Mine is starting to work now too Mat.
My problem was the folder structure.
I have my movies in a folder called movie.
In this map are subfolders like kids, action+thriller etc etc.
I choose these subfolders in the "movie folder" option.
When I choose the main folder, ad the subfolders in the "add movies" screen....voila !!!

Hopefully I'll be able to find out if the results I'm getting are just me or it's time to abandon the POHD altogether.

I've copied a small collection of movies to the POHD and created a library etc using the HTPC 1080P template and everything goes fine.

My big issue is that the POHD will display the background image with the cover etc from the browser function on the player but when the Jukebox opens the same image it looks like absolute rubbish. The image is displayed at such a low resolution it's embarrassing.

Is there something I'm doing wrong or need to tweak or is this just how it is?

Here is the key path setup. You have to map your hard drive to a letter and use that map for BOTH the movie folder location and when you add the movie folder. Seems a little superfluous to name the location where your movies are and then where the files/folders are in the next step which is why I was thrown off. In the end, when all else fells do not assume and just follow the directions.




Things I have learned besides:

On the Build Jukebox Tab you three inputs on the top right corresponding to the name of the file within each folder (you should have one of each for every movie folder named the same):

1. Movies Thumbnail Name is the image used for the PhotoView and PhotoFocusView Menus.
This should be a smaller jpg around 200x300 but will look at code to find out exact dimensions used by Tvixie2playonhd developer. Best not to resize this so it looks the sharpest. You can use larger images but you will find that they will lag the jukebox - I attempted to use my 1000x1500 folder.jpg images and found this out.

2. Movies Info Name is the image used for the Overview of the film. The one created by Tvixie with the fanart, metadata, and box cover all on one jpg. These should be 720p. This should always be background.jpg.

3. Tvixie MoviesInfo File is the metadata file. This should always be MovieInfo.tvixie. Not sure what the conversions program uses out of here but there is an option below for title tag source and there is path information also in the MovieInfo.tvixie file. It is a text file.


The conversion program is based on 720p and you should use 720p themes. The 1080p background.jpgs get pushed off the screen at the edges.

I used very nice 1000x1500 folder images (Movie cover art) in the creation of my background.jpgs. I edited the template in Tvixie to use my image instead of the smaller one they created called front_cover.tvixie (a jpg file) which gets layered into their fanart.tvixie (another jpg file). Tvixie fetches metadata for each film (MovieInfo.tvixie - a text file) then combines it with fanart.tvixie and front_cover.tvixie to create the background.jpg which is what we see on the PlayOn!HD when you select one of the movie covers.

Unlike YAMJ which has fields and data, this way just displays one single jpg which makes it highly customizable.

It is very fast to load the jukebox and make changes .

All I can think of for now. We will need a super editor to clean all these posts up.


***** PS Can you post your template Pe3? I prefer yours as a base to steal from . And it is 720p.

@Matt/Seatlle

I used the BBTyaDIS template, added the grey panel to it. and changed some colors for readibility. A added the template.xml where the changes were done.

Good luck with the tweaking!

I got the info for all my movies and they look awesome.
Unfortunately not all movies are transferred with the TvixiePlayonHD program.
I am missing a bunch of movies in the overview. Ia m not sure, but I think it's all the Video TS ones.
Which file do you need to keep in the list for the movies to be generated ??

I am slow to change but when I do, I am happy to admit my errors. Mapping the drive on the PlayOn!HD is so much easier to access than selecting computer/network/PlayOn!HD and then the drive and folder. No slowdown as Windows7 queries the drive and does mounting or whatever Windows does to access network drive space.

Takes 2 seconds to hit Computer/Z/Movies. Do not why I never did it before especially since mapping takes all of 5 seconds on Windows7.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way. Does anyone know how to decipher XML code. I am looking through the RSS files created by the T2P conversion program to decipher what the size is for the cover art but can not figure it out. I did look through the covers and noted the ones that look good and the ones that look so-so and there is no real differentiation on size for the most part. A really bad one was Scary Movie 3 which was 106x160 - which is easy to explain as it get blown up to the size as displayed on the screen. But three covers that looked good were 216x326, 277x400, and 200x285 while two bad ones had 278x400 and 285x400. Strange indeed.

I finally understand what people are really saying with their need for an HD GUI. Just because you have your PlayOn!HD outputting 1920x1080 does not mean it is rendering that many pixels in the display. It is upscaling a smaller internally rendered image to the 1080P. Now the Screen Size sizing now makes so much sense - mine is set at 1200 x 674 for my 42 inch Plasma set to 1080P. And the images do not look as good when displayed on the screen compared to my 1680 x 1050 computer monitor. I think the bit depth is 16 bit which would explain the moire rings.

Hopefully someday.

Anyway back on topic. I did old school measurements using an actual measuring tape against my TV screen and cam up with 92.5cm by 52cm. And with 1200 x 674 pixels in the red box we get 12.97pixels/cm and 12.96 pixels/cm respectively. Round up to 13 pixels per centimeter and apply to the measured on-screen cover size that is just under 14cm by 19cm and we get an ideal cover size of 182 pixels wide by 247 tall.

I was going to use folder images and resize them to 182x247 but decided to just do them at 250p wide since I could not see much difference between the two and though a little bigger was better. I kept the shrink symmetrical and let the PlayOn!HD or the T2P program distort to fit if needed.

**Fran, I think it was mentioned in the PDF How to, but you need to remove all of the files except the one that starts the media for an iso (in the PlayOn!HD) in the T2P program.

After doing the cover size to 250 pixel width I made sure to rebuild my Jukebox (I had a few missed paths) and started her up. I would love some higher definition output from the GUI but I am pleasantly surprised with it so far. There is about 1/2 second time for the covers to slide and about 2 seconds for the overview to come up. I took some shots to show the on screen quality though it is hard to get a good capture of video screens with a camera.







I need to edit the metadata to include the resolution and audio plus source for each file still. Too bad the Tvixie program does not include a mediainfo CLI capability. I do have other metadata from MediaMaster but usually videos only have correct video width since height is encoded with out black bars when possible. I will test it out if I can even poll from other metadata files in the same directory and then perhaps do a sum or logic code - i.e if < video width > = 1280 then video = 720p.

Overall I am happy with this development.

PS I think the Tvixie API call to TMDB is borken. I never get a response from it.

LOL....thanxs Mat.
I am talkin g Video_TS files here. It says to remove everything except the main VOB file.
But which is the main VOB file ?? Some have a Video_TS.VOB. Others have a VTS_01.01 as a first VOB.

I simply don't get it. I select al the files needed, it tells me there are 135 movies.
Then when I wanna make the jukebox it skips 60 files ???

What am I doing wrong here ???

You should try TViXiE Assistant: http://www.tvixie.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=816
It scans the movies with MediaInfo and saves the resolution etc. to the MovieInfo.tvixie file.

Son of a ...

Thanks for that cooalis. I did it manually last night already - took about an hour I think for 112 files. Good program for all those reading this later.

Fran - which file do you select when you want to start a DVD structure on your computer if using explorer? I guess trial and error will tell you the proper one. I do not use that file structure so I can not give first hand experience.