Movie Central 4.0 (New Release in works)
An awesome movie collection manager.
A freeware project by sidtechster
NEW FEATURES
- Fresh new UI, fresh new look.
- Built using Microsoft .NET WPF framework.
- UI optimized for HD screen resolutions.
- Navigation based on visual elements, rather than text elements.
- Code optimized for less system resource and network bandwidth usage.
- Re-worked scraper tool, 95% accurate in finding movie informations, works 70% faster it was in version 3.
NEW TWEAKS
- Removed the old banner, added a new one to fit the appearance of the whole app.
- Replaced the search text box, users had problem with the cursor. New GLOW EFFECT is cooler.
- Press ENTER key after typing in the search box. Don't know, how I missed that with previous release :)
- For searching through collection, INSTANT SEARCH (like Google) is included.
- The movie poster can be changed on-the-fly. Just click on the poster to get the new one. Click on the tick that appears on the poster to save it. That's it.
- The thumbnail scroll at the bottom is sorted by movie title. Can be scrolled with the mouse scroll wheel.
DESCRIPTION
- Movie Central is a personal movie collection manager.
- It is a free desktop application for creating and searching personal movie collection.
- Manage your movies in your PC in the most easy way possible.
- It has a has very simple UI and is a very lightweight program, only some few MB download.
- Uses TMDB.org for movie metadata.
- Includes scraper tool, that automatically add movie metadata to your collection from TMDB, looking through your movie folders in PC.
- An extremely accurate and fast scraper tool. You don't need to wait hours to complete.
DOWNLOAD LINKS
PROJECT SITE
Hey Sid, just swinging by to say I like Movie Central a lot. This 4.0 version looks very cool; the scraping is indeed very fast. After about an hour of use, I am sure I'll keep this app around.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of observations though. Hope you don't mind.
Minor issues:
1. The folder setting is a bit of a hassle (as in: if you have your movies subcategorized on genre -like I have- you have to click every subfolder in the scraper. Same goes for sequals. All in one folder? Have to make a subfolder for every sequal, and click it individually from within the app). Not a big deal, I'll gladly spend some time on it all looking good, but it takes a little bit of time. But not a real problem.
2. The banner does not fit the rest of the app-looks.
3. Not all movie posters are the original ones. Some are French, some are Danish, some are Czech, and so on. I know TMDB.org is probably responsible for that, but it sometimes makes it difficult to see what movie it is in one quick look.
My biggest problem with the app is the fact that I'm not able to sort my movies from within the app. Not even alphabetically. As a result, 'Rocky IV' is placed before 'Rocky' in the timeline, and 'Airplane' comes after 'Up'. Would really like to see a way of sorting the movies from within the app. Either on release year, genre, name, or all of the above.
Other than these few remarks, I'm very enthusiastic about your work. Will definitely continue using it, and am looking forward to potential updates.
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Hi Jasper,
ReplyDeleteReally appreciate your comments.
I will include these changes in the next release.
1. Searching subfolder will be done. I actually modelled it according to folder structure present in my PC.
2. The banner is like that only. Wish could have done better. :-)
3. I have also noticed same with posters and I am also bit irritated. There are multiple posters available in tmdb.org. I have fetched the first one only. It can be fixed if we pull the 2nd one.
4. Will include sort option. Thinking of like UI will have the movie scroll at bottom sorted.
Let me work on these changes this weekend. Expect next release by 1st May.
DeleteHi Sid,
DeleteYou're welcome. Fantastic that you respond so quickly! I've been playing around with the program some more, and I still love it. It's fast, accurate, and is by far the best looking from all movie collection software that I've tried (oh, and I can totally live with the banner and the strange posters, no worries there).
I was looking around in the main folder and I saw that you mentioned file2folder as a good way to quickly 'folderize' the movie files. Tried it, works great! Thanks for the tip. Solves that problem. When auto-searching in subfolders created, it couldn't be an easier piece of software to work with.
I'm keeping an eye on your blog, and I'm excited to see what the new release will be like! Thanks for the time you're putting into this! If I run into anything else, I'll let you know.
Oh, just of thought of another suggestion (don't want to pile it up too much, but I'm afraid I'd forget otherwise): would there be a way to export the list of movies, and import it into Movie Central on another computer?
DeleteI have most of my movies on my pc, but it would be cool if I could download Movie Central on my laptop too and import the list of movies, just to have my database with me on the go. Don't know if it's possible, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Could be fun, for movie geeks like me. Thanks!
Jasper,
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you are giving feedback. Please continue to do so. I need those from users as that really helps to improve the app.
1. I can change that banner, may to something that's simple and fits into the UI. No big deal.
2. I have worked out the way to replace the existing posters with those in English. Even I was myself not very satisfied with the weird posters.
3. That folder and sub folder look up will need some coding, but it can be done. Let me see what I can do.
4. The app is completely portable. You can just copy paste the "mcdb.mdb" file to any other PC/laptop and carry the entire library with you. Till that .mdb file is there with .exe file, the app will work like charm.
Do reply if have any other suggestions, you are welcome.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Sid,
ReplyDeleteGreat news on the portability; I hadn't figured that out yet. Well done, thanks for letting me know! Got another minor one (so I deleted my post from before to add it): searching requires the user to type the name, and then go back to the mouse to click the search button. When you're adding your entire DVD collection to the program too (like I'm planning on doing), hitting 'Enter' in stead of having to click would be something of a time saver. Would that be difficult to program?
There. Now I'll give you a chance to work on it for a while, haha. Looking forward to the update. Good luck!
Hey Jasper,
ReplyDeleteI have started working on your comments.
Yes, now you can hit Enter to search. I have already done that.
And guess what, for searching through your collection, I have done instasearch, like Google. You can search while you type. :)
Instasearch sounds awesome, Sid. This thing is getting more awesome by the minute. Can't wait for the result.
ReplyDeleteCould not pull off the subfolder scan for the scraper. The code complexity was going through the roof.
ReplyDeleteThe best logic that could have been done lowers the accuracy of the tool. So I thought to better let it go for now. Anyway, scraping is a one time job, I don't think it will be very big problem.
I will soon post a video tutorial on YouTube.
Rest of the stuff has been taken care of. Now I am quite happy with the UI.
ENJOY :)
Screenshots look awesome, Sid! Can't wait to use it. But.. how do I get the new version? I tried downloading the app from the Download button above (the Cnet one), but then I get the "old" version. Could you guide me to the new version?
ReplyDeleteI'd like commend you for a job well done, both in the creation and the 'customer service' around the app. On behalf of movie buffs around the world: thank you!
Pl get that from the sourceforge link. Download.com hasnt updated the link.
ReplyDeletePhenomenal. Looks and works fantastically. Thank you!!
ReplyDeletehi , very nice work :)
ReplyDeletewonder if i can suggest 2 things to be add ?
1-option to play the movie from GUI ,(if we have file in HDD).
2-to add for movie ,a tag for watch / not watch movie.
Keep up the great work .. :)
yes, i had it in mind. but right now i'm not getting much time to spare. busy days at office :)
DeleteVery impressed with the scrape function. Also the UI looks really neat. I strongly support the option to play the movie from the GUI (who wouldn't?). That will make it a really powerfull movie manager. That plus a select by genre. I'll surely keep an eye on this software.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I am indeed working on a movie play function.
DeleteGenre selection will follow up soon.
Well gud job & really appreciate your fantastic effort. I have tested many catalog collections but none worked fine like yours congrats... of course looking forward to your play from gui option. I just love to bring to your notice two things as you work on this option.
ReplyDelete1. People who have huge collection want to track the source of the file. if it is portable hard disk/DVD then it would be great to track the name of the same along with the path to file.
2. When we can play from the GUI, in case if portable hard disk/DVD is not connected then a error message to load (with hard disk/dvd name) hard disk/DVD to play movie.
Hi Sid,
ReplyDeleteI'm hyped about Movie Central, I'm using it with Windows 8 is it compatible and if not why? Is that why when I try to load it sometimes I get a message saying it stopped working and closing unexpectedly.
Sorry, but it was not designed for Windows 8. Not sure of the compatibility. It has been tested on Win XP/Vista/7.
DeleteExcellent tool!
ReplyDeleteIf you could add an 'Open folder' button to each movie once you'll have stored the path, that would be perfect.
And a watched flag too of course.
Thanks :)
greetings -
ReplyDeleteover the last week or so, I am not able to use the application anymore to scrap movies. It was working until few weeks ago. has something changed from the source database that is preventing any movie information to be downloaded?
thanks
fb
Yes looks like it cannot fetch the movie info. Not sure if tmdb.org api key has expired, or they have stopped the service.
ReplyDeleteUPDATE: The tmdb.org api version has changed from v2.1 to v3. This new version uses JSON instead of XML responses. Need to change code for that.......
ReplyDeleteThe program does not work. We are waiting for the new version
DeleteThanks for your interest. I will need some time for the new version. In the mean time please use XBMC.
Deletethank you ..I expect the new version
DeleteUPDATE: I am working on a new version that will use v3 api. Watch this space for more updates !!!
ReplyDeleteA suggestion. If you can read information from a NFO file then everything will work.
ReplyDeleteMost collectors of movies already have all the information and gear of his films. Use programs such as MediaElch or EmberMM. And so it already has a NFO file with all information.
We can divide this area of Media Center in 3 sectors.
1 - Collect data and arts and maybe subtitles.
2 - A good interface to present the collection.
3 - An interface to the movie player. With all codec problems and updates.
Maybe if you focus on item 2 is more productive.
Hi Sid,
ReplyDeleteI unzipped the file, Movie.Central.4.0.zip into the C:\ and ran the program, all came up ok.... but I have encountered a few problems....
Just to let you know, I have Win8.1 and I have setup a Library called Movies and under that I have approx. 300+ movies. The structure of the folders is that each movie has its on folder and it contains the movie in it.
i.e. Under the library Movie I have:-
2001 - The Fast and the Furious (2001) [1080p] as the folder and
The Fast and the Furious (2001) 1080p.mp4 as the movie.
Is the are particular structure that is required because I ran the scraper tool and all movies came up red.
I also tried to do a search for a movie, made sure that the button was selected for online and it came up with a red box in the middle of the screen saying.... Could not connect to internet....
Not sure what I am doing wrong but any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
George
I can guarantee you that I am connected to the internet 1000%..... thought I'd let you know.
DeleteThanks for your question.....but the problem here is the API used in making this program. tmdb.org is the source from where the movie info is fetched. They have discontinued the API version that I have used in the program. So you are just fine on your side.
DeleteI am working on a newer version, till then, use any other app. XBMC recommended.
Hi Sid.! Thanks for this wonderful app. I just found it. Too bad its not working anymore. Desperately waiting for your update man. Cheers..!!
ReplyDelete- Siddhartha Nayanananda :)
http://sids-blogsite.blogspot.in/2015/03/new-movie-central-app-in.html
ReplyDeleteAll new Movie Central has been released !!!
ReplyDeletehttp://sids-blogsite.blogspot.in/2015/03/the-all-new-movie-central.html
Sid, I used the old version of your Movie Central and loved it. I can't get 4.0 to work. I'm using Win 7 Enterprise. I have the newest .NET installed. Do I need to uninstall all but .NET 3.5?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
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