A Step-by-Step Beginners Guide for YAMJ

A Step-by-Step Beginners Guide for YAMJ

NOTE: This guide is written for Windows XP, as that is the system I run, and that it what I have tested on. This guide will work for other systems as well, but you will need to alter some steps accordingly to fit your Operating Systems needs.

 

This is what we will be doing, it is all very simple, but because there are so many ways to set things up, and each person organizes their files differently, some steps with have multiple options. Choose what works best for your situation:

 

Overview:

  1. Naming Your Files
  2. Downloading Java
  3. Downloading YAMJ
  4. Downloading GUI Config
  5. Downloading MediaInfo
  6. Defining Multiple Shares
  7. Configuring the Popcorn Hour / NMT
  8. Creating Your Library (With GUI Config)
  9. Running YAMJ
  10. Opening the Index
  11. Adding and Removing Movies
  12. Enjoy HD Awesomeness(tm) 

For this tutorial, we will be using ONLY the programs listed here. It is NOT NECESSARY to use myiHome in order to use YAMJ. If you are having issues with a setup you have already tried outside of this tutorial, it is best to uninstall everything you have done, and go back to square 1, using the guide provided here.

 

For support or questions go to the forum: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=70

or the thread for this guide: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=23929

 


Step 1. Naming Your Files

Your files need to be set up properly for YAMJ to be able to get the imdb info correctly. There are 2 ways that I know of to do this:

 

Option A:

Create a NFO file for each video file you have: http://code.google.com/p/moviejukebox/wiki/NFO_Files

For instance if you had the file “twb_blood.mkv” for “There Will Be Blood”, MovieJukebox will try to search IMDB for a match, but in this case the closest match will be “Town Bloody Hall (1979)” which is clearly not what you want.

 

How do you create an NFO file, you ask? Easy:

 

Open notepad. (click Start->Run->notepad)

Copy the full imdb URL of the movie into notepad (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/)

Save the file with a name that exactly matches your movie file name, but end it in .nfo (if your movie file is named “twb_blood.mkv”, your NFO file will be named “twb_blood.nfo”)

Make sure that the movie file and the nfo file are in the SAME folder.

 

See, easy stuff!

 

Option B:

Rename your movies files (this is so that YAMJ can index them properly and download the correct info):

 

What is important here is the naming convention (Movie Name.4DigitYear.VideoSource.FileExtention, for example: A Christmas Story.1983.DVDRip.avi). It should not matter if you have each movie in a seperate folder, or if they are multipart files (2-cd rips), only that they follow the proper naming conventions. (In reality, the naming conventions don’t even matter if you have the proper .nfo files that correspond to your video files (see Option A).

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: With YAMJ filenames, the minus “-” character is a special character used to delimit the episode/part title in filenames. Anything after this character is ignored, so please ensure multipart video tags are BEFORE any “-” in the filename. This hold true for long movie titles as well, like so:

 

Incorrect: Dragon – The Bruce Lee Story.1993.DVDRip.avi

This will index the wrong movie name, because YAMJ will search for the movie named ‘Dragon’ that came out in 1993, and it will get the wrong imdb info and cover art.

 

Correct: Dragon The Bruce Lee Story.1993.DVDRip.avi

 

(In the picture above, Aladdin 2 – The Return of Jafar.1994.DVDRip.avi DOES pull the correct IMDB info, but that is ONLY because there is no other movie named Aladdin 2 on IMDb. Normally, this will not work out, so it is not a good habit to get into)

 

Proper naming conventions for movies:

http://code.google.com/p/moviejukebox/wiki/FileNaming

http://code.google.com/p/moviejukebox/wiki/MultiPartVIdeos

http://code.google.com/p/moviejukebox/wiki/VideoSources

 


Step 2.  Downloading Java

Download and install the latest Java Runtime Environment (the default installation options should be fine):

Download Java

 


Step 3. Downloading YAMJ

Download the latest version of YAMJ: Download Here

 

Install YAMJ in the BASE of a drive. If you have any kind of space in your path name, this can potentially cause issues with Java playing nicely and it may not find your files. Also, make sure that the drive you put it on uses NTFS, and not Fat32 (i.e. NOT the drive you have Windows installed on). This will become VERY important later when we create our shares.

Correct: D:\YAMJ

Incorrect: D:\Program Files\YAMJ

 


Step 4. Downloading GUI Config

Download the latest version of YAMJ GUI Config: Download Here

(The download link is at the very bottom of the page underneath ‘Attachment’)

 

Extract the files. For this tutorial, on my PC the location is: D:\YAMJ\

 


Step 5. Downloading MediaInfo

Download MediaInfo: Download Here

Make sure that you get the CLI version and NOT the GUI version.

 

In your YAMJ install directory, create a new folder, and name it ‘mediaInfo’.

On non-windows environments, ensure the capitalisation is correct: All lowercase with an uppercase “I” in info.

Extract MediaInfo to the path: \YAMJ\mediaInfo\

 

At this point, if you have done everything correctly, you should have a folder that looks exactly like this:

 


Step 6. Defining Multiple Shares

Defining your shares so that they all show up in the same place and you can use a single Library:

 

Download and install the latest version of Winbolic Link: Download Here

 

We are going to be using Winbolic Link to make Windows see all of our shared hard drives and folders in 1 single location, that way, no matter how big your video library is, or how many hard drives and folders it is spread across, you will only ever have to use 1 setup of YAMJ, and 1 folder to manage your entire collection in.

 

Start by creating a folder where you want all your stuff to be located. Make sure that if you have a large video collection, the spot where you create this folder has a LOT of free space, because this is where all your cover art, index files, movie posters, etc. will be stored. To give you an idea: If I scan just 1 of my movie hard drives, with 167 movies in it, this takes up about 110MB of space with all the data it downloads.

 

For this example, I will be calling my folder ‘Shares’ and I will be placing this folder in my YAMJ directory. On my machine, it looks like this:

D:\YAMJ\Shares\

Now we do a little quick prep work:

Go to all the folders or hard drives that you want to include in your library, and share those folders (This does NOT include the share folder you just created, we will do that one later). I want to share 2 folders for now:

F:\MovieTest1

K:\MovieTest2

Navigate to the first folder you want to share. Right-click on it, then click ‘Properties’. Select the ‘Sharing’ tab at the top. Put a check in the 2 boxes in the ‘Network sharing and security’ pane, and give your share a name, then click OK to close the window:

 

 

 

If you did it right, it should now have a little hand holding the bottom of the folder to indicate it is shared, like this:

Go through and do this with all the folders or hard drives that you want to include in you Library (remember, do NOT do your ‘Shares’ folder yet, that comes in a minute)

 

Now, start Winbolic Link:

 

You see the 2 windows? In the LEFT side window, browse to your ‘Share’ directory, and click on the ‘Shares’ folder. You will see at the top of that window that the path is displayed: D:\YAMJ\Shares indicating that this is the folder you selected. In the RIGHT window, browse to the first directory that you want to add to your library and click on the folder. Look at the top of that window and verify that the path is correct: F:\MoviesTest1

 

Now, in the bottom left corner, where it says ‘Name of link:’, you will create a name for the link you are about to create. I named mine ‘MoviesTest1’. This name will be what is displayed as the folder name for the junction we are about to create. It should look like this:

 

Now, click the button that says ‘Create NTFS Junction’. You will see a red folder be created under your ‘Shares’ folder in the left side window, labeled MoviesTest1 –) F:\MoviesTest1\, this is the junction you just created.

 


PAUSE FOR WARNING

What we have just done is to create a junction between the folders we want to share, and the single folder that we want windows and our Popcorn Hour to see the shares in. You need to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL when you do this, and keep in mind that, if you delete something from the D:\YAMJ\Shares\MoviesTest1 folder, it is ACTUALLY being deleted from it’s real location, at F:\MoviesTest1. You can remove this junction at any time by running WinbolicLink, choosing the red folder you want to remove the junction from, and clicking the ‘Remove Link’ button. The only safe way to remove this junction is to use WinbolicLink.


 

Now, go through and do the same exact thing for all the other folders you want to be part of your library, with the left side window always pointing to your ‘Share’ folder. When you are done creating your junctions, go ahead and click the ‘Quit’ button in WinbolicLink to close the program.

 

If you have done everything correctly, your ‘Shares’ folder should now look like this:

 

If you navigate inside one of your folders, you will see this:

 

Pay specific attention to the address bar, how it says: D:\YAMJ\Shares\MoviesTest1

In reality, we are ACTUALLY looking at the contents of the folder: F:\MovieTest1

 

What is actually happening here is that we have tricked Windows (and subsequently, the Popcorn Hour) into seeing it this way, which is what really allows us to keep our whole library in 1 place. Because Windows doesn’t know any better, it thinks we are looking at the contents of a single folder, when in reality, we could do this for 50 different hard drives or folders, and Windows would see it as a single location.

 


Repeat warning: BE CAREFUL! Simply deleting one of the folders you have created will not remove the junction, you will actually be deleting the contents of the REAL drive. If you want to remove the junction, use Winbolic Link.

 


 

Now that we are done getting everything in 1 place, we can finally go ahead and right click on the ‘Shares’ folder, and use windows to share the folder on your network. The reason we couldn’t do this before is because Winbolic won’t allow you to add an NTFS junction to a folder that is currently being shared. Go ahead and share this folder now. For this tutorial, I have given this folder a “Share Name” of ‘YAMJShares’, so that I can find it easily later.

 


Step 7. Configuring the Popcorn Hour / NMT

First, we will tell our Popcorn Hour where our share location is.

 

Turn on your Popcorn Hour. On the left side menu, go into ‘Setup’, then go to ‘Network Share’. Go over to the button that says “Browse” and click enter on your remote. This should bring up a list of your network with any workgroups that are part of your windows network. My windows workgroup name is ‘BlazedM’, and my computers name is ‘Blazed’. It should look something like this (Depeding on your config):

Find your ‘YAMJShares’ folder, and click enter on it. This should send you back to the final setup screen, where you will give this share a name that the Popcorn Hour will use to identify it. I have named mine ‘OT, but you can name yours whatever you want, just keep in mind that this is CASE SENSITIVE when you go to use it in the next part. ‘OT’ is not the same as ‘ot’ or even ‘Ot”:

 

If you require a username and password for your network, enter that as well, than click ‘Save’.

 

If you click the ‘Source’ button on your remote, you should now see this new network source that you created in the list of sources.


Step 8. Creating Your Library (With GUI Config)

In your YAMJ folder, double click on ‘YAMJ GUI Config v0.43.exe’ to run the program.

You should now be looking at this:

‘Location of your movie directory to scan’:

Here, you want to click ‘Select Dir’, then navigate to the NETWORK PATH of your ‘YAMJShares’.

 

On my computer, to get there, I go to: My Network Places->Entire Network->Microsoft Windows Network->BlazedM->Blazed->YAMJShares, then click OK:

 

‘My video files are on:’

Click the radio button that says: ‘on a Network Path on the NMT’

A box should pop up asking you to input the IP Address of your Popcorn Hour.

 

 

(If you don’t already know what this is, you can find it by going to your Popcorn Hour, going into the ‘Setup’ menu, then going to ‘Network’, it will be listed at the bottom.)

 

 

Input the IP address, then click OK. This should cause the drop down box on the right to automatically change to the correct Popcorn Hour Share name that we created earlier (OT). It will also update the ‘NMT Path’ line.

 

 

‘Location of where you want the jukebox to be stored:’

You can do this two ways. Either leave it blank and it will be populated with the same path as entered or Click ‘Select Dir’ and navigate to the LOCAL path of your ‘Shares’ folder and click OK. On my PC, this would be D:\YAMJ\Shares\

 

 

Lastly, click the ‘Add’ button in the bottom left. A popup box will appear asking if you want to add a description to the Library, just click OK.

 

If you have done everything correctly, another popup will appear telling you that the entry has been added to the library, go ahead and click OK.

 

Your screen should now look like this:

 

 

Click the ‘Save’ button, and select the YAMJ Install directory that contains the ‘MovieJukebox.bat’ file, and click OK. On my computer, this is located at: D:\YAMJ\ (See Step 3)

 

 

A window will pop up asking if you want to go to this folder now, click Yes, and you will be taken to the folder. (At this point it is safe to close the YAMJ GUI Config)

 

 


Step 9. Running YAMJ

Browse to the folder that you installed YAMJ to in Step 3.

Double click on My_YAMJ.cmd, and a black window will come up and scan all your files. This will take quite a while depending on how big your library is. When it is done, it will tell you “press any key to continue”, it is safe to close the window now.

 

 


Step 10. Opening the Index

 

That’s it. The index has been generated and stored on your share. To open the index and actually play the files you need to go to your PCH and from the Media sources menu and choose the Share that you created earlier (“OT” in this example). You should be taken directly into the jukebox, should look something like this:

 

 

 


Step 11. Adding and Removing Movies

Any time you add a new movie to, or remove one from, one of your share folders and you want to update, simply run the My_YAMJ.cmd file again (Step 9), and it will update the library.

YAMJ will scan all the files again, but only download information for those, so it doesn’t take NEARLY as long as the very first time you run it.

 

Everything should be working properly, so sit back, relax, and enjoy your awesome new media player.