MyMoviesBrowser

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
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jachin99

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MyMoviesBrowser

#1

Post by jachin99 » Tue May 15, 2018 1:37 am

Throughout all of the plugins I have looked at since using WMC, MyMovies stood out as something that had a lot of really cool features (inlcuding disc changer support!!) but since WMC hasn't been included in Win 10, MyMovies has been abandoned. There is an offshoot of MyMovies that is being developed that looks like a really good alterntive, and it seems to me like it would make a lot of sense in WMC10. MyMovies browser is a browsing application that links to your MyMovies database, and immitates the WMC databse. Its advertised as working with a MCE remote, and it supports external players like PowerDVD, and MPC. What really stood out to me, and the reason I posted this is that MMBrowser advertises support for MS Movies & TV. I don't know exactly how the dev accomplished this but then again amazon, netflix, etc. don't have published APIs either so in that regard it makes sense. If anyone out there tries this out, chime in, and let the rest of us know how it goes. I don't run anything other than Win 7, and I use Emby for my movies but if I had a disposable Win 10 machine I would be all over this. The big downside that I see is its 22 bucks for movies collections greater than 101 titles. Here is a link: https://chamconsoft.com/mmbrowser/features.html

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Pauven

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#2

Post by Pauven » Thu May 31, 2018 9:18 pm

Hi, my name is Paul, and I am the developer of MM Browser. Hopefully it is acceptable that I post a few words here.

Like many longtime My Movies users, I was incredibly frustrated that Microsoft removed WMC from Win10, and also that Binnerup decided not to provide a GUI replacement. I sat on the sidelines for a year, waiting for someone to come up with a solution. Finally, I realized that someone would have to be me.

I'm incredibly proud of the fact I integrated the Windows 10 'Movies & TV' app. That was super hard, as there is no API or helpful documentation, so I'm glad you noticed my efforts. I could be wrong, but I think I am the only one to figure out how to do this - last time I checked Kodi users hadn't figured this out yet. One of the nice things about MM Browser vs. other apps like Kodi is that I figure out and program the integration with other apps for you. I've futzed with Kodi batch files to get Blu-ray ISO's to mount an play - what a pain.

Not only did I design the entire GUI to be used by an MCE remote, I included the ability to program a couple buttons for launching MM Browser and for closing programs. The only time you ever need to pull out a keyboard is if you want to use the search fields, though at some point in the future I will be adding the ability for the remote to enter letters too.

MM Browser will run on Windows 7 and 8.1 too, so don't feel left out if you are not on Windows 10. This makes it easy to give MM Browser a try on Windows 7 to see if you like it, and then upgrade to Windows 10 with the confidence of knowing that you will have a nice, working GUI for your My Movies collection. It's also a lot easier to use than trying to install WMC on Win10, plus it doesn't break every time Microsoft releases a major update.

And even if you have a collection larger than 101 titles, you can still install and use MM Browser for free, though you will only see the first 101 titles. I know, it sux to have to pay for software in this day and age, but to be fair all proceeds only go to cover my expenses (web site hosting, development tools, insurance). Everything is ad-free, I don't make a profit, and my thousands of hours of labor are free. While I'm happy to work for free, I'm unwilling to lose money and just want my expenses covered.

You should also check out the roadmap I have posted on the MM Browser forums. There's is a lot of good stuff planned for MM Browser, and I'm always open to suggestions.

Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

Jamie

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#3

Post by Jamie » Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:52 pm

Hi,

I have been using MMBrowser with mymovies for nearly a year now. It is the mymovies replacement for windows media center which the mymovies staff never produced. I am very happy with Mymovies browser and it works with Powerdvd, VLC, MPC-HC and MPC-BE. Yes, you need to pay $20 to use it, but I think it is well worth it. I had problems with getting JRiver, Kodi, and plex to work the way I wanted and MMBrowser filled that hole for me. Paul has made a lot of changes and fixes to MMBrowser and I think it is becoming the best replacement for WMC and with the proposed new features it will be vastly superior to what WMC ever produced. Paul, is good at considering changes and fixes and is providing excellent turn around on fixing issues and adding features. Stop by his forum at https://chamconsoft.com/mmbrowser/forum/index.php and check it out.

Jamie

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Pauven

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#4

Post by Pauven » Mon Oct 01, 2018 10:22 pm

I just released MM Browser v1.9, and I thought I would mention it here since it has a great new feature inspired by WMC - the Music Library.

It's got the classic Album view, available in 3, 4 or 5 cover rows:

Image


It's also got the Album Artist view, also available in 3, 4 or 5 cover rows:

Image


It's even got the famous scrolling wall of covers screensaver:

Image

-Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

evil-elmo

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#5

Post by evil-elmo » Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:13 am

Hi Paul - great work! As someone who actually uses WMC primarily for music (I'm sure I'm not the only one) I just wanted to say this looks like an amazing development!

One feature I REALLY like about WMC (that I didn't even know existed when I started using it) is the 'show photos' option when playing music. It enables my family to frequently see top rated (4 and 5 star) photos from holidays etc. Is this something you are considering or able to include? If so, I'll be a buyer for sure. :)

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Pauven

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#6

Post by Pauven » Sun Oct 07, 2018 1:54 pm

Hi evil-elmo,

Yes, photos are on the to-do list. To keep up with modern times, I plan to program the ability to show internet photo collections like Google Photos in addition to showing local photo collections, so it will be better than WMC in this regard. I'm also not sure I want to recreate the WMC photo slideshow. Its neat, but also a little gimmicky. I'm open to suggestions from users like you on how you want the slideshow to look and work.

Photos will not make it in for the v2.0 release, which is coming out in about 3 weeks on Halloween to celebrate the 1 year anniversary since MMB was released. I'm also planning to rename MM Browser for v2.0 to something a little more fitting, and will be doing a Terminator 2 Endoarm collectible giveaway to one lucky user in the U.S.

The big change for v2.0 is an upgrade to Un4seen's BASS Audio Library, which will bring support for pretty much every audio format, plus gapless playback. Yesterday I enjoyed listening to a FLAC rip of my The Beatles Love album which has seamless transitions for almost every track, and it was gapless bliss.

I still have a few things to implement in the Music Library, like playlists, and genre/year filters, all of which should be available by year end if not earlier. But the core functionality is there today and very usable.

Some things I didn't mention in my previous post that would benefit you are that you can configure MMB to start in the Music Library mode, plus you can configure a hotkey and MCE Remote button to launch MMB in Music Library mode - and for that last one you can even use the My Music button on your remote as long as you're on Windows 10 and don't have WMC installed and competing for control of those buttons.

Thanks for the complements. If you haven't tried it yet, you should give it a go. It's free to use for small collections (up to 101 titles), which also serves as a free trial for larger collections, with the only functional limit being the number of titles.

I think you'll also be surprised how easy it is to get running compared to WMC on Win10.

Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

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#7

Post by Pauven » Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:55 am

The next version of MM Browser is now available, and it is called Chameleon MediaCenter v2.0.

That's right, I've renamed MM Browser for it's 1 year anniversary. Chameleon MediaCenter, or CMC for short, better describes the app, since it is now both a GUI for My Movies and a replacement for the WMC Music Library.

CMC v2.0 adds some great new features. I upgraded the audio engine to Un4seen's BASS Audio Library, which sounds incredible plus now you can listen to a lot more formats, including: AIFF, AAC, ALAC, APE, OGG, FLAC, MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4/M4a, OFR, WAV, WMA, and WV.

On the My Movies side of the house, I added support for DVDFab Player 5, which is a strong competitor to PowerDVD and can play Blu-ray menus. I also increased support for more video file formats, adding AVI, DIVX, DVX, FLV, MOV, MPEG, MPG, QT, and WTV.

WTV, if you didn't recognize it, is the Windows recorded TV format used by Windows Media Center.

The other thing I'd like to mention is that I'm running a contest for the month of November to giveaway a Terminator 2: Judgement Day EndoArm 4K Ultra HD Collector's Edition Blu-ray set. For more information hit up the website.

MM Browser... er, uhm, I mean Chameleon MediaCenter keeps getting better and better. Have you tried it yet?

Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

misterpunn

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#8

Post by misterpunn » Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:59 pm

Hi! I tried reading everything from your site, but I don't completely understand...I have one quick question...when you say that it supports WTV files, does that mean that I could play files on my win10 Surface Pro 3 that were recorded on my win8 HTPC? I know those recordings are typically encoded to only work on the PC on which they were recorded, so that's where my confusion comes in.

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#9

Post by Pauven » Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:20 pm

Hi misterpunn,

That's a good question. CMC doesn't do anything to unlock WTV files for playback on another device, so if you have WTV files that are restricted to a single PC, then that restriction remains.

But I think it is worth a try. I didn't have any sample WTV files in my collection as I moved on years ago, so one of my users sent me a WTV file for development and testing, and it played fine on my PC. Maybe they aren't all restricted.

CMC is free to try, and free to use on small collections, so I'd love to hear what you discover if you decide to test this.

Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

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#10

Post by Space » Thu Nov 29, 2018 2:50 am

WTV files can be played on any machine that supports WTV files, unless they are copy protected (copy once). If they are copy protected, then they can only be played on the machine that the WTV file was recorded on.

Generally, a cable company can copy protect individual channels in their lineup, but usually networks that are also broadcast networks (local networks) are not copy protected on the cable system. What networks are copy protected is different for every cable provider.

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#11

Post by Pauven » Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:45 pm

Though it took longer than hoped, Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 is now available, and it has a lot of great new features to start off the new year.

The biggest new feature is multi-lingual support. Now you can easily select between English, French, German, and Spanish. Luckily the CMC user base includes native linguists from each of those locales, and they have meticulously translated CMC into those languages. More languages will be added in the future.

CMC is now partially skinnable - all of the images can be replaced to create a new look. In the future we will make this better and allow for custom colors too, but this is a start.

The settings menu in CMC had grown out of control, so v2.1 threw that all away and started fresh. The new settings menu is clearly organized, mouse enabled, and shows on-screen help for every last option (which is included in the translations).

For playback support, v2.1 adds TS and MPEG2 files. Not sure if any WMC users here use either of those. We have a CMC user that has a lot of TS files from a DVR card, probably a Hauppauge or something like that, so this was added for him. At this point, nearly every video format is supported, though we're always happy to add new formats when requested.

CMC v2.1 is smaller, and starts up significantly faster than before - which is great since it was already quite a bit faster starting than WMC.

From reading the forums, it seems to me that WMC users want most is a way to watch TV on their PC's, and that why you are die-hard WMC users. We've started developing a SiliconDust HDHomeRun front end, and hope to integrate it into CMC. Is this something anyone here would find useful?


Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

dkm

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#12

Post by dkm » Mon Jan 21, 2019 8:53 pm

Pauven wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:45 pm
From reading the forums, it seems to me that WMC users want most is a way to watch TV on their PC's, and that why you are die-hard WMC users. We've started developing a SiliconDust HDHomeRun front end, and hope to integrate it into CMC. Is this something anyone here would find useful?
Since you asked...

The only reason I still use WMC to this day is because of the ability to record and watch Copy-Once / "DRM" channels. If I didn't need that feature, I'd use one of the several other options available like Plex, Emby, or MythTV.

To date, several companies have attempted to offer DRM capability. Every one of them have run into the same issue: the licensing requirements and cost involved in implementing it. Jriver had a post a while ago that talked through some estimated upfront costs, and *ongoing* fees which made it cost prohibitive to continue. SiliconDust jumped through all the hoops and got their stuff approved, but their implementation only allows viewing of DRM channels in their own app, with recording to come sometime in the future and a $35/year fee.

Hopefully SiliconDust releases their 6-tuner Prime this year as promised, and that also includes the ability to record/playback DRM channels so I can finally get off of 7MC before it fully goes end of life. If they do this, and also allow API capability to record/playback DRM channels, then I'd hope we see a lot of new options in this space. However I expect that the Copy Protection certification is only for the full hardware+software stack.

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#13

Post by Pauven » Mon Jan 21, 2019 9:45 pm

Thanks for sharing dkm. May I ask what kind of DRM channels to which you are referring? I'm guessing you're talking about channels like HBO, but I'm not really sure.

As long as Silicon Dust provides an API and the backend to manage the DRM, seems to me that I can provide the GUI. I haven't dug into the SDK enough yet to know the limits. I've also heard rumors that some of their new stuff may not implement the API. Hopefully that rumor is wrong.
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

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#14

Post by dkm » Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:33 am

For my cable company (xfinity/comcast) DRM channels mean: HBO, sometimes FX when they show a recent movie, and sometimes when Comcast just decides to push through Copy-Once on a broadcast channel just because it's sweeps week :)

I'm no expert on how the DRM works, but there has to be a reason why no one else has done it thus far, and I'd be willing to bet it comes down to the certification process and financial cost to obtain the license. While SD allows, for example, non-DRM channels to work through Emby/Plex/Myth, it only allows DRM protected channels (right now only viewed in real-time, no recording) through it's own certified apps.

By all means, I hope I'm wrong and it's something that SD will open up for others to use. It'd be a holy grail for a lot of us here, I'd imagine.

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#15

Post by jachin99 » Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:27 am

PowerDVD can play DRM channels believe it or not. https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/50012.page I have never tried it myself, and their customer support is probably terrible but there's that idea. So that would make WMC, SD DVR, and PDVD. Of those three WMC still has the most attractive interface. Between working with cyberlink vs working with Silicon dust, I would put my money on the SD solution. Paul, I don't think SD is allowed to share DRM content with other programs so the best you could hope for is passing something off to HDHR View most likely. You could provide the guide though, and SD will let you stream channels not marked for DRM to things like Kodi, Etc so your in the clear there.

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#16

Post by Space » Wed Jan 23, 2019 3:24 am

The main issue with recording copy protected channels is that the resulting recording has to be protected by some sort of DRM.

So it is highly unlikely that any anything like Emby/Plex/Myth will be able to record it, ever. The only thing that might work is that one of these systems will be able to tell a third party app to record it for them (such as telling the SiliconDust app (if they ever get copy protected recording implemented) to record a show).

From my understanding, CableLabs needs to certify any implementation, and guess who the main members of CableLabs are? That's right, the cable companies, and they don't have any interest in speeding up the process of certifying things that can replace their own equipment (for which they get ridiculously high monthly fees from their customers).

There have been very few companies that have been able to get CableLabs certification for recording copy protected programming.

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#17

Post by Pauven » Wed Jan 23, 2019 3:50 pm

I certainly appreciate all the feedback, and all the great info.

What I find interesting about the SiliconDust HDHomerun is that the physical box does all the recording. Whether you use their app, or a different GUI that talks to the device via the API, the box still does the recording. So even if the recording is for DRM protected content, since the box is managing it, it should work.

Playback of DRM may be another matter entirely. I haven't gotten far enough along in my development to test this yet, though I'm sure the advice given here is true, that it will be blocked except by certain certified apps. Here again, I may be able to provide a solution, since I have already integrated with PowerDVD for playback, and have several users who use it for watching previously recorded WTV files. I think it should be possible to use PowerDVD for watching DRM protected HDHomerun recordings too.

I like a good challenge...

Paul
MM Browser is now Chameleon MediaCenter v2.1 - A MCE replacement for Windows 10 with My Movies integration and a WMC style Music Library!

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