Overview

What is the My Films Plugin and who should use it? Why use a movie catalog software? PLEASE READ FIRST!

Introduction

My Films offers a quick 'out of the box' solution to view and use your existing movie catalog in MediaPortal, without needing to re-scan your data. It combines the strengths of standalone desktop (end-user) databases with MediaPortal's media center features, giving you the best of both worlds. 

You can also create a movie catalog using MyFilms which can be used in Ant Movie Catalog, or any catalog that supports NFO files, with all the power and ease of use such movie catalog apps provide.

Many of the advanced features of movie catalog apps are integrated in MyFilms such as advanced search, view by any field, customize or add views, update data by field, by record (i.e. film) or global updates, all within the My Films user interface.

In addition, MyFilms allows you to use as many databases as you wish in MediaPortal. Or you can eveneven create separate 'configs', like profiles, for any database, with different settings, such as for protected (e.g. adult) films, different users, or different types of videos (such as home movies, documentaries etc) and control import and internet lookups for each config separately.

To learn more about the many unique features MyFilms offers, see the blog: My Films 6 released!

Why use a movie catalog?

See Supported Catalogs for details on the many different movie catalogs you can use with MyFilms.

There are many types of databases and database management software. A standalone desktop (end-user) database gives you, the user, primary control over the data, not the application.

MediaPortal databases are mainly tools for developers to make your movies and data available in MediaPortal. MyFilms is opposite, it is designed to make (or create) standalone databases available in MediaPortal. 

What are the advantages?

By supporting movie catalog apps, My Films offers many advantages:

1. Get all the power of an standalone database or movie catalog software combined with great media center features in MediaPortal.
2. Use your data anywhere, not only in MediaPortal, with the database program of your choice
3. Never re-scan your data again, even when installing new versions of MediaPortal
4. Maintain complete control over all your data - to scan and add new movies, update data or even delete records or files - all from within My Films in MediaPortal
5. Display all your data, and even Customize Display
6. Centralized data, even on a NAS or SSD, for all your 'client' PCs with different settings for each user/client if you wish.
7. Top notch performance for large collections, My Films has been tested on catalogs with over 10,000 films.
8. Multi-user - create different configs for each user and display a menu when loading My Films. All users can access the same catalog but with different options, even filtered lists of films, and you can password protect each config.
9. Multi-databases - use as many databases as you like with My Films, just create a separate config for each database and choose to display them as a menu when you open My Films, or easily switch databases from the Options Menu.
   Just configure My Films using the Setup Wizard to point to your existing catalog or database, and start using it in MediaPortal right away.

The My Films Suite

My Films provides three separate applications to allow you maximum customization of your own data:

1. My Films plugin - for Using MyFilms in MediaPortal, as well as MyFilms Setup tool which includes a Setup Wizard for easy configuration.
2. Grabber Script Editor or Interface tool - to customize and create your own internet grabber scripts
3. AMC Updater - to manage global updates to your Ant Movie Catalog database, including importing new  films from within My Films.

For further details or overview of the plugin architecture, see Architecture.

Getting Started

Although My Films offers almost infinite customization, the Setup Wizard will preset most options for you and allow you to begin using your movie catalog in My Films in minutes. See: 

• Getting Started - for details on installing MyFilm and ways of organizing your films 
• Quick Setup - to learn the basic setup required, and how to use the Setup Wizard.

Related

References

• Architecture