Overview

What's new in version 6.1.0? A lot! over 54 changes including 34 new features!

Introduction

The MyFilms wiki has been updated to reflect all the changes in v 6.1.0. However, this page offers you a 'quick' overview of the major changes.  For a complete changelog see the MyFilms Issue Tracker.

Network/Central Setup Wizard

The Setup Wizard has been improved to support network setups with central configs for both the server and client setups.

When you select the Setup Wizard, it now offers an option to select the type of setup:

Setup Type: Choose Local Setup, Central Setup - Master, or Central Setup - Client

Please help us improve the documentation for the Network Setup wizard options.

Network Performance 

For networked users, loading a big catalog file e.g. from NAS (over network) can take several seconds on initial load. This initial loading and caching usually happens when My Films is entered the first time, resulting in some delay for the first use. After this, data is cached and if reentering / returning to My Films there is no delay.

To avoid this initial delay, a Preload option has been added to pre-cache the DB during startup, resulting in an immediate fast start also when first entering the plugin.

Note: This will only work if you have either a default config or return to the last config.

Auto import new movies

 Two new options are available on the Import Tab to auto import new movies:

1. Scan on Startup - enable this option if you wish to check for new films added to your movie scan paths whenever you first load MyFilms.
   • Start Delay - in order to ensure MyFilms has fully initialized your database, it is recommended to delay the scan on startup
2. Watch Scan paths - enable this option if you wish MyFilms to add new films whenever changes are made to your movie scan paths. However, it will only detect changes while MyFilms is loaded.

You can enable both options if you wish to ensure all new films are automatically added whether or not MyFilms is loaded.

Note: The import runs in the background using AMCUpdater - so ensure your AMCU Settings meet your needs. In particular the setting for Import behaviour in MyFilms in AMCU Import Settings which determines if you wish to import only the movie title and media info if a match cannot be found automatically.

AMCU Update NFO

Although it's not a 'new' feature, the AMCU Update NFO format has been improved to conform to XBMC (and most NFO based catalogs). This means you can now write NFO files for all your movies and quickly load them into a movie catalog that supports NFO import, such as TMM (TinyMediaManager), move your movies to another PC and quickly create a new movie catalog by importing using My Films NFO grabber, and much more.

The NFO grabber will now also manage multipart files, as some catalogs/movie managers save nfo using multipart file names.

Select random movie

Not sure what to watch? As of v 6.1.0 you can Select random movie from the context menu in the film list of any view:

So if it's family night, just:

1. select the Category view 'Family' to display all your family films,
2. turn on the global filter to 'only unwatched moves'  from the main sliding menu if you wish,
3. choose select random movie from the context menu
4. press play and enjoy! 

Browse by Virtual Path 

AKA 'Shares' view on steroids 

For private movies and/or documentaries, often little data is available from internet data grabbers - thus browsing via DB views is not that useful, because data is missing for many views.

For such scenarios, you can select Virtual Path Browsing from the View Options context menu.

This will display the media path data as a "nested hierarchy group" and thus is similar to a "shares view".

When you have organized your files in a directory structure, browsing that structure is a better approach to use such media collections.  If you are using multiple paths, all paths will be shown/available.

How to use:

1. Select View Options from the context menu
2. Select Virtual path browsing

This is a global setting which applies to all film lists, no matter which view you select, e.g. Categories, Persons views, etc.

Settings in My Films GUI

Change Default Config and Options

From the main menu: Options > Global Settings, now you can change the Config Settings as well:

1. Always use Default Config
2. Change Default Config

Box Sets, Groups, Collections

Add 'found' films to a box set or group

1. Search for movies you wish to add to a group, e.g. "Twilight"
2. Open the context menu and select Add all films to box set:
   
3. Select <Enter New box set name> from the Add to box set dialog:
   
4. Type the name you wish in the virtual keyboard.

Remove all films from box set

1. Open a group to display the group list, e.g. for box set or group for "Twilight"
2. Select Remove all movies from box set from the context menu (this option only displays in a group list) 
   

Download Box set, Group, Collection covers from TMDb

Warning: this feature requires a skin compatible with MyFilms 6.1.0!

TMDb now provides access to 'collections' including collection covers. Thus MyFilms 6.1.0 adds an option to download collection/box set/group covers from TMDb using a new custom selection dialog, which allows you to select the collection cover you like the most.

1. Select a group/box set in the list of movies, or open a group list
2. On the context menu > Updates > Select Download collection cover (TMDb) (only available if your skin supports it)
   
3. Select the group cover you wish from the dialog window:
   

The selected cover will be stored in the cover path you select in MyFilms setup on the Artwork tab using the Group/Box set name.

Online Movie Lists

Lookup Online Movie Lists, like Now Playing, Upcoming, Top Rated and Popular from within My Films

Now Playing, Upcoming, Top Rated, Popular movies

A new View Menu option  "*** Online Info ***" opens a sub menu of movie lists (currently only from TMDb):

• Now Playing
• Upcoming
• Top Rated
• Popular

Each view is similar to the respective list on the TMDb website. When an view is selected, My Films loads the list from TMDb and provides movie info, cover image and fanart.

For currently playing and upcoming movies - which most likely do not exist in your catalog yet - you can playback online trailers if available. If you have an extended trailer path configured in setup, My Films will cache those trailers in the background, so at a later time you have the choice to play them locally.

When you have that movie (e.g. in Popular or Top Rated movie lists), you can press enter to choose if you wish to view the entry in your movie catalog, or playback either a local or online trailer.

Facade entries are set for "remote", to show user availability of trailer files. This change is optional - if it is missing, user will not see, if an online trailer is present for the respective entry (skinners need to define remote color for that state).

Note: The first time you access Online Movie Lists requires a large amount of bandwidth as all data is accessed online. Some data is cached for later display (like cover thumbs). 

Search for Related Movies 

When viewing movie lists or a person's filmography, if My Films cannot find a 'match' for a movie in your local movie catalog, it may be due to different language or naming of titles. Thus you may select 'Search My Films' from the context menu option to search for related content with the same terms/keywords as the movie title in the list.

This search will find movies not found by 'auto matching' as well as "similar" or related movies, For example, when you highlight "Terminator Salvation" , you can find all movies related to 'Terminator' in your local catalog.

Note: See 'Search for Online Movies' below to search for related online videos, not only those in your local catalog.

Search for Online Videos

Prerequisites:  OnlineVideos plugin  

Why limit yourself to your local movie catalog?  My Films 6.1.0 offers a new context menu option to Search Online Videos ....

You can choose any web site supported by the OnlineVideos plugin to search and display related trailers and videos, even if internet databases like IMDb, TMDb do not have any. Thus you can find online trailers or other videos, that relate to your movie - even, if that content is not registered e.g. on TMDb.

Note: The other way round also works - see 'Search for Related Movies' above -  to search your local catalog for results, based on online content displayed in Online Movie Lists or a person's filmography.

Trailers+++!!

Several new features have been added to download, 'scrobble' and playback Trailers.

Trailer 'Scrobbling' 

Prerequisites: You must have local trailers available and registered to your catalog.

How to use:

1. Select any View in My Films main window, e.g. the film list or any other View, like Category -> Action
2. Open the context menu and select "play random trailers".

This will randomly play trailers from the film list you selected. In above example, you could play any local trailers you have for action movies.

Continue automatically!

After a trailer plays, a 'dialog' will display asking you to stop or continue. The dialog times out if you do not reply, and will continue to play another random trailer from the group.

Thus you don't need to do anything but watch all your nice trailers of a group and inspire you or your gues to select a nice movie to watch, whenever it comes up.

Playback Options:

• OSD displays movie details - when a trailer starts, a popup window shows you the title and year of the movie
• In full screen playback of trailers, you can press stop (which ends trailer scrobbling) or play/enter - the latter gives a dialog asking, if you want to play that movie.
• In full screen, you can also press 'next' button to skip the current playing trailer, and  My Films play the next random trailer.

Combine this feature with the new automatic trailer download feature, to download and preview trailers for any group of films you wish - like Recently Added movies!

Download trailers for multiple movies

"Globally" download trailers from TMDb for a group of movies, or all movies

Since this process may require considerable time, it is done in the background, using a trailer download queue that persists even when you exit and restart MediaPortal.Thus, download of trailers continues even if My Films or MP are stopped. This is done by saving the current queue to you config folder and reloading it on restart.

How to use:

1. Select any View or film list/movie context
   • main film list if you want to download trailers for all your movies
   • any view - e.g. Category -> Action to load trailers for all your action movies
2. Open the context menu and select "Updates"
3. Choose "Load all trailers for these films (TMBb)" to download trailers for all the movies in your current view

Trailers will be downloaded to:

• the trailer folder you defined in My Films Setup > Trailers tab, with subdirectory of film name 
• the movie folder if you have NOT defined a trailer path

1. 'Register' the trailers in your database - Global Updates > Search and add local trailers (all films)
   

When completed, you have trailers available for all movies with trailers on TMDb .

Note: Some trailers are restricted in some countries, those cannot be loaded, even if they are shown on TMDb site.

Play online videos or trailers

Prerequisites: OnlineVideos plugin

 Play streams, like YouTube links, or trailers  directly in My Films without jumping to the Online Videos plugin.

 Full HD quality playback! - when selecting an item in an online content list (or online movies list), an additional option for local cached content is added to the context menu. This is particularly useful when either your internet line or web-servers lack bandwidth.

The selected online trailers are added to a download queue and loaded in the background.

Actors/Persons Info

View related persons info from Details Window  

A new context menu option in the Details window allows you to jump to 'Info for Related Persons'  the same as you can from the main window.

Person's filmography

Prerequisites:  OnlineVideos plugin (for trailer search and playback) 

Display filmography from TMDb for a selected person. Similar to ***Online Movie Lists"*** but instead of listing Now Playing, Upcoming Movies etc. it displays the filmography for the current person. 

How to use:

1. Highlight a person in any person's view
2. Select "Filmography (TMDb)" from the context menu, this will:
   • load filmography from TMDb for the selected person
   • initial facade color is "remote"  (set by the skin you are using)
   • if the movie is in your local DB - color changes to "normal" color  (set by the skin you are using)
   • if an online trailer is available - color changes to  "download" color (set by the skin you are using)
3. Select a movie from the list  ("enter/OK"):
   • if only one online trailer is available - play it 
   • if only local movie is available - jump to the filtered view with that film ("film list view)
   • if multiple online trailers OR one online trailer AND local film are available - offer menu to select the trailer to show or to jump into respective film view

Movie thumbs 

As of v 6.1.0 My Films offers support to display thumbs created from the the movie files in the Details window..

If supported by the skin, My Films will automatically try to create movie thumbs from the media files using MediaPortal's built-in MTN thumbnailer tool. The thumbs (16 will be created to support 4 x 4 display) will be stored in the MediaPortal data folder:

...\Thumbs\MyFilms\MovieThumbs\<movie name>

. 

Thumb creation starts when entering the Details window in My FIlms It usually takes a few seconds to complete, similar to the creation of thumbs in the Pictures window in MediaPortal.

Note: Thumbs are only available for media files supported by MediaPortal's built-in MTN thumbnailer tool..

Examples

Cycling Multiple Images

The movie poster/cover is normal size as long as there are no thumbs available. However once the thumbs are created and available the movie cover will zoom out to a smaller size and allow the movie thumbs to be displayed  Display in this example is only available in Description view:

Once available, the movie thumbs 'cycle' in the thumb display.

Large Icons display

If supported by your skin, you may also display a 'large icons' layout as a 'virtual view' like the Full Fanart Layout, accessed via the right arrow from fanart view, or even via a 'movie preview' menu option.

Further Info 

Skinners may refer to Skinning My Films > Movie Thumbs for further details and XML skin examples

Certification logos by country

Have you ever wished you could display the certification logos that match the ratings for your country? Now you can!

As of v 6.1.0, MyFilms supports certification logos by country.

1. Use a skin that supports certification logos by country, or select the MyFilms logos pack in Logos Setup
2. Check if your country logos are supported by looking at the sub-folders in

   1. skin\media\logos\...

      if you use skin logos

   2. MediaPortal\thumbs\MyFilms\DefaultLogos\Certification 

      if you use MyFilms logos

3. Enter the corresponding two digit country code (ISO) in the new Country box on the Logos Tab in Setup.

This feature is backwards compatible. If your skin does not support certification logos in country sub-folders, certification logos will display as in previous versions.

Note: If you don't select a country in Logos Setup, My Films will attempt to fall back to your MP language, but in many cases (especially English ) the MP language code 'GB' will not match the country code (UK). If so, no certification logos will display unless you select a valid country code in Logos Setup that matches a certification logos sub-folder.

If your skin does not provide certification logos for your country you can add them easily. See Custom Artwork.

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