104 replies to this topic

[Brettv3]

Gday, ive just installed the latest version and using vista 64, and when i open it i get INVALID APPLICATION unable to launch media browser

any ideas?
Cheers,
Brett

[morphjk]

I've installed it but it won't come up in VMC when I am in that. Have I missed something?

[HecklerUK]

OK, new version is working much better. I am no longer getting crashes when I enter folders with subfolders in my movies directory.

I am still getting random crashes at start up, usually after I have added some new files, or perhaps changed a few folder pics. A restart of media browser once or twice usually sorts this out. I'm wondering if it crashes trying to sort out the new files and images.

One more small bug for you to look at.

I use Poster view, vertical scrolling and so forth. When I change the folder.jpg the program itself doesn't recognise the new one, although video browser does. I delete the vista thumbs file so it should be picking up the new one. If I remove a folder it also refuses to recognise that it is no longer supposed to be displayed. Again, video browser recognises instantly that this folder shouldn't be displayed.

But 3 times now I have had to go into the settings and clear the cache, so it will pick up the new pics and folders. Which means I then have to go through and set up every folder to my preference again... and there's hundreds of em.

I love the way it picks up images for TV shows... but could you explain how it does this, as I have several shows that it refuses to find anything for. Could you also please include a language setting for the images it choose... as Scrubs managed to find German covers for 4 seasons.

Is there a conflict with having a folder.jpg in some but not all folders?

Cheers

[Blackdog]

Hi and thanks for this nice app. its just what i have been looking for to use with movies.
I would like to troll the forums as i have a query, but the link you provided doesn't seem to work for me,
"Feel free to post any questions you have here or alternatively you can try our forum at
http://videobrowser.ch "

If the movie information doesn't appear at themoviedb.org how can i assign a .jpg for the movie if it isn't in it's own folder but it is with other .avi's in a folder?

[HecklerUK]

Regarding the program picking up images for shows in a different language, it also does it for banners at the top right as well as the chosen display you can select via view.

[BNear]

Regarding VMC random crashing I can add this: If you've always experienced random crashing while using Vista Media Center, check for Video card drivers. Even though you may not be running the "King" of video card adapters, you should still be able to get funtionality out of Media Center. My HTPC runs a basic hardware setup; 1GB of DDR 3200, a 200GB Sata drive, a 1.8GHz Core2Duo on an older Asrock 775GI board with a crapy Geforce 6200 AGP video card. In the past I have noticed that a fresh install of Vista Ultimate 64Bit would run Media Center respectfully only if I stayed with the video drivers installed during Vista install and only if I lowered my System settings to do away with most of Vista's flashiness;

System Properties>Advanced>Performance>Settings>Custom and clear all boxes except the last three boxes

As soon as I attempt to upgrade the Video drivers with the new versions available from Nvidia, all hell breaks loose, I can't even Roll back the driver to get back to where I was and Sys restore is absolutley no help. After months of trial and error, my fix was to trim the settings and keep the vista VGA driver

Apart from that, Media Browser is a very worthwhile addition to Media Center and provides funtions that I can't believe MS didn't include in Media Center from the release of Vista

Edited by BNear, 28 December 2008 - 12:30 PM.

[HecklerUK]

More bugs for you.

I like the way it seems to rename the video files, but it also seems to rename them incorrectly. I can give some examples of movies or TV shows it renames with spelling errors and TV show episodes it gets completely wrong.

I'd like to be able to turn this feature off, as I am very meticulous in name my files correctly and I want them displayed as I have named them... Not how this wants them named.

I can simply turn of the metadata, but would rather be able to customise what data is collected and what is over written. Some of the descriptions it gets for TV episodes or movies is complete nonsense and full of glaring errors, gets the wrong movie. However turning of the metadata removes anything it has already grabbed including images for TV shows or movie folders... not to mention synopsis of episodes and movies.

Some movies it fails to get anything for at all, same with some TV shows.

I have noticed that if there is a slight error in the structure of the TV show or movie name it refuses to get any metadata at all. For example, American Dad... that's how most people will spell it for their folder. However the absolute correct and pedantic spelling is American Dad! note the exclamation mark. If that exclamation mark is not present then it will not collect any metadata. Another show is Samantha Who? and requires the ? to collect metadata, except that character is not permitted to be used in folder or file names. The same goes for movies, 10000 BC requires a comma to make it 10,000 BC and so forth... Any movie not labelled exactly perfectly will throw up errors, spelling mistakes or refuse to gather any info at all... and when he metadata can't get the name or even spelling of the movie correct, it throws of everything else.

Earlier I corrected the folder name for 10000 BC to 10,1000 BC and htis threw the error into media browser where every single image displayed in my movies folder was duplicated. This refused to correct itself until I again had to clear the cache... which I have to do everytime I make a small change such as adding a folder.jpg because the metadata gets the wrong one and refuses to use the one I provide.

Don't get me wrong... there is a lot to really like about this plugin... and it has potential to be one of the best. But at the moment it's a struggle to work with as I am constantly battling with it to accept changes.

[HecklerUK]

I have noticed a problem with Media Browser in VMC under Vista Home Premium 64bit with SP1

Media Center Extensibility Host Process ehexthost.exe is started when you run media browser from within VMC, if you press the back button or the green button this process does not terminate. If you then click on media browser again, it starts a new process (same process name) each time.

I have been checking why it seems to crash so often and think this might be the cause... I've had this process started 5 times while checking and each one takes up 30-50mb of ram... Which soon starts to add up. It's lucky I have plenty of memory or this could start to cause real problems.

[HecklerUK]

Is this thing still going? Their website has been down for a while now, getting no response at all, no site, no forums... no one is posting over here any more from the look of it either.

I've got a long list of bugs to give them, some of which are app killers.

Shame, because this had potential... but the process's that won't terminate and the metadata issues make this unworkable for me.

One of the things that really bugs me is that there is no way to correct metadata, it downloads the wrong information and it's impossible to find the right file as they're all randomly named. It doesn't bother getting any of the tag info from the files themselves. It downloads season posters and banners in the wrong languages and refuses to accept any changes you make by adding a folder.jpg or banner.jpg to the folder. Which means you have to then manually search through thousands of image files, all randomly named to find the one that's wrong... copy the random file name and insert the correct file with the correct random file name just to get it to work.

Then if you have to clear the cache because it keeps downloading the wrong synopis and film information, time after time and it's impossible to search through more than 2000 metadata files looking for the right one... which if you alter with the correct information is replaced with a fresh one downloaded with the incorrect information.

Would it be hard to add the requirement to choose the correct metadata.. prompt for some user interaction... If there is more than 1 film with the same name... don't just choose one at random and hope it's the right one (doesn't work).

Perhaps part of the problem is with the sites being used to collect the metadata from... in which case dump them and use one that works. 60% of the information is missing from all files, of the 40% that is just about all there, 75% of that is wrong in some way.

You can't flush incorrect ones without flushing the entire cache and it will only repeat the same mistakes over and over.

I've really tried to work with this... but enough is enough really.

[sambo99]

Jesus Heckler.

My server died a few days ago and it has taken me a few days to get it back, running and restored from backups, depending on DNS propagation the forums should be back up now (mediabrowser.tv / videobrowser.ch and bbs.wasnotwas.com all point to the same url)

To the specific topic on hand I would really like you to post something on the forums so the rest of the team can look at it. We do plan to give you more granular over metadata selection, this is beta after all.

[bdorring]

I am quite impressed with this plugin. I believe it has a little to go to make it an outstanding application though.
Along with a few issues that HecklerUK brought up in relation to the metadata. I don't want to rename my movies. I wish it would pick up on more movies, but if i can't, can we have a translation file, where we can put in our movie file names, and corresponding correct entry? Maybe a search facility within the GUI (on a movie movie basis) to find the best matches.
Also I notice when sorting by filename, it is not taking into account movies that start with A or The. I rather it not do this, so an option in the settings to ignore this would be great. (edit FIXED)
For movies that it can't find, it would be great if it still displayed an image of the movie (a picture of the movie 15 minutes in, or something)
Also, it would be good if I could select the default view for all folders and the ability to customize this view for certain folders. (edit FIXED)


I am very happy with this plugin and it is what I have been looking for a long time, to make my movies a more enjoyable experience.
I still can't get to your site, so Will wait for DNS to propagate and will post on your forums as well.
Thanks.

Edited by bdorring, 02 January 2009 - 05:40 AM.

[bdorring]

Found answer to most my questions on your forums.
I have changed the default view by editing the config file.
I have also removed the sorting on A and the (again via config file)

I am still searching how it can lookup my movies (all in same folder), instead of me going and renaming all my movies (not an option)

[HecklerUK]

Jesus Heckler.

My server died a few days ago and it has taken me a few days to get it back, running and restored from backups, depending on DNS propagation the forums should be back up now (mediabrowser.tv / videobrowser.ch and bbs.wasnotwas.com all point to the same url)

To the specific topic on hand I would really like you to post something on the forums so the rest of the team can look at it. We do plan to give you more granular over metadata selection, this is beta after all.

I'll pop over and post up some of the problems I've experienced... I think the biggest ones aren't the program issues but rather things to do with the metadata it's collecting. If the site it's grabbing from is wrong... then it ruins a rather decent program with potential.

I do understand about server problems... I run a site myself and had issues back in the summer... So now I pay for proper hosting so it doesn't go down again.

[iain.shepp]

Heya,

I have installed Media Browser and it was awesome until the other day when It said invaild app and had to close. I did this a reopended it and it wont show up new movies / tv eps I have put on. Also it duplicated my movies in the main folder.

Other than that awesome app, bit slow compared to video browser. Have gone back to the 1.3.2 build of video browser until this is fixed

Iain

[sambo99]

Iain,

I think these issues are sorted in our SVN branch, we should have a new release shortly

Sam

Edited by sambo99, 08 January 2009 - 09:50 PM.