Windows Media Center Video images

[Amitojc]

I am using windows media center for my home theather. I was wondering if there is a program that allows you to attached the right clip art for all of your videos. I have my video files in folders and I got them to work with wmc. I go to pictures + videos and go to video library and they are all there. Is there any way to see the picture of the show instead of just the name. Is there a program that is out there that will tag them for you. Thanks!

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Look into mediabrowser.

 

[Fardringle]

MediaBrowser is great. It's not perfect, but it's the best option I have found. It did use French cover art for a couple of my movie files for some reason, and I had to intentionally spell the name wrong on two of them to match the source that the program uses (http://themoviedb.org and http://thetvdb.com) but overall it was a very simple process and I love having the original DVD cover art for my video library instead of a random frame captured from the video itself.

 

[jtvang125]

If you want to stick with WMC then mediabrowser is a good choice. However you now have to pay for any new themes that comes out for it. The application is still free though but only comes with the default theme. Another plugin that works within WMC is MyMovies but is pay to use.

If you want a front end that doesnt require WMC there's a few more options. There's XBMC and MediaPortal that I have tried personally. I stuck to MediaPortal because it was a little easier to setup. They're both free and so are many of the different themes and plugins for them. They also have much better looking eyecandy than mediabrowser if that's your thing.

 

[vi edit]

My Movies used to be pretty cool. Haven't used it in a while so I don't know what continued support is like.

 

[jtvang125]

My Movies used to be pretty cool. Haven't used it in a while so I don't know what continued support is like.

Yea, that's what I used when I built my first htpc. I stopped when it went pay to use. I would have paid for it but on large movie collections it choked badly. I heard responsiveness with large collections have been improved but with nicer looking and not to mention free alternatives now I never went back.

 

[LikeLinus]

XBMC hands down. I just got a Ceton InfiniTV 4 and I have to use WMC for the LiveTV (it's the only software that Ceton supports). So i tried to move over to WMC w/ Media Browser and it was a horrible experience. It's slow, ugly and has a crappy configuration setup.

I found a addon that will put XBMC on the WMC menu and I've since switched back to using WMC with XBMC for my movies! It's awesome. It basically switches back and fourth between the two softwares. Great stuff.

If you don't need live TV, use only XBMC w/ the Aeon NOX skin....awesome stuff.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=89151

SS in that thread.

 

[Fardringle]

I tried XBMC and while it seems to have some nice potential, I personally don't care at all about skins since I want to watch movies, not look at the program's title screen. Unfortunately, the program itself lagged noticeably when clicking on options even before I added videos to the library. The program was not able to identify any of my movies even though MediaBrowser uses the exact same source and was able to identify all but a few on the very first try. I admit that I may just have set something up incorrectly, but a program like this should work without any hassle, so I dropped XMBC and went back to MediaBrowser since it actually works.

The best answer would be to try the various free options and see if you like one better than the others. For me, that's MediaBrowser. For LikeLinus it's XMBC. You might have a different opinion...

 

[Amitojc]

Well the question is I have a bunch of movies in avi format in a folder called movies. I want WMC to tag all the movies, so they have the correct name, and a little description and picture. I can do this with media browser? It didnt seem like it was going to work like that. Thanks!

 

[Fardringle]

Yes, as long as the names of the video files match the actual names of the movies, MediaBrowser will automatically download the DVD cover art for the movies and display the cover art and other movie information instead of just the file name and a random frame captured from within the video.

The (old) instructions for MediaBrowser say that each movie file has to be in its own folder, but that hasn't been the case for a while so you can leave everything together in one big folder if you want to. That's the way I have mine set up, except for TV series which get their own folders.