folder Import" in "File", "Import", for your initial import of TV series, as this gives you an overview of imported episodes and series. After your initial import, we recommend that you enable folder monitoring in "Tools", "Options", "Folder Monitoring" for your TV series folder(s), allowing it to automatically keep your tv structure updated.

At the time of adding a TV series, My Movies will add a full structure of the TV series, including both seasons and episodes in your collection, and all known season and episodes in the server, even when they are not in your collection. For episodes and seasons not in your collection, only the structure marker will be downloaded - no data will be downloaded for the episodes and seasons, and these will also not be featured in the Windows Media Center interface. You can at any time click on an episode to download data for it - even if it is not in your collection, you can then select a file for the TV episode manually.

The reason that not only download episodes and seasons in your collection is to give you a good overview of the full tv series, and giving you the option to later on handle data on episodes you do not have in your collection.

The tv series, seasons and episodes are given different icons in the Collection Management tree structure, depending on the status of the element. It is recommended that you become familiar with the icons below:

Image - TV Series

Image - TV Episode that is not linked to the online service (local). This TV Serie is added during import if your collection contains a TV Serie that is not known by the service.

Image - TV Season

Image - TV Season that is not linked to the online service (local). This TV Season is added during import if your collection contains a TV Season that is not known by the service.

Image - TV Season where data is not downloaded. This TV Season will not be visible in Windows Media Center.

Image - TV Episode

Image - TV Episode mapped to a DVD (VIDEO_TS) title or chapter. This episode will be played back from the DVD (VIDEO_TS).

Image - TV Episode where data is not downloaded. This TV Episode will not be visible in Windows Media Center.

Image - TV Episode where the link to a playback file is missing. This TV Episode will be visible in Windows Media Center, but not playable.

Image - TV Episode that is not linked to the online service (local). This TV Episode is added during import if your collection contains an episode that is not known by the service.

Media Center Start Menu Changes

In My Movies 3, the menu items in the Media Center start menu were not configurable, and there was only an option for having one strip. To better support the requirement for TV series, My Movies 4 by default contains two strips - one called "Movies" with the movie library functionality, and another called "TV Series" with the tv series library functionality. These sections devide movies and tv series into seperate libraries.

You can in "Collection Management", "Tools", "Options", "Media Center Start Menu" configure how you prefer the start menu, which means you can configure it for either one or two strips, you can name each of the strips to your own preference, and you can choose which items you would like in the start menu.

One thing to notice specifically is that there are three default entry options for the start menu, which is the default used "Movie Library" and "TV Serie Library" and the alternative "Media Library" which combines all your media intro one start menu item. This allows you to configure one strip with only one entrance instead of the default devided two strip functionality.

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My Movies for Windows Home Server 1.6.*.* and My Movies for Windows Media Center 4

My Movies for Windows Home Server is at the time of the pre release of My Movies 4 not updated for the TV Series functionality. It can however with one exception still fully function as a back-end for My Movies 4. The exception to this is that since the Windows Home Server software does not know of the added folders used for TV Series, it's backup functionality will not include TV Serie graphics. This means that any backup during the pre release must be made from the Collection Management side.

We will during the pre release period release a Windows Home Server version where it's backup will be able to backup TV Series as well, however we do not know yet when a release will be available where folder monitoring will function with TV Series functionality.

Virus Scanner Notice

During the pre release, My Movies 4 is by default configured to write process information to it's debug log. This means that a lot of informations is being written into the file "log.txt" in "C:\ProgramData\My Movies" - some virus scanners, including Microsoft Security Essentials scans files each time they are written to.

If your virus scanner is not set to ignore this file, you will find that My Movies will be slow in everything it does. You must open the configuration of your virus scanner, such as Microsoft Security Essentials, and configure it to not scan the "log.txt" file in "C:\ProgramData\My Movies".

Providing Feedback

We would like as much feedback as you can give about the pre release - including malfunctions, improveable items or general ideas on how to improve the release. Depending on the workload, we will be spending the pre release period to solve any issues with the implementation, and if the time allows it, implement functionality that can be improved.

Please use our forum for feedback - there will be a "My Movies 4 Pre Release" forum available for the purpose.

Discussing My Movies 4

While we require 1,250 points (excluding trial points) on a users account to participate in the My Movies 4 Pre Release, the content of it is not a secret to the public. You are allowed to post any screenshot, thoughts or anything else you might have from March 1'st where the pre release is available. This includes both posts on our own forums and on external websites and blogs.

Notice though that the product is available in a pre release version with the purpose of improving the functionality for the final product. We ask that you do not judge the product exclusively by the functionality provided in the pre release - there will be various improvements in the pre release period based on user feedback, and the correct time to fully review the product will be at the time of the release.

The final release of My Movies 4 will be available to everyone on May 9'nd 2011.

Pre Release Period Extended.

On March 1'st 2011, we released the first pre release of My Movies 4 for users with 1,250 points or more. At that time, we wrote; "We expect the final release of My Movies 4 to be available in the first week of April, but based on the amount of feedback and workload this gives, this date can change".

We are unfortunately now going to have to change this date.

There are different reasons for this - first of all, we have during the pre release period had a number of functionalities that we internally had marked as optional for the initial release, which we hoped to have time for during the pre release period, but which we did not see as a requirement. Some of these functionalities have however, based on the feedback received by users, been marked as needed for the final product release, to ensure the quality and usability of the product for all users.

Secondly, we have taken in some feature requests that made a lot of sense to implement, which we had not planned for at the time we released the initial pre release.

And, third, we have had to re-assign some resources during the pre release period to our My Movies for Windows Home Server product, to be ready for Windows Home Server 2011. Windows Home Server 2011 have unfortunately by Microsoft been handled in a way we do not agree with - at a time where we internally were near ready for the release, key functionalities were removed and changed, causing us to have to make a lot of changes to our implementation - at the same time, since there was no indication of a release date from Microsoft, and the whole existence of the product in our eyes came in doubt, we removed our resources from the product. As no release date have been given to the public, we have had to react to rumors, which means we have had to temporary take some resources from the My Movies 4 project. It is unfortunate that this affects this product, and we hope that Microsoft in the future change the way they make decisions for their product and their release, allowing us to better plan our resources.

Due to the above, we are now extending the pre release period one month to Monday, May 9'nd 2011, where we will release My Movies 4 to the public.

We are sorry for the inconvenience this gives our users that with less than 1,250 points cannot make use of My Movies 4 at this time.

Changelog

4.00 Pre Release 8:


To come.

4.00 Pre Release 7:

Added: Disc icon for disc releases
Added: Support for direct playback of episodes on DVD titles.
Added: Disc Titles can now work as TV Series.
Added: Complete percent calculation on TV Series.

Change: Point requirement changed to 1,250 points.

Fix: Error when importing images to Series where no images are available in advance.

4.00 Pre Release 6:

Added: Contribution of images.
Added: Support for multiple episodes in one file by format SxxExx-Exx
Added: Support for seasons and episodes with more than two digits in their numbers.
Added: Series and season images are updated on series language change.
Added: Episode path is now overwritten if an already existing episode is added through import/monitoring.
Added: It is not possible to add TV Series as online. In that case the selected folder will be scanned for episodes.

Update: Phone export packages
Update: Series update now includes pictures
Update: Episode update now includes images
Update: Select of poster/backdrop/banner now uses language of series when showing alternatives.
Update: Rating of images updates the view and possible the selection
Update: Locale images are shown first in image list.

Fix: AnyDVD changed a directory on Blu-ray's
Fix: Installer on X64 attempted to install Visual C++ Runtime X86 on each installation
Fix: Categories were not synced when changed in the mobile applications
Fix: Dune paths were not set correct
Fix: Backup did not backup TVRolePhotos
Fix: Exception on cover style change
Fix: Issue that could cause a crash when synchronizing the collection down to the client.
Fix: Added support for "Online (Folder Content)" in Dune remote control playback.
Fix: Selection in title list is no longer changed after update of series language.
Fix: Some records were not correctly removed in personal data, causing wrong collection numbers on new titles.
Fix: Personal sort title was not correctly used when saving a title.
Fix: Collection Number shown as 0 when removing col # in personal data edit.
Fix: Print report crashes when TV Series is present in database.
Fix: Release date always shown as US based date.
Fix: Reset collection numbers did not follow tree list sorting
Fix: Editing a box set sub item did not update information on save.
Fix: If database somehow got disconnected, the tray app could stop to function.
Fix: Temporary workaround on issue where only intros played when started from remote control. It now bypasses intros.
Fix: Issue where search found TV Series titles in English when added in other languages.
Fix: M4V video types where not identified by default.
Fix: Previous/Next caused issues with watched markings on TV episodes.
Fix: Issue with selection when updating titles.

4.00 Pre Release 5:

Added: Parental controls now also works on TV Series
Added: Media type included in Preview
Added: Covers shown in TV Update Status.
Added: Additional logging for crash when creating DVDID.xml file

Change: Some changes for amulet devices
Change: Export to iPhone/iPad package now exports all actors.
Change: Added maximize button for options.

Fix: If user installs as server or standalone and current server is not local host, server is reset during installation.
Fix: Title list is updated when a Disc Title is saved after changing the entries in the series/box set.
Fix: Check if folder is a TV/Movie monitored folder, which didn't work on folders directly under the drive root.
Fix: Implemented better information from FolderMonitoring about added and removed Episodes.
Fix: When downloading new episodes, the locked state of the TV Series is inherited.
Fix: Release country is removed when changing country in TV Series or Episode.
Fix: Parental Rating dropdown is now based on the Series selected Country or Release Country.
Fix: Message that could show when changing GUI language, and the last selected TV Series was deleted.
Fix: Sorting of TV Series titles in Add titles search now comes in language and rank sorted order.
Fix: Episode bindings are now removed when changing Disc Titles binding to TV Series.
Fix: Overlay icon watched not displaying correct on series or seasons if all items were watched.
Fix: If there was only one playback option, direct play presented a menu with this one option instead of playing it directly.
Fix: Edit Episodes now uses the language that was selected when the TV Series was binded to the Disc Title.
Fix: Storage of language for tv serie
Fix: Episode info on Movie titles chapters was saved when the chapter was marked as not containing an episode.
Fix: Medium covers selectable when exporting to iPad, despite not useable.
Fix: All seasons settings were incorrectly disabled by default.
Fix: Collection Number could be displayed as 0.
Fix: Left aligned episode # in Edit Episodes table.
Fix: Problem in FolderMonitoring when renaming an episode file while monitoring wasn't running.
Fix: Seasons and Series are now deleted from the titles list, if they don't contain any subnodes, after deletion of episodes.
Fix: Sorting fixed in TV Update Status.
Fix: Double import of not found files fixed.
Fix: Removed error when editing persons through right clicking.
Fix: FolderMonitoring no longer checks TVSeries folders on timer update.
Fix: On change of source, a check for node selection is implemented.
Fix: An unclosed connection could cause issues with tv serie person checks.
Fix: Import status for movies reverted back, as a problem was added that could cause a crash.
Fix: Focus first node when starting
Fix: The opening title in Collection Management was not the right one.
Fix: Small incoming exceptions
Fix: Issue that could cause a crash in the Media Center interface when browsing an inserted disc

4.00 Pre Release 4:

Added: Update of selected series and episodes, with update overview.
Added: Resume functionality on TV episodes
Added: Option to play all episodes or play random episode on a series or season.
Added: Ctrl+P to function as remote play button
Added: Accessibility for Amulet Devices
Added: Playback menu on view pages

Fix: Data was not deleted from tblTitlePersonal table
Fix: Issue with missing description on some episodes
Fix: Saving a TV Episode without selecting a file causes it to loose it's icons
Fix: Category/Genre entrance opened all categories or genres despite section.
Fix: String were referring to movies even when in TV Series
Fix: Issue with no collection number showing as 0.
Fix: Now handling exception from TreeList when changing caption on columns.
Fix: Removed a storage of an XML document made for test, which could cause issues where titles did not load, and therefore lost data on save.

Change: Windows 7 Media Center required
Change: Locking implemented on TV Series and Episodes.
Change: Filepath selection for episodes changed to a text input box.
Change: Icon change for delete in toolbar.

4.00 Pre Release 3:

Fix: OpenEpisode could throw an exception
Fix: Minor issues in incoming exceptions
Fix: Error in TV Result List which happend if there is no seriename for a node in the list.
Fix: Exception occurred when downloading an episode image if none existed for the episode.
Fix: Issue with overlapping previous/next buttons on episode details screen in 4:3 mode.
Fix: Search results did not include tv episodes
Fix: Issue with previous/next episode changing data when browsing back.
Fix: Watched icons were not changed correct on season and series when changed on an episode
Fix: Alternative titles shown for episodes in Season View, when no language specific title exist.
Fix: Improvable text was not correct for TV serie titles
Fix: String in configure view was not correct.
Fix: Issue with incorrect editing of episodes if changing a title back from TV Serie to something else.
Fix: The watched button was showing "mark as watched" when item was already watched.
Fix: "Modern" icon type did no longer work
Fix: Search from tv serie library entered movie search
Fix: Unwatched count was not displayed correctly in details section
Fix: Episode count should not display if it is 0
Fix: Changing TV Serie library default view did not work.
Fix: A service that should not be included in Collection Management installer was included.
Fix: Issue causing a crash when applying settings in configuration on non-English language
Fix: Error when first episode(s) in a folder are not found, but the rest of the episodes are. The not found files are now added as personal episodes.

Change: Search result in add titles is sorted by language
Change: Folder Monitoring prints to own log file.
Change: Delete of Series also deletes remote IDs.
Change: Improved ranking of search result to support year search both with and without () around the year.
Change: Added version info to import log file.

Removed: Change of series in the middel of a series folder scan.
Removed: Confirmation when there is nothing to confirm in Folder Monitoring Confirmative mode.

4.00 Pre Release 2:

Added: Option to mark all titles as watched or unwatched by right clicking a TV Serie or Season in Collection Management
Added: Fix: Added susppot for [] in foldername
Added: Option to hide 'All Seasons' item when browsing a TV Series
Added: Option to configure "Watched" icon to be an "Unwatched" icon instead.
Added: Option to configure episode counter to be an unwatched episode counter rather than just an episode counter
Added: TVImportResult is now shown when using "Change Source & Data" on TV Series.
Added: Cascading language and country change on TV Series.

Change Source implemented on Import Result
Change: New database option clears all graphic folders.
Change: TV import - series not found in the webservice are added in import as local only series.
Change: Optimize database and backup database now cleans unused TV Serie content
Change: Last selected directory when manually selecting episodes are now remembered.
Change: "Play" remote button now works on TV Episodes for direct play
Change: PlayDirect option added for TV Episode view
Change: Series/seasons overview now shows english titles for episodes that are not found with a title in the selected language.
Change: Added indicator to show that you can click to select an image in the image selection dialogs.
Change: Current Series Language and country is now used for, download of episode through UI, download of episode though FolderMonitoring, download of episode though Import TV Folder
Change: When using the AddTitles Dialog, the language in the selected TV Series row is used for the import.
Change: TV show information (episode titles) are downloaded for known Series even though the titles doesn't exists for the selected language.
Change: Arrangements of tabs in TV import dialog
Change: New MediaInfo.dll 0.7.42

Fix: TV Serie add button was floating in add titles dialog when resizing the dialog.
Fix: TV library default view kept reverting in Collection Management configuration
Fix: Filtered titles label in Collection Management always showed 0.
Fix: TV Series on disc was displayed in "Online Titles" and "Offline Titles" sections in movie library.
Fix: Default list configuration to categories did not work.
Fix: Connect To Server dialog showed My Movies 3 in it's graphic
Fix: TV Series posters did not display in Media Center if you were running non-default cover profile and was connected to another machine as database server.
Fix: Removed a bug, that used the whole path as seriename, instead of the actual folder.
Fix: Mark watched and mark unwatched on episode actions page did not work.
Fix: It was not possible to expand a TV Series in Collection Management if you searched for it using a filter.
Fix: updated third party component causing an odd scrolling position in title list when using text filter.
Fix: Seasons and Episodes was not always sorted correct in Collection Management
Fix: Issue where TV Episodes used a default image of a DVD cover when running non-default cover profiles.
Fix: Move to group was not available in TV Series right click menu.
Fix: Foldermonitoring doesn't add TV Series folders that are already added under another name.
Fix: Exception handling when scanning for videofiles.
Fix: The localization referred to a red marking in title list, which had been changed to a different type.
Fix: GUI language in TV Controls is updated on GUI language change.
Fix: If you selected genre or filter list as entry type, it always went to categories instead.
Fix: Issue where applying a filter could cause box set items to show in root title list.