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HTPC Movie Launcher
Home Theater Movie Launching System
Introduction:
HTPC Movie Launcher is designed to be a very easy to use movie launching mechanism for home theater PCs. The program is entirely flat file-based instead of using a database like most other similar products.
I developed HTPC Movie Launcher after several attempts to set up my own home theater PC system using Windows Media Center and My Movies which had more features. However, MC only supported Windows Media Player and My Movies only supported TheaterTek DVD, not PowerDVD and Nero ShowTime. The problem with TheaterTek DVD (at the time of this writing) was that it did not support high definition video files such as AVCHD or MPEG-2 HD. My Movies was also somewhat a bloated program that used SQL Server to store movie data, which was kind of overkill for some users who only want a simple movie library and launching software (I was of them.) I then contemplating to use media player devices such as those from MvixUSA but some of those cannot play H.264 files, none has gigabit NIC so they’re pretty slow in transferring gigabytes of video files. I then was thinking about Popcorn Hour A-110 but it also did not have gigabit NIC and rudimentary interface. I then decided that I had to write my one HTPC Movie Launcher that could launch whatever player I want, had a better movie navigating interface, and infinite amount of storage. I used eSATA docks for my movie library so when a drive runs out of space, I simply eject it and plug in a new drive (are you going to keep buying additional popcorn hour units when you run out of space? 1 terabyte drive won’t go very far with HD movies, each terabyte drive can only hold roughly about 30 blu-ray movies.)
To use HTPC Movie Launcher, you simply put all of your movie poster images in any folder then point HTPC Movie Launcher to that folder. The program displays those movies and you simply move from one movie to another using either the mouse or keyboard, then press enter or double click any movie to launch that movie using the assigned player. In order for the program to play the movie, you must specify a player and its video source. Each movie can be linked to a video folder such as VIDEO_TS or a single file such as .MPG or .MP4. After entering data for each movie, just pressing the enter key to save the record for that movie. A trailer file is optional. If it’s available, you can play the movie trailer by clicking the Play Trailer icon.
You can also mount an ISO file as an optical drive to be played by PowerDVD or Nero Showtime. You will need VirtualCloneDrive which is a drive mounting software do do this ((http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html.) HTPC Movie Player will simply launch the tool and mount the drive for you.
The program stores all the movies data in the sub-folder MovieInfos where you installed HTPC Movie Launcher. Each movie is stored in a text file using the name of the movie poster image with the file extension .txt. This makes it simple to backup movies or if you want to install HTPC Movie Launcher on another PC, simply move the folder MovieInfos to that PC.
A Use Movie Timer option is provided to give you the status of the movie’s elapse time, remaining time, and a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. This timer gets the movie length in the Length box of each movie in minutes. If the Length box is empty, the timer will not operate after you launch the movie. You can turn this timer off under the Options menu. Since the timer cannot communicate with the player, it must be started at the same time with the movie. If you stop or pause the movie any time, the timer will be out of sync with the actual length of the movie and must be updated. Click either the elapse or remaining time to update the timer. To exit the timer, click the progress bar.
Features:
- Very simple and easy to use movie launcher for home theater PCs.
- Designed to work with PowerDVD 8 and Nero Showtime 7.
- Support both video folders (VIDEO_TS) and video files (MPG, MP4, M2TS, etc.)
Requirements:
- Any Windows PC with a minimum resolution of 1280 x 768.
- Microsoft NET Framework 3.5.
- Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 or Nero Showtime 7.
- VirtualCloneDrive (optional to mount ISO files.)
Download the freeware copy from:
Purchase the registered copy from:
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