The Popcorn Hour

My Lil Movie JukeBox! (revision4)

REV 5 is released!

go here : http://www.treasure-cove.net/moviejukebox.htm

Graphically Displaying, Selecting and playing your movies on your Popcorn Hour.....

To purchase a "Popcorn Hour" NMT visit .. www.popcornhour.com
Useful support sites: http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=Forums
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=7290

Displaying, Viewing, and playing your movies has never been easier, ... check out the photos below to see how easy it is!

Click on the play button below: (note: low res video. It'll be 1000 times better on your set using your PCH)

Or click here to download the video: http://www.treasure-cove.net/jukebox.avi

With this revision, the process of setting up and exporting all of your movie html files over to your Popcorn Hour is now completely automated! The scripts on this page work for either WinXP or Vista! As always, Mr Phelps, we will disavow any knowledge of this program, should some mishap occur, .. so BACKUP your movie database & Windows Registry OFTEN!!!! :)

Below are some screen shots showing how the Movie Jukebox (rev4) looks when viewed with Internet Explorer on your PC...

The Main Menu screen - New since last revision: All menus now have titles shown in Color.
Red is the default color for indicating that this menu is sorted alphabetically.

The Color Buttons on the Remote Control are now used to determine "how" you want your
movies displayed:

RED BUTTON: Sorted Alphabetically (default)
GREEN BUTTON: Sorted by Year (Oldest title first)
YELLOW BUTTON: Sorted by year (newest title first)
BLUE BUTTON: Return to COVER PAGE. (index.htm)

The Menu Titles also will change color to indicate which sort type is selected

Note: The color buttons are not used inside the Movie Details or Actor Bio pages.

Above: View of main menu screen after pressing the GREEN Button on the Remote.
When pages are sorted by year, the release year of the movie is always displayed below the title.
Also notice that the title has changed color as well.

Above: View of main menu screen after pressing the YELLOW Button on the Remote.
When pages are sorted by year, the release year of the movie is always displayed below the title.

SPECIAL CASE: (for Movie Collections with under 91 movies): When you run the export scripts,
you will be asked if you want to display your movies in a Single Long List format, or
Alphabetically (by 1st letter of title) as above. Below shows a movie collection
of 27 movie titles, in which we selected to have the movies displayed in
Single Long List format, which is a better approach for smaller collections.

AUTOMATIC selection of Genres: this revision will automatically SCAN your movie database to
determine which genres are present. If a genre is present, the appropriate menu links will
be generated and displayed. Genres NOT present will not be displayed or exported.

The Genres that are automatic for this revision are: Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Crime,
Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Musical, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller, War,
Western, Oscar List, Blu-Ray, Elvis Presley, Clint Eastwood, & James Bond.

For advanced users with a little script knowledge, ... one can change/add/delete any genres and
make up your own.

Note: the user can also manually disable genres, as in earlier revisions, by editing
the Variable file.

Other features of the new revision 4:

1. Automatic setup of the Movie Collector Software.
Filters, Sorts, and initial setting are now automatically set for you! (MovieCollectorSetup.exe)

2. Automatic generation & export of Actor & Director Biography pages. (with filmography, user selectable).
400 major Actors/Directors are available for export!
The scripts will automatically SCAN your movie database to determine which actors/directors
are used, and export only those pages.

Below is a typical movie details page. Note that the movie cover has been converted to a
png file then Mirrored with a Blue glow. (Also fully automated in this revision
of the Jukebox!, ... and user selectable)

Notice on the above page that there are now LINKS present for the actors.
(also present for director), ... and, if you CLICK on an actor, you will be taken to a page
as shown below, which is all new for revision 4.

Each actor page will show the actors photo in the above left, and then
provide a mini biography for that actor. Below the biography, the movies
associated with this actor will be displayed. You also can click on any of these covers
to be taken to the appropriate movie details page.

3. (user optional) Automatic cleanup of the exported thumbnails using IrfanView. Again, everything is done
for you, ... no fuss , no muss.

4. (user optional) Automatic conversion/mirroring of the Movie Cover. (imagemagick)

Above: A Movie Details page showing the Front Cover displayed in jpg format. (from rev3)
You can display cover image either as jpg or mirrored png file.

5. Supports Box Sets & Episodes.

The above shows a detail page for the "Planet of the Apes" Box Set. (rev4)
All of the plot info comes from the IMDB, and all we have to do is ADD LINKS for each movie file.

The above is the EDIT MOVIE screen for Movie Collector. To add the links for this boxset,
just click on the LINKS tab, and in the bottom have of the screen, click on ADD MOVIE FILE
for each disk in the boxset.
(SEE APPENDIX 2 at bottom of page for a more detailed procedure)

As seen from the Popcorn, and viewed on your TV set:
(these images are from revision 3, ... which lacks the Title info, and Color Buttons.)

The Popcorn Hour displaying movies on my 60" Sony DLP TV set.

Again, these images are from revision 3.

Ok, let's start from scratch getting the Movies displaying nicely on your PCH......

I've decided to not try and sell this program, ... but rather just put it OUT THERE for all to enjoy. If you are tickled pink with the program, then I would ask that you donate some small amount to help keep me focused, ...... and my wife happy! (off my back!!!!!) It doesn't have to be much, .. anything from a buck to $20-$25 is fine, .... anything is fine as a matter of fact. and, more than anything, it lets me know that you like what I've done and want to see me continue in this direction. Thank you ever so much!!! .. Allen Shope

Comments? by all means email me at aks@iglou.com . Should you have questions about setting up your Popcorn Hour, please visit the USER APPS section
of http://www.networkedmediatank.com and ask your questions there. I do this part-time, ... so I'm not able to answer tech questions via email, but I will respond and answer any/all questions about the Movie Jukebox on the NMT forums.

INSTALLATION & SETUP:

STEP 1. Download and install the Movie Collector Software. (Trial version will also work!)

Purchase a program called Movie Collector (MoC). It's $29-$49 and is available at http://www.collectorz.com/movie/
(Note: you can also use the "trial version" of Movie Collector for testing and checkout of the Movie Jukebox. The trial version has an opening "Nag" screen, ... so Click "continue" in that window. If you're going to use the Trial version here, .. it's better to just keep the MoC open on your desktop in the background. (not minimized, but open in the background, that way, we won't have to contend with the Nags :))

KEEP IT SIMPLE!

... and let the Movie Collector install itself on your C: hard drive, using all the
standard defaults for folders, etc. if at all possible! Do the same when you install the Irfanview and Imagemagick sofware as well.

ONLY INSTALL THE ENGLISH VERSION!!!
(as of right now, the Movie Jukebox supports only MOVIE COLLECTOR in English)

READ THRU ALL INSTRUCTIONS FIRST, ... then you can go back
and begin to follow the steps!

STEP 2. Download the My_Lil_Movie_Jukebox.zip files and Extract them to your pc's hard drive. (to the Movie Collector Templates folder, overwrite all files. (note, if you previously had rev3 running, you might want to backup those xsl files)

http://www.treasure-cove.net/My_Lil_Movie_Jukebox.zip

For Windows XP, ... the install location should be: C:\Documents and Setting\yourName\My Documents\Movie Collector\Templates which should have already been created when you installed the Movie Collector software.
For Windows Vista, ... the install location should be: C:\Users\yourName\Documents\Movie Collector\Templates which should have already been createdwhen you installed the Movie Collector software.

NOTE: For Windows Vista, you'll have to turn OFF UAC (User access Control)

STEP 3. Download the Irfanview program file and install on your system.

http://www.treasure-cove.net/iview420_setup.exe

The Movie Collector software is great , but, ... the thumbnail movie cover images that are exported have marginal quality, at best, ... so, no problem, we'll use IrfanView to resample the movie covers and clean them up so that they display with little or no pixilation, and we'll do all this for you automatically.

STEP 4. Download the ImageMagick program and install on your system. (the software is set to show mirrored files initially)

http://www.treasure-cove.net/ImageMagick-6.4.3-1-Q16-windows-dll.exe

Using ImageMagick, ... we will automatically take a standard jpg image of a movie cover ..... convert it to a png file, then add mirror effects, and a blue highlight.

STEP 5. Verify that you have your PCH setup properly and, most importantly, you're able to watch your movies!

Go through the necessary steps to get your PCH setup and running. You'll know you are finished when you can manually click on "SOURCE" in the PCHs menu, ... CLICK on your HARD DISK, ... then scroll down to find a movie, ... CLICK on it, .... and the movie starts playing on your Television set. If you can't do this, then there's no need to go any further with the My Lil Movie Jukebox, as you will not be successful here either. For more help on getting your PCH working properly, visit Networked Media Tank 'Movie Jukebox' FORUM

STEP 6. Initial setup of the Movie Collector Software.   (you only need to run this step once)

Up until this revision, you had to manually do quite a number of steps in order to get the MoC (Movie Collector Software) setup and ready to enter/view/export your movies. With revision 4, we've made it much simpler by making a program that you can run which will do all of the hard work for you.   :)

    a. Close the Movie Collector software and verify that it is NOT running.
    b. Run a program that was unzipped to your Movie Collector Templates folder called MovieCollectorSetup_082508.exe
          (for WinXp: C:\Documents and Settings\your-Name\My Documents\Movie Collector\Templates\MovieCollectorSetup_082008.exe)
            (for Vista: C:\Users\your-Name\Documents\Movie Collector\Templates\MovieCollectorSetup_082008.exe)
                                                                (the 6 digit number is just a date and could change)

        The Movie Collector Setup program will perform the following tasks: (listed here FYI for more advanced users)
            1. "Menus show Recent Items First" set to off.
           2. "Show ShortCuts in Menus" set to On.
           3. "Auto Update Scripts" set to Off.
           4. Download Front & Back covers from "DVD Empire"
            5. Set "Info Sources" to IMDB and DVD Empire.
            6. Install the special "sorts" and "filters" files.
            Your original files will be saved for you in case you've previously used MoC.
            7. Install the special "IMDB Search and Details" scripts so that when you add movies to your database, the FUNStuff sections will
                    also be added, which is Trivia, Goofs, Film Location, etc. You also will be asked about this. (original files renamed)

SPECIAL NOTE: If you used rev 3., you'll need to run this anyway, as I've changed this section on filters / sorts.

       c. Setup for Best Picture / Best Picture Nominees. (SEE APPENDIX 1 at bottom of page for a more detailed procedure)
                            (you can skip this step if you do not plan, nor want an Oscar Listing page on the menu.)
            1. Run the Movie Collector Software.
              2. Lets add a new field to take care of the Best Picture movies and Nominated movies. Click on Tools, Field Names.
                    Locate the field called User Lookup 1 and rename it to be Oscar. Click OK.
                    Now double-click on one of your movies and let's make it a Best Picture nominee.
                    Click on the Personal tab. Look in the user defined area and you'll see the new field that we previously added
                    namely OSCAR. Click on Oscar, Click Add Oscar, and make this field say BEST PICTURE Nominee.
                    Click OK, then Click OK once more to go back to the main screen. Double Click on another movie, ..
                    and do the same thing, only this time make the Oscar field say BEST PICTURE. When it comes time to enter
                    your real movies later, you can use these fields to select whether this movie was a Nominee or actually won the Oscar.

    d. We'll assume, for this session, that you have an internal hard drive installed on your PCH, .. and that you already have all of your movie files copied over to the video folder. .. well, at least one movie anyway. ( I'll assume this movie file is named testmovie.avi). Double-Click on one of your movies, ... then Click on the Links tab. The links window has 2 parts, the upper is the online section and the lower is the local section. We want to add our movie to the bottom (local) section. Click Add Movie File, then browse over to your PCHs hard Drive... Z:\video, and click on the file testmovie.avi. Click OK. Now Double-Click on this entry again, ... and this time change the description to say PLAY MOVIE. If you have a series or box set, ...then label each link as DISC1, DISC2, etc.    (SEE APPENDIX 2 at bottom of page for a more detailed procedure)

STEP 7. Edit your Variables file.   There are many options that you can set for exporting the html pages over to you PCH.

Edit the A100_Variables.xsl file (located in the templates folder) to change the location of your movie files. You will need to edit this file to setup where your movies are located .. before you run the export program. Always use Windows Notepad or Frontpage to edit these template files. When you edit the A100_Variables.xsl file, you should see a section as show below:

<xsl:variable name="my_PC_Location_1">Y:\Video\</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="my_Popcorn_Location_1">file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK/Video/</xsl:variable>



















The above two variables shown in Red are what you'll need to change depending on your setup. The first one is fairly easy, .. as it's the location of your movies .. as seen from your PC., ie. when you browse using Windows Explorer, .. what folder do you have to go to, in order to see your movie files. Enter this information above, being sure to NOT FORGET the last "\" character.

Next is the second red area, ... the PopCorn Location!! Here you'll need to enter the PCH "Source" information that tells the PCH exactly where your movie files are located! If, for example, your movie files were copied over to the folder X:\video\ (as seen from your pc) and your movies are installed on the internal hard drive of your PCH, then your entries for the variables file would look like ....


<xsl:variable name="my_PC_Location_1">X:\Video\</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="my_Popcorn_Location_1">file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/HARD_DISK/Video/</xsl:variable>

Again, for more help on getting these variables set properly, visit http://www.networkedmediatank.com/

For right now, ... FORGET about all the other variables that can be set. Later on, you can re-visit this file and make changes to your heart's content.

STEP 8. Verify the "Export to HTML" settings in the Movie Collector.

(At this step, you should have either the "example movie database" (Trial version)
or your own database open and viewable when the Movie Collector Software is running)

Now let's go back to MoC and verify our export settings! Click File, Export to HTML. There are three tabs in this window: General, Index Template, and Details Template. In the Details template section verify the following:

Create detail pages = YES , Current template: select the NMT A100 template., Copy images to... = YES Scale down images larger than 400 wide 800 height.

Now CLick on Cancel. (this will save the settings)

STEP 9. Export our movie index & detail pages over to the PCH. (the MoC software should be either closed or in the background, ... but not minimized)

Locate and run a program that was unzipped to your Movie Collector Templates folder called Movie_Jukebox_Script_082508.exe
          (for WinXp: C:\Documents and Settings\your-Name\My Documents\Movie Collector\Templates\Movie_Jukebox_Script_082008.exe)
            (for Vista: C:\Users\your-Name\Documents\Movie Collector\Templates\Movie_Jukebox_Script_082008.exe)
                                                                (the 6 digit number is just a revision date and could change)

This program will do all of the work for you. It performs certain tasks automatically, yet asks questions about certain key areas. Here's what it does in a nutshell:

1. Asks you for the Drive Location (as seen from your pc) for where the exported html files will reside, then copies over all req. support folders, etc.
2. Ask for the name for the MAIN MENU index file. normally "index", but, if you already have a Cover File named index, then you can also enter any
        other name that you wish, is, movies, or MovieFiles, etc.
3. Next, the program will ask you if you want to export the actor html / Bio pages as well.
4. Then, you will be asked if you want to cleanup the thumbnail images using Irfanview.
5. Next, you will be asked if you want to convert the movie covers using ImageMagick.
6. If you have less than 91 movies in your database, you will be asked if you want the main index page show as a 'Single Long List' or not.
7. The program will now setup the other initial setting for the Index and General Export Templates.
8. Now the program will do a "ZERO MOVIES" check to see what genres have movies. If movies are not present for a particular genre, then the genre
        will NOT be shown on the index pages.
9. Next, the main index and genre pages will be generated, with each genre getting three exports, ... ie, one for ACTION.htm, one for ACTIONu.htm,
       and one for ACTIONd.htm (Alphabetic, Sortup, and SortDown)
10. Next, if you said YES, the Actor/Director Bio pages will be exported.
11. Then comes the cleanup using Irfanview, .. followed by the Image Magick conversion. (Again, all setup/ini files are put in the correct folders)
12. You also will be asked whether you want to restore your original filters & sorts files.

Now turn on the Popcorn Hour:

If you've labeled your main export file index.... then all you have to do is click on "media source", then click on your local hard drive, ... and the index.htm file should run automatically!!!!!! If you name the index filename something other than index, .. then you will have to create a Cover Page called "index" and put links on that page to navigate to your movie menu.

As you can probably tell, I've spent many, many countless hours getting the Movie Jukebox up to the point where I consider it a "fine" program for displaying and running your movies. I also have to mention those who have also helped me along the way, with words of encouragement, and help with the scripts, and mods. ... Excal(James) , Garp(Dan), McMilly, lugi, Pmontanari(Pat), Kendo, DaveC .. plus many others, THANK YOU!.

HAVING PROBLEMS?

To do a SIMPLE test, and see how the My Lil Movie Jukebox
works.... Make a folder on you systems C Drive or D Drive called movietest.
(Use the root folder of the drive to make this new test folder)
You should now have a folder, either C:\movietest\ or D:\movietest\
that we will export all of the html files to, ... as a test.

Do all the steps except STEP 7. For a test, you do NOT have to edit the variables file.
If you don't edit the variables file you won't see a PLAY BUTTON in each movies details page.

When you run the Movie_Jukebox_Script program, ... you will be asked for the export location.
Key in C:\movietest\ (or D:\movietest\) and Click OK.

When you are asked for the index filename, Key in index and click OK

When finished, you should be able to browse over to your movietest folder,
and Double-Click on the index.htm file to see the operation of the
My Lil Movie Jukebox.

I've decided to not try and sell this program, ... but rather just put it OUT THERE for all to enjoy. If you are tickled pink with the program, then I would ask that you donate some small amount to help keep me focused, ...... and my wife happy! (off my back!!!!!) It doesn't have to be much, .. anything from a buck to $20-$25 is fine, .... anything is fine as a matter of fact. and, more than anything, it lets me know that you like what I've done and want to see me continue in this direction. Thank you ever so much,. .. Allen Shope

1. Run the Movie Collector Software.

2. Lets add a new field to take care of the Best Picture movies and Nominated movies.

Click on Tools, Field Names.

Locate the field called User Lookup 1

and rename it to be Oscar. Click OK.
Now, Edit a movie that won an Oscar, ... here we'll do The Godfather.
Click on the 'Personal' Tab, then Click on the Oscar field, then Click [ADD OSCAR]

The "Edit Lists" window will open. Click "Add Item"

Make two entries, one for BEST PICTURE, and one for BEST PICTURE Nominee Click OK

Now back to the person tab for 'The Godfather' You can now, make an entry of BEST PICTURE for this movie.!! When it comes time to enter your real movies later, you can use this field to select whether this movie was a Nominee or actually won the Oscar. Note: The Movie Jukebox Export program will look at this field to determine whether this movie is in the OSCAR LISTINGS page or not. Hopefully, in a future release, you won't have to enter this information

Let's add a movie to your collection ... (to start , just use the example collection that comes with the program), Later on, after you have everything figured out, you can start fresh and make your collection from scratch. Click, Edit, "ADD MOVIE AUTOMATICALLY" and the "Add Movies" window will appear. (Click on "Advanced Mode") In the upper left Title box, type in "2001: A Space Odyssey" and then click "Add to Queue". (We're going to search the IMDB and DVD Empire for this movie, so we can add it to our collection - always be sure to get the correct spelling or it won't be found) Over on the right, Under Info Sources, you should only have IMDB and DVD Empire checked (Use DVD Empire for high res covers, and IMDB for the text) Click SEARCH.

In the Search Results pane, under IMDB, place a check beside the movie.

Scroll down, and under DVD Empire, place a check beside the movie.

Then Click ADD in the upper right! and that's all there is to adding a movie to your database,

Now we have to add the "movie link" for this movie, so that when we export this entry over to the Popcorn Hour, ... the movie will play! Click on the Movie, then Click on EDIT MOVIE

Click on the LINKS TAB. You'll see two panes. The top one is for Online Links, which we'll skip, ... and the bottom one is for LOCAL Links, .. which is what we want. Click on the symbol to ADD MOVIE FILE

Now, you'll browse your system, to locate your movie. In my case, the movie in in the Video folder on Z:\ drive. Click on your movie file, then Click OPEN.

You'll now see the entry as shown on the right. Now we have to change the description to make it say PLAY. Double Click on the movie entry.

Now Click on the description box, and type in PLAY. Click OK

Click OK and we're done!!! See how easy that was? Now all we have to do is test this "example" database out, by exporting it over to the Popcorn Hour, and see if it works!!! Once you have your complete database entered, .. you'll be able to play any of your movies from 'inside' the Movie Collector or from inside the Popcorn Hour.

	THAT's All Folks .... well almost!
	for Advanced Users Only - Latest Uncompiled files