Playing Movies

[custommx3]

I have a pretty large movie collection from which I have (yes legally) ripped my own DVD's into video files. I'm using Media browser as my interface on my HTPC that's pulling the files/art form a NAS on my network.

What I'm curious is if there is a way to integrate my movies into Hyperspin without having to make a copy and bring them locally, as well as configure each movie individually.

Media browser uses 4 basic files. (we'll use the movie Antz as an example)

The video file (any file supported by a predefined player such as Windows media player, or MPC home cinema for example)
Background.jpg (the background obviously)
Folder.png (the cover art, supported in both png and jpg)
mymovies.xml (movie information)

Here is the code of a mymovies.xml file.

<Title>
<LocalTitle>Antz</LocalTitle>
<OriginalTitle>Antz</OriginalTitle>
<SortTitle>Antz</SortTitle>
<Added>6/19/2009 8:47:06 AM</Added>
<ProductionYear>1998</ProductionYear>
<RunningTime>83</RunningTime>
<IMDBrating>6.5</IMDBrating>
<MPAARating>PG</MPAARating>
<Description>A rather neurotic ant tries to break from his totalitarian society while trying to win the affection of the princess he loves.</Description>
<Type />
<AspectRatio>1.85:1</AspectRatio>
<IMDB>tt0120587</IMDB>
<TMDbId>8916</TMDbId>
<Genres>
<Genre>Adventure</Genre>
<Genre>Animation</Genre>
<Genre>Comedy</Genre>
</Genres>
<Persons>
<Person>
<Name>Woody Allen</Name>
<Type>Actor</Type>
<Role>Z</Role>
</Person>
<Person>
<Name>Dan Aykroyd</Name>
<Type>Actor</Type>
<Role>Chip</Role>
</Person>
<Person>
<Name>Anne Bancroft</Name>
<Type>Actor</Type>
<Role>Queen</Role>
</Person>
<Person>
<Name>Danny Glover</Name>
<Type>Actor</Type>
<Role>Barbatus</Role>
</Person>
<Person>
<Name>Eric Darnell</Name>
<Type>Director</Type>
<Role />
</Person>
<Person>
<Name>Tim Johnson</Name>
<Type>Director</Type>
<Role />
</Person>
</Persons>
<Studios />
</Title>



I know I can map a network drive to assign a local drive letter, but is there any way I can use dir2xml to get the movie listing and integrate it into hyperspin using the 4 files mentioned above?

Basically mapping a network drive to the movies, creating a theme that parses the XML file, optional trailer support, and grabbing the directory name from the XML file created as a database.


I have my arcade in my garage and I'd like to watch a movie if possible on it if I have guests over.

is this feasible?

[SORHP]

Noble Idea, but what you are getting into is very very time consuming, I would recommend using XBMC or Jriver and integrate it into HS instead of integrating your movie collection directly into HS, many of us have tried to tackle this endeavor, and have ended up going to some other means to play movies in our arcade machines, especially with XBMC, it automates the movie art, info and everything else as long as your movie titles are correctly named. Just search around here in the forum and you can easily find the proper protocol to integrate XBMC or Jriver into HS, Good Luck!

[Kodiak]

This can already be done over all with HS...one just needs to write a AutoIt or AutoHotKey script to parse your files and generate a DB XML, Theme and maybe move some files around or make copies of.

However I got to much unfinished work as is...without taking on a new project.

And as SORHP pointed out XBMC would do a MUCH better job.

BBB has more Arcade focused features that need to be done before trying to reinvent a XBMC like interface for HS. Which would be a LOT of code.

Now what I\You could do...is far less than what something like XBMC offers...but would be usable and likely fairly pleasant to look at.