Installing My Movies for multiple zones

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Installing My Movies for multiple zones"

Jocelyn Cox
6 years ago
Views:

1 Installing My Movies for multiple zones Getting My Movies installed for use on one Media Center is usually quite simple, but when getting a multiple zone environment running it s is a bit of a harder task. This document describes how to install and setup My Movies in multiple rooms, using the same movie database. The multiple zone environments can be achieved in two ways; either by installing and using My Movies on a single box running Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005, and connecting one or more Media Center extenders, or by installing My Movies for multiple Media Center boxes, and pointing them to a shared database. Which solution to choose is up to the individual user it depends on which types of movies you whish to play in secondary zones. In general it can be said that when installing a multiple zone environment using Media Center Extenders, the playback on the extenders are limited as it only supports some types of video files. When installing on multiple Media Center boxes you are not limited in playback if each box can access the movies trough a network drive, you can play DVD s both as VIDEO_TS folders or ISO s, or you can play offline discs, by inserting the disc into the correct Media Center box all of these are options you do not have with Media Center extenders.

These boxes can be acquired for amounts from $230 to $300, or they can be acquired as an add-on option for the Microsoft Xbox for about $75.

2 Installing for Media Center extenders What are Media Center extenders? Media Center extenders are dvd-like boxes that can be places in other rooms, and access the main Media Center box by either LAN or WLAN. These boxes can be acquired for amounts from $230 to $300, or they can be acquired as an add-on option for the Microsoft Xbox for about $75. Media Center extenders enables fast user switching on you main Media Center box, and allows the extender to connect to the Media Center box trough terminal services giving access to all functionalities of the main Media Center box directly on the extenders almost.

Limitations The main problem/limitation with the Media Center extenders is that they will not play DVD s in any flavor, nor will it play DIVX movies.

3 Limitations The main problem/limitation with the Media Center extenders is that they will not play DVD s in any flavor, nor will it play DIVX movies. This means that you would have to either re-encode your entire movie collection to a movie format supported by the extenders, and play this on both the main Media Center box, and on the extenders otherwise you would have to store the main DVD movie along with a re-encoded version supported by the extenders, and My Movies will then pick up the correct movie for the active environment. Installing Installing and setting up My Movies for use with Media Center extenders is pretty strait forward simply download and start the installer on the main Media Center box, and be sure to check the installation for Everyone, and not Just me (see screen dump below), as Media Center extenders connect with an individual user account for each extender, and therefore does not work when installing for Just me. After this installation My Movies is automatically available on both the main Media Center box, and on each connected extender. Connecting more extenders will also automatically give this extender access to My Movies.

4 Adding movies Before adding movies to your collection, you need to choose how to store them as with general My Movies installations, each movie must have its own movie folder, where a compatible movie file, iso image file* or video_ts folder must be located. As Media Center extenders log on to the main Media Center box, the local drives of this box is also available to the extender, one exception is automatically attached network drives when attaching network drives, and setting these to automatically re-connect on startup, this setting is saved for the current user as the Media Center extenders each have their own individual user account, these drives are not connected for the Media Center extenders. This means that movies must be located on either local hard drives, or on UNC paths (\\server\share\folder). Because of the limited video playback abilities on Media Center extenders, you would have to decide which types of movies you whish to playback on the main Media Center box, and which you whish to playback on the extenders this can either be a single video file encoded to support the extender, or it can be a local stored DVD as either a video_ts folder or a iso image file* for the main Media Center box, and a file encoded for extender for playback on these extenders. Offline discs are not supported for extenders, as these are real DVD discs located outside of your computer. The limitations for files compatible with Media Center extenders are: Windows Media Video 9 Series (WMV files): Maximum resolution of 720x480 Maximum bit rate of 4 Mbps. Variable bit rate (VBR) encoding is supported; however, high peaks in the video bit rate (higher than 4 Mbps) may cause video glitches Main profile Video width and height should equal the aspect ratio specified in the file Windows Media digital rights management (DRM) support up to Level 2000 MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (MPG, MPEG or AVI files):

5 Standard definition MPEG-1 layer I and II audio Maximum bit rate of 6.5Mbps When adding movies to your movie collection, you use the Edit collection program found in your Windows Start menu in the My Movies folder to add these online movies are added with a folder for My Movies to search on playback. When pressing Watch in My Movies on an online stored movie, My Movies search the given folder for movies compatible with the current environment, first it looks for DVD movies stored within a video_ts folder, secondly is looks for DVD iso image files*, and third for other movie files. This means that if you put in both a video_ts folder and a movie file compatible with the extender into the folder, My Movies will playback the DVD on the main Media Center box, and it the compatible movie file on the extenders this way you can watch full quality DVD s on your main Media Center box, while you can still watch them in encoded format on the extenders. If you only store a DVD as a video_ts folder, or iso image file* in the folder, My Movies will give you a message that no compatible video files were found when you try to playback the movie on the extender. If you store a file type that could be compatible with the extender, My Movies cannot see if the contents of the file are compatible with the extender, and it will try to playback the file if the file is unsupported, your Media Center extender will give you a video error. * Iso images files require Daemon Tools to be installed for My Movies to mount them. Installing for multiple Media Center boxes Installing My Movies on multiple Media Center boxes, accessing the same My Movies database basically gives you the same options as the Media Center extender setup, without the limitations although the setup and installation on the machines are more demanding, this goes for not only My Movies, but also the general Media Center machine, to make sure all machines can access the same music library, photo library, recorded tv and so on.

The gain is that all of the boxes will be able to play all types of movies, with no limitations you can play both online DVD s as

Off cause this is also a more expansive solution, but if you chose a heavy configured machine for your main use, and light configured

* Iso images files require Daemon Tools to be installed for My Movies to mount them.

able to access My Movies, and all of these should be pointed to the same location for database and image folders.

6 The gain is that all of the boxes will be able to play all types of movies, with no limitations you can play both online DVD s as video_ts folders or iso image files*, divx files and generally all videos supported by Microsoft Media Center. Off cause this is also a more expansive solution, but if you chose a heavy configured machine for your main use, and light configured machines for secondary use, a solution like this can be achieved for not that much more than an extender setup. * Iso images files require Daemon Tools to be installed for My Movies to mount them. Installing For a multiple Media Center machine setup to work, My Movies needs to be installed on all Media Center boxes that should be able to access My Movies, and all of these should be pointed to the same location for database and image folders. The easiest way to achieve this is to first install My Movies on each Media Center box on a local drive, as the installer will register the ActiveX object running the My Movies interface onto a trusted path make sure that the My Movies version installed are the same for each box.

7 After installing on all Media Center boxes, copy the full installation directory from one of the boxes onto a UNC path (\\server\share\folder) that all machines has access to this requires that all boxes can access this UNC path, without being prompted for username and password this could be done by having the same user on all boxes, and giving these accounts the same password. Remember that the machine itself can also access its own shares with UNC paths, to make sure that the path is alike for all boxes. If you open from the Windows control panel open the Folder Options entry and press the View pane and uncheck the Use simple file sharing entry, an x$ (where x is the drive letter) share is automatically created for all your disc drives in My Computer. When you have copied the full installation directory to an UNC path, you need to point all of your My Movies installations to this directory. This is the hardest part, and is done by editing the registry database from Run in the Windows Start Menu, type regedit to open the registry editor, and locate the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\My Movies then edit the InstallPath entry and set it to the UNC path you copied the installation directory to (\\server\share\folder\my Movies\), and be sure to end with a \ character.

8 From now on, all My Movies installations are pointed to the UNC path directory, and use the database and image directories from this path. Notice that this way of installing My Movies to more machines can also be used to install My Movies on a single Media Center box, and have another machine (that does not have to be a Media Center machine) for managing your collection from the Edit collection program. Adding Movies The importing thing when adding online movies to your collection is that they are added to a path where all of the Media Center boxes have access to the same exact path therefore choosing an UNC path is the easiest. Again, remember that the machine itself can also access its own shares with UNC paths, to make sure that the path is alike for all boxes. Offline movies are discs located on discs, instead of online on your computer hard drives, and are therefore handled alike for all boxes you will simply be asked to insert the correct disc. When adding movies to your movie collection, you use the Edit collection program found in your Windows Start menu in the My Movies folder to add these online movies are added with a folder for My Movies to search on playback. When pressing Watch in My Movies on an online stored movie, My Movies search the given folder for movies compatible with the current environment, first it looks for DVD movies stored within a video_ts folder, secondly is looks for DVD iso image files*, and third for other movie files.

HOW TO Use Microsoft Expression Encoder

HOW TO Use Microsoft Expression Encoder Microsoft Expression Encoder is a free tool for converting video files such as MPG, MP4, and AVI files to Windows Media Video (WMV) format for use in AdQue. It can