66 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| JUL 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
R&D^
EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USEINSTALL AND CONFIGURE
MOVIEMANAGER 2.02
MovieManager 2.02’s advanced
capabilities and integration with
Internet Movie Database (www.
imdb.com) make it a great app for organiz-
ing your commercial videos. If Java isn’t
already installed on your rig, click the Java
link on the MovieManager download page
(http://moviemanager.ca/) and install it fi rst.
If you are installing MovieManager on Win-
dows Vista, right-click the install program
and select Run as Administrator.
First, open MovieManager’s confi gura-
tion options by clicking the Tools menu and
selecting Preferences. To specify which movie
players MovieManager can use, click Movie
Player, then browse to your movie player of
choice, such as Windows Media Player 11 or
any other media player with DVD support.
Make your selection and then press Apply.
By default, MovieManager supports
avi, mov, mpeg, mpg, qt, wmv, and iso fi le
extensions. If you want to add or delete fi le
extensions, or make other changes in movie
database handling, open the Load Database
submenu. The program uses Internet Movie
Database information to fi ll in (or replace)
your movies’ details. To prevent certain types
of information from being changed, select
options in the IMDb Lookup menu.
MovieManager can output an HTML
list of your movie collection, but this comes
out sorted by title. If you want to alter your
sorting options, fi re up the HTML Output sub-
menu. You can also use this menu to change
the fi le name and location of the list.MODIFY LISTINGS IN THE
MOVIEMANAGER DATABASE
If your DVD collection is full of
big-name fi lms produced in the last
fi ve years or so, save time by loading
sample data for more than 120 recent fi lms
and modifying this information as needed.
To load the database with sample data, click
Tools, then Load Sample Data.
MovieManager stores a treasure trove of
information, including title, episode, genre,
movie fi le location, and classifi cation (fi lm
rating). To modify a movie listing, select the
fi lm from the Movies tab and change infor-
mation as needed. We recommend that you
at least input the location of the movie’s VID-
EO_TS.IFO fi le into the location fi eld. Then
change the date in the Added On fi eld to the
current date and assign the movie a personal
rating. Click Save to save your changes.
Once you update a sample record or add
your own movie and save the record (see step
5), you can use the Genre pulldown menu
above the Movies listing to select movies by
genre. To add genre information to a listing,
type the new information into the genre fi eld,
preferably aft er the existing genre categories.
Each genre category is separated by a comma.
You can search for listings using a number
of qualifi ers—such as episode, genre, year, or
duration—click the Search icon (binoculars),
select a single qualifi er, type in your the search
terms, and click the Search button. Click Close
to return to the Movies listing, which now
displays the fi lms that match your search pa-
rameters. To view all fi lms again, choose Select
All Movies in the Genre menu.LOAD YOUR OWN MOVIES INTO
THE MOVIEMANAGER DATABASE
To load your own movies into
MovieManager, click Tools and
then Load Movies; next, specify the
locations of your movie files. Note that you
can browse to local or network locations. By
default, movies you load are appended to
the database: The program uses the name of
the folder where they reside to scour IMDb
for the film’s information.
Be wary of two potentially dangerous
options when importing. The fi rst is “Replace
Database Contents.” Use this only if you do not
want to use any of the sample data that you’ve
downloaded in MovieManager. The “Remove
Movies from Database When the Movie Files
are Missing” option is useful only when the
movies exist on your hard drive. Otherwise,
you’ll be nuking all the information you enter
whenever you lose a network connection or
don’t have the DVD in the drive.
Finish the import by clicking Save to
preserve your changes, then click Load db to
locate your movies. To update a movie listing
with IMDb information, double-click the
movie to load it into the movie information
window at the program’s right. Make sure the
movie location information is displayed. Click
Save to save the listing, then click Goto IMDb.
Your default web browser opens on the best
match in IMDb.
Because of title duplication, you might
need to navigate through IMDb to fi nd the
right movie. Once you fi nd it, highlight the
tt number portion of the URL and copy it (e.g.,
the “tt0091203” in http://www.imdb.com/title/
tt0091203). Return to the MovieManager pro-
gram window, paste (or type) the tt number into
the IMDb Key window and click IMDb Lookup
to fi ll in missing data. Click Save again. Repeat
as needed for each of your new movies.(^345)