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MSIMaker
02-01-2011, 12:01 PM
Hi All,

Mezzmo doesn't seem to be able to find internet artwork for most of my video collection for some reason.

Is there some way to direct to a better source?

XBMC finds everything straight away.

MSIMaker
02-01-2011, 03:22 PM
Well it seems the only way to get Internet Artwork is to go to Properties of each file and select "Get Internet Artwork" and manually select the cover photo.

Not good when you have 500 movies :(

Adric
02-01-2011, 03:55 PM
You need to press Maintain Library and get internet artwork.

MSIMaker
02-01-2011, 04:15 PM
Hi Adric,

I have done that several times and it either locks Mezzmo up or it completes and seems to grab some screen shots from the video itself.....like the Warner Bros title screen.

I have manually done about 100 already and got the correct artwork.....I don't want to refresh it now and lose that work.

MSIMaker
02-01-2011, 05:09 PM
This issue has got me wondering why its not finding a single piece of movie artwork even when you tell it to do it from scratch.

I have just installed it on a virtual machine and copied 5 movies into the new blank library. I then set it to auto manage the artwork. It produced artwork based on the opening 1-2 seconds of the movie. So I killed the VM and rebuilt it. Reloaded the movies and Mezzmo. I then disabled internet access for the VM and tried it again. Same result. No errors or anything.....it doesn't even go to the internet for artwork.

My testing has shown that Mezzmo will not go to the Internet and fetch artwork unless you manually do it yourself by selecting a file in the library, right click and select properties and then select "Get Internet Artwork".

This is pretty poor and should be fixed as it is a basic function is some of the worst media server offerings.

bigdog
02-02-2011, 10:27 AM
I updated my Mezzmo library for the first time yesterday where my video artwork was updated
-- my video file names were aligned to IMDb file names example "Avatar (2009).mkv" (mis-matches will not update)
-- what this update did for my photographs was brilliant - I can see the photo before opening the file.

I assume that you have not done below

Mezzmo provides option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library"

Tick "Update Information about information in your Mezzmo library"

Tick "Music" "Video files" "image files"

Tick "get artwork from internet"

Tick "Schedule daily at" and select a time

Adric
02-02-2011, 11:25 AM
We have built Mezzmo so it gets a thumbnail from the Movie file and not from the internet. This feature is only for the audio files. I will add it to our todo list.

MSIMaker
02-02-2011, 11:28 AM
I updated my Mezzmo library for the first time yesterday where my video artwork was updated
-- my video file names were aligned to IMDb file names example "Avatar (2009).mkv" (mis-matches will not update)
-- what this update did for my photographs was brilliant - I can see the photo before opening the file.

Can you tell me where in Mezzmo it tells you that it goes to IMDB to get the artwork. The only setting in options is for music artwork from freedb.freedb.org

[QUOTE=bigdog;5691I assume that you have not done below

Mezzmo provides option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library"

Tick "Update Information about information in your Mezzmo library"

Tick "Music" "Video files" "image files"

Tick "get artwork from internet"

Tick "Schedule daily at" and select a time[/QUOTE]

Actually I have tried all of this and it still doesn't get the artwork unless I manually do it via properties. As I said above I have tested this several times....so unless you know of a setting I am missing then I'm still at square 1.

MSIMaker
02-02-2011, 11:31 AM
We have built Mezzmo so it gets a thumbnail from the Movie file and not from the internet. This feature is only for the audio files. I will add it to our todo list.

Thanks adric....thats the answer I was looking for....so I didn't assume that I was going mad.

Bigdog...not sure how yours works so brilliantly as you describe above.....you must have a blessed version or something.

bigdog
02-02-2011, 11:42 AM
We have built Mezzmo so it gets a thumbnail from the Movie file and not from the internet. This feature is only for the audio files. I will add it to our todo list.

Adric,

Yes my movies all now display "thumbnails" which was updated yesterday when I used "Maintain Your Mezzmo Library"
-- must assume that the video file name must agree to the standard video file name (I check my file names with IMDb) where I assume that mismatches will not update!
-- I can only assumed that this happened because I ticked "Get Artwork from the Internet

I can only assume the "thumbnails" can also be described as "artwork"

MSIMaker
02-02-2011, 11:51 AM
bigdog I think you will find the thumbnails are just a single frame out of the film itself as Adric has stated.

The name doesn't matter at all actually......rename a film and you will see what i mean.

If you do the manual way through properties the function is different in that it goes out to the net to find the movie poster from impawards.

bigdog
02-02-2011, 12:06 PM
bigdog I think you will find the thumbnails are just a single frame out of the film itself as Adric has stated.

The name doesn't matter at all actually......rename a film and you will see what i mean.

If you do the manual way through properties the function is different in that it goes out to the net to find the movie poster from impawards.

I have both "thumbnails" and the "movie covers .jpg files"

My mezzmo update of the movie covers rather than a thumbnail of first frame of move must of been because many of my video files have the .jpg cover files with matching video file names
eg; avatar (2009).mkv and avatar (2009).jpg

Looks like Mezzmo creates thumbnails and does not get the movie covers!

Adric what does "get artwork from internet" mean?

John

MSIMaker
02-02-2011, 12:19 PM
I have both "thumbnails" and the "movie covers .jpg files"

My mezzmo update of the movie covers rather than a thumbnail of first frame of move must of been because many of my video files have the .jpg cover files with matching video file names
eg; avatar (2009).mkv and avatar (2009).jpg

Looks like Mezzmo creates thumbnails and does not get the movie covers!

Adric what does "get artwork from internet" mean?

John

John you are absolutely correct in your case!!!

I just did a test in my virtual machine and if you have a jpg in the folder with your movie and it is the same name then mezzmo will use it as the artwork....excellent.

The get artwork feature which you can do manually on each file just goes out to the impawards site and finds the movie poster based on the filename....its a bit hit and miss but you can edit the search name when you do it so its a bit more precise.

I don't mind doing it manually actually because I can pick the best looking artwork.....its just time consuming :(

bigdog
02-02-2011, 01:18 PM
Why does mezzmo not get the artwork movie cover when I use the option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library" & Tick "get artwork from internet"?

In Mezzmo, for individual video files, I can right click the movie file and using <properties>, I can click [Get Internet Artwork] which gets artwork movie cover for my library?
-- this updates my Mezzmo library!

Why can Mezzmo not automatically get using the option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library" & Tick "get artwork from internet"?

MSIMaker
02-02-2011, 01:59 PM
Why does mezzmo not get the artwork movie cover when I use the option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library" & Tick "get artwork from internet"?

In Mezzmo, for individual video files, I can right click the movie file and using <properties>, I can click [Get Internet Artwork] which gets artwork movie cover for my library?
-- this updates my Mezzmo library!

Why can Mezzmo not automatically get using the option to "Maintain your Mezzmo Library" & Tick "get artwork from internet"?

There are 2 different processes.

Maintain my library only scans a frame out of the movie as artwork. The manual Get Internet Artwork actually goes to the internet and downloads it manually.

Adric said they are adding it to the wishlist. We are stuck with adding manually for now.

KWS53
02-04-2011, 07:33 AM
Apart from Cover art [which I have less of a problem with than many], I'm more concerned with the menu system which is tedious and doesn't use the video screen effectively. Any idea if we will see something that resembles XBMC or dedicted media streaming devices?

I'm currently trialing the software and I need to make a decision whether to stay with a Samsung/Mezzmo solution or migrate to a dedicted streaming device.

Kurt

bigdog
02-04-2011, 10:50 AM
Apart from Cover art [which I have less of a problem with than many], I'm more concerned with the menu system which is tedious and doesn't use the video screen effectively. Any idea if we will see something that resembles XBMC or dedicted media streaming devices?

I'm currently trialing the software and I need to make a decision whether to stay with a Samsung/Mezzmo solution or migrate to a dedicted streaming device.

Kurt

XBMC can not play mkv video files because my Panasonic Viera TV can not play mkv files
-- my TV plays only limited number video file types
-- my TV can not play movie files from my cannon camera

MEZZMO can play many video file types on my Panasonic Viera TV and is the clear winner!

Mezzmo can deliver any format that FFmpeg can read and write – it depends on the device. To see a list of all supported formats and codecs check out this page: http://www.conceiva.com/products/mezzmo/formatsupport.asp

KWS53
02-05-2011, 02:08 AM
XBMC can not play mkv video files because my Panasonic Viera TV can not play mkv files
-- my TV plays only limited number video file types
-- my TV can not play movie files from my cannon camera

MEZZMO can play many video file types on my Panasonic Viera TV and is the clear winner!

Mezzmo can deliver any format that FFmpeg can read and write – it depends on the device. To see a list of all supported formats and codecs check out this page: http://www.conceiva.com/products/mezzmo/formatsupport.asp

Thanks for your response. My major thrust of comparison is towards a dedicated streaming device like Popcorn. My major concern right now with Mezzmo is lack of support for movie information databases [plot summary, actors, cover art, etc] and lack of a GUI style screen. IMO the file folder structure is inefficent, requires multiple levels, and requires a huge amount of cursor movement.

Frankly, it looks primitive compared to WMC and other GUI style interfaces. If Mezzmo plans on improving this, then I'm a big fan since everything else works [OK no support for CHAPTERS in MKV wrappers].

Kurt

Paul
02-07-2011, 08:03 AM
Kurt,

What device are you streaming to? WMC will present a dedicated GUI on some devices (that are media extenders), but AFAIK all other devices (such as your generic DLNA player) will not show the fancy GUI from WMC. Or are you talking about the GUI on the PC?

KWS53
02-08-2011, 09:05 AM
Kurt,

What device are you streaming to? WMC will present a dedicated GUI on some devices (that are media extenders), but AFAIK all other devices (such as your generic DLNA player) will not show the fancy GUI from WMC. Or are you talking about the GUI on the PC?

I'm streaming to a Samsung DLNA compliant BluRay player. Would this not be a media "extender" environment? I'm talking about the GUI/interface through the Samsung being presented on the TV, not the interface on the PC. Also, I'm not suggesting that WMC can present me with this type of GUI on my output device - just that I expect to have this type of output.

AFAICT Popcorn Hour [PCH] and video streamers of this ilk present a robust GUI on the output device [TV screen] including database support, etc. This is what I'm trying to emulate with Mezzmo. Now, perhaps I'm confusing streamers, with extenders, with DLNA mediaservers and I need a refresher course in video transport, but my overarching desire is to have a GUI style interface AT THE OUTPUT device [TV screen] while streaming media from my PC. The question remains - what do I need in between? And how does Mezzmo fit in?

Kurt

Paul
02-08-2011, 09:12 AM
Ok, there're several classes of streaming devices and not all of them are DLNA-compatible. Those that are not, have their own, proprietary server software and interfaces that are matched (usually) closely between the PC and the end device. Mezzmo and other DLNA-compatible servers are generic in their nature, enabling them to talk to the thousands of DLNA devices out there. DLNA servers do not control the interface on the end device - the device presents files in the way it was developed to present them by the manufacturer. There is nothing that can be done to change that from our side. There are several exceptions to this rule, with some manufacturers having "back doors" for their servers that change the interface, but that's in the domain of reverse engineering those specific servers and introducing such changes into Mezzmo. One example of this is the Samsung TV B-series "rich" interface when using PCSM and "basic" interface when using any other server. So, in short, the device controls how things look on your TV.