Movie library replacements?

[DavidinCT]

Does anyone use the "Open Media Library" ? Is it worth checking out (as an interim before I jump into Emby) ?

[Sharks]

Ok, now that I have officially gave up on My Movies because of the issues I had on my machine, so, maybe I will try Emby. So the question is, with everyone knowing now what I am looking for, a replacement for the Movie Library, will this do what I need or does it have a lot of fluff ?

IS there a step by step install for it to get my desired results ? Everyone is saying it's a little complex to setup so really don't want to re-invent the wheel here just trying to get it setup in WMC...

IS "Open Media Library" any good ? I know it's old and has not been updated in along time... does it work on Extenders ?

Does anyone use the "Open Media Library" ? Is it worth checking out (as an interim before I jump into Emby) ?

I don't use "Open Media Library" but the site claims to work with extenders:
"Open Media Library
0.4 beta is available now
Finally, an open source solution for viewing and organizing your dvd library with Vista media center. This add-in allows users to browse their movie library all in one location. The titles have associated actor, producers, summaries, runtime displayed. The main layout of the project was designed to work through an extender such as the xbox360. "

I would say it couldn't hurt to try it?

[DavidinCT]

I don't use "Open Media Library" but the site claims to work with extenders:
"Open Media Library
0.4 beta is available now
Finally, an open source solution for viewing and organizing your dvd library with Vista media center. This add-in allows users to browse their movie library all in one location. The titles have associated actor, producers, summaries, runtime displayed. The main layout of the project was designed to work through an extender such as the xbox360. "

I would say it couldn't hurt to try it?

Ok, thanks, maybe if I get time this week I will clone my OS drive and give it a shot. I finally got my Issue resolved with the built in movie library (when I go into it, it loads the movies with art, then it flashes, I get all colored tiles, then about 3 min later it comes back with everything) but, willing to check out something new.

I am leaning right now to test Windows 8.1 on the HTPC to see if there is any performance improvements (and change the shell to "eshell.exe" so 8.1 does not load up, just MC). I put a larger SSD in my HTPC so I left a 40gb partition unused for this test.

MY HTPC, has a Q6600 CPU, a Core2Quad at 2.5ghz with 3gb of memory (running 32bit), I am doing a MAJOR upgrade my Desktop/gaming machine, so my Q9650 and 8gb of PC-1066 memory is going to be put in the WMC machine (might swap out the MB, as I don't think it will support the memory). So it should give it a minor boost in performance. I'll do an acronis backup with universal restore so I don't have to rebuild.

Oh, the list goes on but, at least the Built in library is working a lot better now.

[Rainey]

If you look into Emby closer you will find, it costs nothing to just add it to you WMC menu and also play back your local Movies on your network. ALso Emby WMC addin will show up in the Extenders WMC menu and work fine. I have this setup now and it cost me nothing.

Plex and PHT will also do this for no cost, but Plex (PHT) will not show up in the extender WMC menu. (You would need the currently pay app for the 360.

Both of these softwares cost when you want to add other devices that require apps to run on them. Or if you want to share your movies over the internet, or sync devices with the cloud then you have to pay for the pass or what ever to do those things.

Finally, Extenders have some limits and not all movies that will play on a HTPC will play on the extenders. So far all i have seen you say is some movies won't play on the extender, you have given no other info. If you want to find out why that movie will not play you will need to post some other info, like the Mediainfo listing for that movie, or errors from the logs or windows events, of you trying to play the file. Once you find the reason why the file won't play you maybe able to tell if it will play in Emby or the other addins you are looking at.

[DavidinCT]

SO I can do a quick update here. I fixed the built in Movie Library, it works flawlessly now. At this point I am going to stay with it, it works on Extenders faster than other apps I have tried. Maybe at some point I will try Emby to see how well it runs and how it looks.

My problems was with the built in product, I use YAMM for meta data and art, when I would open it, It should show all art and meta data (a little over 300 moves setup in it), then about 3 seconds later, it would blink, show all the colored boxes for my art and no meta data. Then about 2 min later, everything would be back and it was fine. Then when I watch a movie and I stopped it, meta data would not show up for another 30 seconds or so. Really freaking annoying, it even did the same thing on extenders.

What I found was a simple check box, Settings>General>Automatic Download Options> and Uncheck Retrieve CD album art, media information for DVDs and movies and internet services from the internet.

After unchecking this box (letting YAMM do handling of meta data and art), When I go into the movie library, it does it's search for about 1-2 seconds, all movies art shows up with all meta data (and stays that way), when I open a movie, all meta data shows, and when I hit stop on a movie, it shows meta data right away(just like it should).

SO, at this point it just works and works good.

Finally, Extenders have some limits and not all movies that will play on a HTPC will play on the extenders. So far all i have seen you say is some movies won't play on the extender, you have given no other info. If you want to find out why that movie will not play you will need to post some other info, like the Mediainfo listing for that movie, or errors from the logs or windows events, of you trying to play the file. Once you find the reason why the file won't play you maybe able to tell if it will play in Emby or the other addins you are looking at.

Yes, I have learned this the hard way. As I have moved to a 4K tv where my main HTPC lives, Higher bit rate movies with full DTS/DD/atmos HD master audio is very important to me now. I used to rip them to a lower bit rate(8-16gb per movie, now 15-30gb per movie size wise) and they always played back on extenders.

Using higher bit rate movies gives problems on extenders, The movies will play but, will deal with a pause every 5-10 min for about 2-3 seconds (while it buffers it), most movies are played on the main HTPC but, a lot of the kids movies are played on the extenders, so I do movie by movie compress them down, so they will play smoothly on the extenders. It's about my only work-around for this.

If you read through the whole thread, I did post why movies would not play at all after some trial and error. It's subtitles, Extenders do not support subtitles. If you have them enabled in a movie, it will fail when trying to play them back.

So, it's all working at this point, accept for a good chunk of movies have poor performance on extenders and I need to resolve these issues case by case.