Cinema Premiere online movie manager / DVD organizer. Import, organize, search, sort and play your movies on all types of media.
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Playing Movie Files


To play movie files from Cinema Premiere's Movie Manager, you MUST use the customized browser interface, CinemaPremiereOnline.exe. Movie files can be played from either of the five different views on either the Movies or Search screens.

In the Thumbnail, Summary and Detail view, if the movie is a movie file, the help text "Play Movie" will appear when your mouse moves over the image. When you click on the image, the movie will play using your default movie player. (The free version of BSplayer is very good.)

In t he List and Text view, the titles for movie files will be in bold and you can play the movie by clicking on the title.

From a Local Hard Drive

Movie files can be played from the movie manager using the CP browser if the movie files reside on the local hard drive and the paths associated with the movies in the database are correct.

External

Movie files can be played from the movie manager using the CP browser off an external hard drive. Be sure the path of the movie file is correct. The drive letter for the external hard drive may vary depending on the PC's drive mapping. For example, on your PC the external may be drive E: and on your son's PC it may be drive J:.

If you plan on playing the movies on the external hard drive from different computers with different drive mappings, you can either change your drive mappings, have multiple user accounts on Cinema Premiere or add multiple entries of the same movie with different paths in the movie database.

Change drive mapping - To change your drive mapping so that the each computer that will be playing movies from the external hard drive will have the same drive letter assigned to the external hard drive, right click on My Computer -> Manage -> under Storage, select Disk Management. In the window on the right side, right click any drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. Select Change. In the drop down menu, view your available drive letters. Cancel -> Cancel to get back to Disk Management.

View your available drive letters for each PC and decide on a common drive letter. Then on each PC, connect your external drive and follow the directions above except this time in the Disk Management window, right click your external drive and change its drive letter to the new drive letter.

Now each movie file path in the movie database for the movies on the external hard drive must have the new drive letter. If they do not, you can use the batch edit for changing the old path to a new path.

Multiple user accounts on Cinema Premiere - By setting up an account for each user's PC, each user would have their own database and could easily add and play movies from any hard drive, including the external, on their PC. The drawback is that you would have to add the movies to each movie database from each PC. However, you could export (backup) your first movie database if it only contains the external HD's movies and then import them to the other movie database then use the batch edit for changing the old path to the new path that corresponds to the correct drive letter for the external HD.

If you first movie database does contain movies other than those from the external, you may want to export and import them as well, if you are using a local area network with fairly high speeds and would like to be able play them from the other PC(s). See below on setting up movies to play over a network.

Multiple entries of the same movie - You can add the movies from your external HD when it is connected to one PC then add the same movies again when it is connected to another PC. If the drive mappings are different, the path for each movie will be different so duplicate movies would be allowed. When adding the movies, you would want to give the movies a different media type,for ex.' John's external', so you could search for those movies when you want to play movies on John's PC from the external HD. See Adding Movies on how to add a specific media type when importing a text file.

From a Network Drive

Movie files can be played from the movie manager using the CP browser from any PC across a local area network if the speeds are fast enough. I know 11 mbs is NOT fast enough. A direct connect through a router plays flawlessly.

When adding movie files, the path for each movie file must be in the format of \\System\data (e)\... where System is the computer name and data(e) is the Share name. Movies with a network path can be played from any PC on the network (with a fast enough connection) including the PC the path is pointing to where the movies reside.

To add a single movie, you must be on a PC that is on the network but not on the PC where the movie resides. From the Tools -> Add -> Single screen, click on Browse. Select My Network Places from the lower left panel on the Choose file screen. Select the network path then browse to the movie file.

To import a text file, unfortunately Widget Print Directory does not allow you to choose from directories across a network, so you have three choices.

  1. 1. Use a different print directory program that does allow you to create a text file from network directories. Make sure the movie file path is in the format of \\System\data (e)\... where System is the computer name and data(e) is the Share name.

2. Run Widget Print Directory on the PC with the movies. Use your text editor such as Word to find and replace the current path with the new network path. Import the movies from the modified text file.

3. Run Widget Print Directory on the PC with the movies. Import the movies from the text file. Use the batch edit screen to change the old path to the new network path.

On the Personal Server, you can import movies directly from the PC's hard drive on the network. You must be on a PC that is on the network but not on the PC where the movies resides. From the Tools -> Add -> Import HD screen, click on Browse. Select My Network Places from the lower left panel on the Choose file screen. Select the network path then browse to any movie file in the directory you want to import from. Continue as you would when importing movies from a local hard drive.


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