Media Browser Add-in

jachin99

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#121

Post by jachin99 » Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:30 pm

I'm not sure if this still works but I've been wondering about how to do this for a while.

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DavidinCT

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#122

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:46 pm

jachin99 wrote:I'm not sure if this still works but I've been wondering about how to do this for a while.
It should, it's not media Browser any more, its' Emby but, there is still a WMC plugin.

https://emby.media/emby-for-windows-media-center.html

I need one just for WMC and extenders... I just want it to show movies (so need to be able to disable all other features). This was the problem with My Movies... You got all the TV plugins and all that stuff and could not remove them.
Last edited by DavidinCT on Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

jachin99

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#123

Post by jachin99 » Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:50 pm

I asked about it over on their forums, and it looks like it still works. I want to also use emby for things like internet streams, and game emulators so I want to add menu tiles on my emby strip right next to the emby entry point. These tiles will hopefully lead to views within emby for things like game emulators, and internet steams, etc.

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DavidinCT

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#124

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:56 pm

jachin99 wrote:I asked about it over on their forums, and it looks like it still works. I want to also use emby for things like internet streams, and game emulators so I want to add menu tiles on my emby strip right next to the emby entry point. These tiles will hopefully lead to views within emby for things like game emulators, and internet steams, etc.
Interesting. I already have things in my WMC start menu for "Games" (Emulation Station + other games) and "Streaming + Video" (YoutubeTV and others). My Emulation Station setup has everything from the Atari 2600 to Wii (yes, it runs Wii games) and everything in-between (2600, 5200,7800 Sega gen and master, NES, SNES, N64, Mame and much more), using a dedicated Xbox 360 controller for every system.

I would be interesting starting to replace the "Movie Library" in the Movies Strip, and if it works good with good results on WMC on an extender (not needing to leave WMC to run it), I would expand on it...
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#125

Post by jachin99 » Wed Sep 27, 2017 6:09 pm

I'm kind of the other way around. I only use emby so far for Movies. I use Big Box for my games but I'm wondering if emby would be better because BB doesn't do very good on my older machine.

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DavidinCT

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#126

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Sep 27, 2017 6:46 pm

jachin99 wrote:I'm kind of the other way around. I only use emby so far for Movies. I use Big Box for my games but I'm wondering if emby would be better because BB doesn't do very good on my older machine.
Your using Emby now ? Can you limit it to just show "movies" and not show options for music or any other option ? I just wait my movies to show, Not music, not games, not anything else. This is what I wanted. I created another entry point for "games" and changes "pictures + video" to "video + streaming" and just added icons to WMC. SO what I was thinking about doing is removing "Movie Library" and use Emby to replace that one icon.

As for emulation...

Emulation Station (Emulation front end). http://www.emulationstation.org/

Does not need crazy specs to run (depending on what games you want to run of course), You can use Relaunch for WMC to create a icon in WMC...
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#127

Post by jachin99 » Wed Sep 27, 2017 7:04 pm

I keep going back and forth with my emulator software of choice but Big Box has a huge fan base, it integrates with steam, its extremely customizable, and supposedly the just updated it to make coverflow work a little smother. Anyway back to emby, On my Emby menu, I only have Movies, Trailers, and Games but if you follow that thread, they basically suggest creating users for each media type so you could create a user named Movies and restrict that user to only see movies I'm guessing. I haven't had a chance to mess with it yet though. I'm also curious why use MCS when MCE reset toolbox seems to work so well? My biggest complaint about both of those is that they take ownership of a few .dll files that basically breaks the start menu api for any other purpose, I.E. I haven't been able to move anything from my extras menu to the start menu with either of those programs, or registermceapp.exe while they have been installed on my machine.

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#128

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Sep 27, 2017 8:30 pm

jachin99 wrote:I keep going back and forth with my emulator software of choice but Big Box has a huge fan base, it integrates with steam, its extremely customizable, and supposedly the just updated it to make coverflow work a little smother. Anyway back to emby, On my Emby menu, I only have Movies, Trailers, and Games but if you follow that thread, they basically suggest creating users for each media type so you could create a user named Movies and restrict that user to only see movies I'm guessing. I haven't had a chance to mess with it yet though. I'm also curious why use MCS when MCE reset toolbox seems to work so well? My biggest complaint about both of those is that they take ownership of a few .dll files that basically breaks the start menu api for any other purpose, I.E. I haven't been able to move anything from my extras menu to the start menu with either of those programs, or registermceapp.exe while they have been installed on my machine.
I know Big Box, I looked at before going my own way with Emulation Station. I see your point with it but, Emulation Station is HUGE (I would bet larger than Bog Box) on the Rasberry PI. I went the Windows Version because of the horse power my HTPC has, so that is how I can run up to Wii Games and even tested a WiiU game with good results. Emulation Station is VERY customizable, theme able and you can even add systems that are not even listed but, editing it is mostly XML files.

That is interesting about "restricting" a user to only view movies. I'd have to really know it would do what I want before even attempting it. I battled with a POS called My Movies and worked so hard over 2 weeks to try to get it work for my needs and what came out of it was that it was a HUGE waste of time. The built in Movie Library works, it's a little buggy at times but, with YAMMM, I get perfect Meta data and art, so it's the standard basic movie setup.

As for using Media Center Studio. I used to use it (don't use it any more and it's been a while), I liked how it worked, it was quick and simple, with the menu fix program that I run after MCUPDATE (in the scheduled task, it kicks off right after) so menu add-ons never disappear. I cant use MCS any more. I did HEX edits on WMC (to disable the volume pop up that shows after stopping any video and the HIGH RES message when running WMC in 4k), after this MCS crashes when I open it. I am using MCE reset toolbox now. I customize with it as my only app.

Even with MCS tookbox changes can revert, there is a MCFIX.exe (think that is what it is) and you run and it will restore your settings. The MCUPDATE scheduled task is what breaks it, by adding a line to it, your changes never go away.

There are threads on this and I was the one who found this little trick that many people have used.... one of the little secrets of customizing your menus in WMC..
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#129

Post by jachin99 » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:47 pm

To setup emby for just Movies, I only point it towards my movie library. The nice thing about emby is it has a really nice interface, and I have video backdrops and trailers for all of my movies. I went through My Movies also and kind of came to the same conclusion you did. I dont use emby for anything except movies for the time being but I'm looking at expanding it to Internet tv (If I can find content) and possibly games. I setup the start strip as suggested in that thread I linked to and it worked pretty well. If you read through the first couple of posts, they created start menu entries on the emby strip for different users so you could have an Emby strip with tiles for each user, and or you could have an emby strip with tiles for different genres. If you have an xbox one, emby also has an app for that also but you need to be a subscriber to use it.

I did have to go through some pain to set it up but I can make it much easier for you. I subscribe to their premier service but that isn't needed for basic movie functionality. If you want to give this a try I would say its worth it in the long run but it takes some setup up front, and if you want to use ALL of its features you might have to pay money for them. Just let me know what you decide and I'll help. As an aside, how did you setup YAMM? I see the service is installed on my PC but I still don't get very good metadata within my movies tab on regular old WMC

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DavidinCT

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#130

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:01 pm

jachin99 wrote:To setup emby for just Movies, I only point it towards my movie library. The nice thing about emby is it has a really nice interface, and I have video backdrops and trailers for all of my movies. I went through My Movies also and kind of came to the same conclusion you did. I dont use emby for anything except movies for the time being but I'm looking at expanding it to Internet tv (If I can find content) and possibly games. I setup the start strip as suggested in that thread I linked to and it worked pretty well. If you read through the first couple of posts, they created start menu entries on the emby strip for different users so you could have an Emby strip with tiles for each user, and or you could have an emby strip with tiles for different genres. If you have an xbox one, emby also has an app for that also but you need to be a subscriber to use it.

I did have to go through some pain to set it up but I can make it much easier for you. I subscribe to their premier service but that isn't needed for basic movie functionality. If you want to give this a try I would say its worth it in the long run but it takes some setup up front, and if you want to use ALL of its features you might have to pay money for them. Just let me know what you decide and I'll help. As an aside, how did you setup YAMM? I see the service is installed on my PC but I still don't get very good metadata within my movies tab on regular old WMC
If your movies are setup correctly... example..

D:\movies\
D:\movies\movie 1 (2008)\Movie 1 (2008).mkv
D:\movies\movie 2 (2010)\Movie 2 (2010).avi

Then load up the menu for YAMMM and it asks folders for movies, in this case, you would add "D\movies" then check over the other settings select your options. Then hit ok, within 20 min or so, all your movies will have art and meta data (look over the options asking what you want).

Do you have a link directly to Making EMby giving just to show only movies ? And does this work perfectly on an extender ?
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#131

Post by jachin99 » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:17 pm

Emby is a client/server setup so when your setting up the server, you point it to your movies folder, and then define what type of content is in that folder. For extenders, I think you have to make sure your codecs are setup properly so if your regular movies work on extenders, then I believe Emby will also. It shows up on my one extender but my codecs are screwed up somewhere. I don't use extenders much
Last edited by jachin99 on Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#132

Post by jachin99 » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:19 pm

DavidinCT wrote: Then load up the menu for YAMMM and it asks folders for movies, in this case, you would add "D\movies" then check over the other settings select your options. Then hit ok, within 20 min or so, all your movies will have art and meta data (look over the options asking what you want).
?
I don't think I have all of YAMM installed because I get the service running but I can't go into any kind of YAMM GUI or program

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DavidinCT

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#133

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:27 pm

jachin99 wrote:Emby is a client/server setup so when your setting up the server, you point it to your movies folder, and then define what type of content is in that folder. For extenders, I think you have to make sure your codecs are setup properly so if your regular movies work on extenders, then I believe Emby will also. It shows up on my one extender but my codecs are screwed up somewhere. I don't use extenders much
I"ll give a few weeks before I test it... New home and lots of projects, I hope in the next few weeks I will catch up...

Sigh... a server setup on a single machine...Do you have to setup each movie one by one ?
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#134

Post by jachin99 » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:18 pm

first off congrats on the new house. I got one of those a year ago and I'm still setting things up. Once you point emby to your movies it will probably recognize your existing metadata. Emby recognizes .nfo files, and there is a plugin to enable it to recognize .xml metadata files.

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#135

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:19 pm

jachin99 wrote:first off congrats on the new house. I got one of those a year ago and I'm still setting things up. Once you point emby to your movies it will probably recognize your existing metadata. Emby recognizes .nfo files, and there is a plugin to enable it to recognize .xml metadata files.
Thanks :) We were renting a larger home for about 5 years and made the owner an offer that he accepted, so I didn't have to move. Now I can go from 5.1 to 10.1 on my audio on my HT :)

YAMMM keeps all the movie XML files in programdata, So, in each movie folder, there is a video file (the movie), a folder.jpg (the art) and a DVDID.XML that refers to a YAMM ID, those IDs match up in c:\ProgramData\Yammm\DvdInfoCache

Editing a XML file in DvdInfoCache shows the full meta data for the movie. Not sure how that will work out...
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#136

Post by jachin99 » Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:58 pm

You can also configure external players like mpc hc for Emby so you might be able to use all ten of those channels. I've just started to get all of the speakers required for 7.4.2 but those were the cheap part. Someday I'll have to fork out the cash for the AVR.

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#137

Post by jachin99 » Fri Sep 29, 2017 2:58 pm

I'm working with a few people over on the emby forums so that I can figure out how to make setting these things up simple for you and others. Do you have chrome installed on your machines or just IE? I ask because their web apps work much better in chrome

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#138

Post by DavidinCT » Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:04 pm

jachin99 wrote:I'm working with a few people over on the emby forums so that I can figure out how to make setting these things up simple for you and others. Do you have chrome installed on your machines or just IE? I ask because their web apps work much better in chrome
I have Chrome LOCKED in just for YouTubeTV...Nothing else, as the configuration is locked, I don't want to touch it for anything else. I have it working perfect so, if it aint broken, don't fix it :)

If it needs to be on a remote machine, Chrome is no problem but, I prefer Firefox or IE over Chrome.

Link me to the thread your in, I'll pop over and see what your playing with.
Last edited by DavidinCT on Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#139

Post by jachin99 » Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:06 pm

99 percent of the time you won't need their web app but if you want to create a start menu shortcut that goes straight into trailers for movies that are currently playing in theaters, the easiest way to do sou would be through a webpage. It still could work in IE but I'm betting it would work better in chrome.

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#140

Post by jachin99 » Mon Oct 02, 2017 12:50 pm

Here is the link. https://emby.media/community/index.php? ... ntry493742

Last night I deleted all of my old metadata files, and left just the dvdid.xml file and emby still recognized it so you wouldn't have to create new files. The OP uses MCS, and I'm having trouble making some of the modifications with MCE Reset toolbox.

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