Kapone over at AVSForums is doing a little teasing that those of you who use the built-in Media Center DVD Library may want to keep an eye on.  Apparently he is developing some sort of, what I assume to be, pre-caching engine that speeds up the loading times for the library.  I have never used the built-in DVD Library, so I can’t really offer much insight.  So far, he is being very hush-hush, so you may want to watch this thead on your own.

SecondRun.tv is going strong with new releases in the past few days that have fixed a lot of bugs and added tons of new content.  You’re going to want to get this if you like online media plugins.  This is one of the hottest plugins to hit Media Center in a long time.

Meta<Browser /> has released a new beta that tweaks the interface, allows minimize-to-tray functionality and folder monitoring.  Hit Google Code for the download and discuss at the Media Browser forums.

I don’t won’t to leave out OML, which doesn’t get much press here, but they are still going strong with their video plugin project.  It is really gaining some ground and looking better every time I remember to take a look.  They have a new daily build dated for the 28th here.  They also have completely reorganized their forums.

VMCNetflix has a new version out for the first time in a month with 1.1.12.  It looks to be a minor fix related to the Silverlight player that affects full screen playback and the Pause/Play/Stop functions.  Get it here.

CyberLink has announced native Blue-Ray support for Media Center.  You can read more about it here at EngadgetHD.

Out of fear of appearing completely biased in my video library plugin choice, I decided it was time to put up a few more short reviews and screenshots of those that are available outside of Video Browser (soon to be Media Browser).  While I find Media Browser to be perfect for me, it is slightly behind in popularity in comparison to others like MyMovies, OML, Movie Collector MCE, etc.  I don’t want this site to become just another one-sided news repository about a handful of plugins, so I’ll mix it up a bit – even if I don’t use them.

My curiosity kicks in every couple of months and I wonder how OML is looking anyway, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  I attemtped to compile the latest SVN, but got build failures referencing Nunit, even though it is installed.  Oh well, I haven’t been able to successfully compile it since the early goings when I was one of the few who was actively testing it.  So, I downloaded the latest daily build for the x64 platform (r864) and installed.  OML now requires a reboot after installation, which I wasn’t expecting, but that’s OK.

After restarting, I went into Media Center to check out the strip and found that it was missing. Hmmm.  So, I went into the Program Library to start it up from there and it was not there either.  Not off to a good start OML.  I then downloaded and installed MC Menu Mender to put in the entry points myself and was finally able to get some startup points for the plugin and the settings panel.  However, I still need to import my library, which will be done by exporting an XML file from MyMovies.  This will not include my TV shows since I removed them from MyMovies, but I will at least have something to work with.

I found there was no OML entry in my Programs Start menu either, so I had to go to the installation directory in order to run the database importer.  Once there, I ran the importer and was greeted by a nice “Open Media Library has stopped working” crash window.  I then opted for the command line importer, which I’m more familiar with anyway, and was finally able to get somewhere.

Finished…

After importing my libary, it was time to start up Media Center again and see where OML had gotten since I last looked at it (at least 2 months ago).  I’d give a shot of the strip, but I did not have one, so here is what I was presented with after a default installation.

It does look very nice and they make very good use of screen real estate.  Scrolling through the titles is very tight and responsive – I did not experience any lag at all and I suspect that is due to the use of a live database in comparison to individual XML files.  The title screen is pretty nice also.  Most all of the relevant information from MyMovies was there except it appeared as though my User Rating value did not transfer.  Also, the actors list just sort of runs off of the bottom of the page and is not selectable for scrolling through.  Unfortunately, it appears something else is broken since I received an error when hitting “Play”.  I know the file is good since I tried it immediately afterward via MyMovies and Media Browser.  At least it’s nice to look at.

The settings screen contains many configurable options to tailor how OML works and feels on your screen.

The top strip allows for the most common, and a couple of not-so-common, sorting arrangements.

The top bar.

Sorting by genre…

…and by parental rating.

Tagging, in particular, is how OML is currently getting around its deficiency in categorizing movies into box sets and other collection types.  I’d show you this, but the database editor did not work for me.  Basically, you have a tag field where you can assign a value to any title entry.  Matching values will belong to that tag category within OML.  It’s a logical system, but nothing I’d want to start manually editing for considering my collection size.

All in all, OML has big aspirations for greatness as a Media Center plugin.  It has other features such as its own transcoding engine, but not having an extender, this was not something I could try.  I don’t even know if it works yet.  It also is capable of reading VIDEO_TS folders and full disc images.  However, I just was met with too many issues to be completely fair to it.  There is still a lot to do and a long way to go, but I know there is a lot of hard work and time being put into it.  I will keep an eye on it and I suggest you do the same.

Next week, I will start off with a visit to JackLuminous’ Video Library plugin.  I’ve given it a shot in the past and while I could never stick to it, it is a very exciting plugin, nonetheless.  Stay tuned!

Just wanted to leave a quick notice of a few popular Vista Media Center plugins that have ramped up as of late and introduced new versions with some excellent features.

• JackLuminous’ Video Library over at TheGreenButton has re-added movie metadata fetching capabilities now that TheMovieDB.org has a working API.  There has been a lot of updates for this project lately, so check often.
• Sam Saffron’s Video Browser has a new public beta available on his Google Code site.  You can read about all of the new additions here and I have some screen shots of the preceding SVNs a few posts back.  Bill Daugherty II has some additional screenshots (higher res than mine) also.  Head over to his Windows Media Center blog to see them.
• Finally, a new release for VMCNetflix is out (1.1.7) from eluttmann1 at TheGreenButton.  It fixes login issues as a result of changes on the Netflix site.  I’m sire there are some other changes, but you can read about them on the VMCNetflix site.  Support, comments and discussion are available at TheGreenButton.
• MyMovies has also released v2.49 about a week ago.  I was going to hold off since there is going to be another release very soon that will be removing the locked down sort field that I complained about.  But, I’m not sure that it will warrant a new version.  I would wait, personally, for that one to come out if you need to upgrade.  The Windows Home Server version is also now at v1.01.

There are other plugin updates, but these are all that I really use and follow.  I did notice that there is a little spark of life back in the OML project.  There were a few SVN changes during the week, so that’s reassuring.  I believe the volunteers’ real lives have interfered a bit, so hopefully things will progress in the coming weeks.  Keep an eye on them though…it’s eventually going to be a very nice plugin.

I’m planning on posting instructions on how to relocate the default location of the MyMovies database soon.  I’ve come across some interest in that and thought I’d share how to do it.  It’s not a supported “hack”, so I didn’t want to post it on the MyMovies Forum.  I know Brian doesn’t want to deal with any complications that it may bring, so it will be at your own risk.  It’s also a bit involved (if you’re a typical user), so be prepared for some moderately scary stuff if you’re not comfortable with SQL tools.

Sometimes, there doesn’t need to be anything special to post about – like now.

I found that I won’t need a new cooler for my rebuilt quad system.  I ended up taking the board out of the case and rotating the heatsink 90° so that the fan was blowing upwards – out the 140mm exhaust mounted in the top of the case.  I also noticed that the mounting screws in the base were placed away from the cores when mounted this way.  That pretty much tells me that the unit I’m using isn’t capable of universal mounting for 775 sockets.  My temps dropped >30°C at idle and are at >60°C under full load while encoding with x264.  One core went as high as 89°C before this change.  I’m happy since I don’t have to waste another $40 on another heatsink.

I hope Fry’s has another combo special on their Celeron 430 tomorrow/this weekend.  I’m really wanting to grab one so that I can swap out CPUs on my unRAID server with it.  It just doesn’t need dual cores – it doesn’t even support them yet.  Even if it did support them, I doubt it would benefit me anyway since I don’t do anything but file serving with it.  I want to use the E1200 in it to replace that aging Pentium-M I’m using as a WSUS server.  I have the P5B-MX and 2GB DDR2 standing by collecting dust now.  I also want to go with x64 2003 Server this time.  I’ve never really used any 64-bit OS at home before and this would be a good time for it.

If I can get that $50 combo, I can use the leftover ECS 945P board it comes with to replace my son’s craptacular GeForce 7-series board.  It would be OK if it didn’t have only a single-channel memory controller.  I eventually want to get another E1200 or Celeron 430 for it as well.  The D805 in it is just a dog.

On the Media Center front, the OpenMediaLibrary team released the first public beta of their OML video library plugin.  I installed it on my test box and took a look and it’s very nice.  I can’t really use it, however, since it doesn’t support individual XML files (which I recently switched to), nor does it work well with layered directory structures.  I’m sure it could be set up to do so, but no way am I starting over – yet again!  Besides, MyMovies is going to have their first introductory MCML version out in the next couple of weeks or three.  I’m still updating that database so that I can use it again if it astounds me.  I’m feeling lazy today, so check my other posts for relative links to OML and whatnot.

It’s just really quiet on the HTPC front…for me anyway.  I’m sure there’s plenty going on, but it either doesn’t interest me or I’m too lazy/busy to get involved with it.  I haven’t completely wasted my time though – I did upgrade to Wordpress 2.5.1 today…finally.

I’ve been unable to compile any of the source on the OML site since initially getting it to work, so that’s been a dead issue for me as of late.  I continue to try out Movie Collector MCE (from Collectorz.com) since they put an update, but it still didn’t fix the linking of files for me.  I’m giving up on it so there will be no more news on that front.  I don’t like the fact that you can’t share databases between separate systems anyway.

My old media server had a failed hard drive a couple days ago.  It’s currently still rebuilding and I’m not quite sure what I want to do with it at this point.  I’d really like to use that drive space in my unRAID server, so I might actually decommission them until I can afford a port multipler capable 2-port SATA card a 5-bay PM external enclosure.  I don’t necessarily have to go with all 1TB drives…I can upgrade the 500GB drives later if I want anyway.  I think I’ll just do that.  The NetCell card is slow as hell anyway.

I also found out a week or two ago that the addition of Disney, TLC, A&E, AMC and the Science HD channels were all short-lived as they all disappeared from my HDHomeRun.  That really sucks.  They all worked for a week or so, but I guess they were just testing something and they became unencrypted.  Oh well and so it goes…

Finally, Vista4Cast and Extended4Cast are both back in action after some usage rights issues with Weather.com were resolved.  If you need a weather application for Vista Media Center, then those are what you want.  Registration with their forum is required for download.