Vista Media Center does a great job for displaying and organizing your DVD’s with the DVD library, but unfortunately lacks the ability to do the same thing with other media files. This is where MyTheatre comes in.
Here’s a bit of a preview of what I’ve been working on.
Planned features include:
- Multi file support (e.g. Movie CD1.avi, Movie CD2.avi)
- Multiple file locations (You can have several locations where files are stored, and they will all show up on the one screen)
- Metadata support for at least
- Title
- Release Year
- Cover
- Genre
- Plot
- Cast
- Runtime
- Rating
- Ability to flag movie as watched
- Offline media (You can have files on CD/DVD that will still show in the movies list. When selected you will be prompted to insert the appropriate media)








Where can i d/l this from?
Still work in progress
Wow that looks great! If I can add a requirement in – parental controls would be *really* useful
Parental controls?
As in don’t allow certain rated movies to be played?
Hi,
Have you seen http://MyMovies.name – it seems to do what you plabto do.
Jan
The problem with MyMovies is that it is a hosted HTML application (and until recently it wouldn’t work on Vista X64). I find the UI very messy and inconsistant, and it is much slower than something written using MCML. However I do love their Collection Manager
Trent,
I think this is a great idea. I have been trying to find something that combines the MCML look and feel of the “My Videos” and “DVD Gallery” in Vista for a long time. If you have a version of this that can be previewed or something let me know and I can provide you some feedback/testing. You have hit the main things as far as I’m concerned: Look and feel; and the ability to store movies all over on network and have them show in one sorted list.
Please email me if you allow testers or if you make further progress.
This looks real nice, been using MyMovies and the looks as you say are inconsistent and messy and really ruins the whole thing for me. The way the cover art is displayed above is much nicer and gels perfectly with he rest of media center. Can’t wait for you to release this.
Trent, this looks great. Thank goodness someone has realized the need of adding a “sort by genre” capability to the DVD Library in MCE. This will be extremely helpful for those of us who have very large DVD collections. Thanks for sharing the fruits of your labor with the rest of us…its sincerely appreciated. When do you expect to have a beta for us to test?
Thanks, Blake
Development is a bit slow at the moment, due to time and lack of knowledge in MCML (Could they make it any more difficult?!)
Trent this sofware would be fantastic as I have qite a few avi and ts files. I would pay for somthing like this! Please let me know when you have somthing ready even for testing.
Hey Trent how are ya how can i get in contact wit u to talk to ya bout my work website??
hey trent i got ur email but i can’;t reply to it keeps coming back as a failure … i need to no how to fix my email on express for enquiries@earlyfords.com.au in c panel it says my accounts are full but when i set it all up and try to get them it says i have no emails … help me!! and can u tell me how much we are paying for the hosting??
I hope you get this thing up and running Trent. Have you seen dvd library manager? You may consider combining your genre sorting idea with it. It is an excellent little program for ripping info off the net about actors, directors etc. I have all the dvd information on my collection now I just need to be able to search more effortlessly. Keep up the good work. I am sure microsoft wont do the job as they are against the playing ripped dvds from hardrive. It is the movie manufacturers that are to blame, they need to get over it though as physical dvds are going to be the way of the past very soon.
I would love to try this once you get it up and running. This seems to be the most appealing interface currently out there.
Seriously – this is awesome. Please, even a beta!
It’s getting there…
WOW! This is huge. Just when I was having a major tug of war in my mind about whether to stick w/ DVD Library, or move to MyMovies, this great app comes along.
DVD Library has a much nicer look to it, but definitely lacks some of the features of MyMovies. Sorting by Genre is a must.
Please keep us updated on this. Can’t wait!
Definitely be looking to get some donations for this if you pull it off =).
Check out my later post about Open Media Library
I was wondering how you were doing on this project? I have been searching for a way to short the libary by “Rating” and also have some parent controls that might even not publish the DVD in the libary without a password or something.
Thanks,
Shawn
Hi Shawn,
Check out http://www.openmedialibrary.org
Hi, looks very promising. However, can not recognize and install on Vista Ultimate with TV Pack 2008:-/ Any hint? Thanks.
Hi Peca this http://www.openmedialibrary.org work fine I just got it to inport all my movies all 293(MPG) it work find on Vista Ultimate. now I need to find out how to get rid of those menu in MCE that I don’t need like the sports, weather etc I just need only the videos and music.
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