Which movie jukebox is best ?

[d4lions]

which jukebox is best?

I think the GUI's on all of them are pretty good. Main issue I see is which one can automatically scan your files and set up your DB with the corresponding Art/Info etc.

I have seen the Youtube videos reviewing them, but they don't inherently start to talk about their strengths, weaknesses or difficulty?

[lordy]

They all have their strengths and weaknesses, so the best is often down to what each person considers most important.

I agree that the 'shootouts' I've seen do not really look at jukebox maintenance effort , or any features beyond looks and basic navigation.
I guess these are the things that influence usability the most, esp for users that do not manage the jukebox (ie other family members).
Oversight is not in the reviews, and, to be honest , I dont think it would fair too well in that criteria!

I've made a list of Oversights strengths and weaknesses here
http://code.google.com/p/oversight/

In some ways it is a jack-of-all-trades - it covers complex name recognition, basic scanning, multiple NAS, scheduled updates, and dynamic marking and deleting all in one application. Other jukeboxes will certainly give more aesthetically pleasing results but you may have to roll your sleeves up and get two or three different applications working together, and use your PC, if you want all of the above features.

Oversight does not have Actor's bios etc. as this was lower priority for me.
It also does not have much capability for manual editing of movie information. (although all the underlying info is text based)

I'll be looking at some more eye-candy over time.

[d4lions]

Thanks for your reply.

I think maintainence and I would add transportability should be something that we all aim for, along with auto DB setup. If you have a few terrabytes of content, manually creating the DB entries in Movie collectorz or other app to create the files, links etc is alot of work.

If I do put in that work, I would love to share with others as well; afterall friends will come over and say "This is awsome" I want one. copying the sources is one thing, but replicating is a nightmare.

[tiefling]

I use OverSight for my TV programmes and to watch over anything serialised that I'm watching through, but I use YAMJ (which is more static) for my movies and archive.

This gives me the best of both worlds

[Jerome]

For TV Series and Movies --> Oversight: Simple, "No PC needed", very efficient and constantly updating.

For Music, a few days ago I started testing the early versions of TankTV, still have some issues but the idea it is excellent.

Best regards

Jerome

[d4lions]

(12-17-2009 03:00 PM)d4lions Wrote:  Thanks for your reply.

I think maintainence and I would add transportability should be something that we all aim for, along with auto DB setup. If you have a few terrabytes of content, manually creating the DB entries in Movie collectorz or other app to create the files, links etc is alot of work.

If I do put in that work, I would love to share with others as well; afterall friends will come over and say "This is awsome" I want one. copying the sources is one thing, but replicating is a nightmare.

I am assuming that oversight needs a Hard Drive? that it cannot work from a NAS or PC based on what I have read? It seems that the App itself needs to be installed on the NMT box?

[espresso]

(12-17-2009 03:34 PM)d4lions Wrote:  I am assuming that oversight needs a Hard Drive? that it cannot work from a NAS or PC based on what I have read? It seems that the App itself needs to be installed on the NMT box?

D4lions, you are right in your assumption that it needs a harddrive, but I guess this is the case for most!

I have used oversight, and to be honest was amazed by how easy it is to setup, and with practically no intervention you would get your Movies and TV programs presented very nicely. (all my friends went wow when they saw it )
I did not find the need to look beyond oversight when it came to my videos (I have around 190 Movies, and 1900 episodes of series).

I haven't used YAMJ but there are lot of faithful supporters.

Cheers,
Espresso

[DefBref]

You could create a small library subset of your films and try setting up a few various jukeboxes up with them to see what you think.

I personally use YAMJ with the AEON moviewall skin, have oversight running on my NMT but never use it (its the easiest way to get lordys unpak script). I did try UMC, but found it a pain to setup and didn't really like it.

AFAIK, All of these jukeboxes offer scraping for info and posters of your videos. So you don't necessarily have to set anything up other than the names of your files. YAMJ does optionally use NFO files if you wish to provide your information, but I have found the automatic scraping is fine for my needs, rarely having to resort to NFO's. I think UMC does a similar thing with xml files, but I'm not sure.

As there probably isn't a correct answer as to which is best, perhaps describe more what your setup and what you want to achieve, and we can suggest the 'best' jukebox for your particular requirements. For example oversight is possibly not the best jukebox if you don't have an internal drive. Yamj is not the best jukebox if you don't want to have to manually initiate a update from your PC, etc.

[lordy]

(12-17-2009 03:34 PM)d4lions Wrote:  I am assuming that oversight needs a Hard Drive? that it cannot work from a NAS or PC based on what I have read? It seems that the App itself needs to be installed on the NMT box?

Doh! Yes, I think I better put that on my list of requirements. I keep forgetting about our diskless brethren.

[madspider]

i have just got mine shipped over for christmas and love the look of the jukebox app i have got two wdgreen2tb hdd and the xstreamer wifi dongle for mine will the dukebox firmware work with the c200 firmware i need to run my wifi and do i have to find all the movie data myself or is it updated over the web?
p.s i know this is not what we are all talking about but can anyone who had there c200 shipped from china to england let me know how long they waited after the date it was shipped till they got it?
thx for your wisdom

[d4lions]

(12-17-2009 05:40 PM)madspider Wrote:  i have just got mine shipped over for christmas and love the look of the jukebox app i have got two wdgreen2tb hdd and the xstreamer wifi dongle for mine will the dukebox firmware work with the c200 firmware i need to run my wifi and do i have to find all the movie data myself or is it updated over the web?
p.s i know this is not what we are all talking about but can anyone who had there c200 shipped from china to england let me know how long they waited after the date it was shipped till they got it?
thx for your wisdom

Spider... I own a factory in Hangzhou China and we ship everywhere.. I can tell you its a lot faster to the UK than the US, and they are using DHL so you should get it within a few days once you recieve the shipping confirmation... It was about 5 days in the US.. and you can track it.. but all in all it was about 3-4 weeks from the time of the order.

[madspider]

thanks mate

[doubledrat]

I use and really like YAMJ + NMTserver. with this combination, you don't need a harddrive on your popcorn. you do however need a pc though.