One thing I love about Media Center is the ability to make my media accessible from anywhere in my home. The use of extenders means that I can watch live and recorded TV, listen to music, or look at pictures from anywhere. Unfortunately, Microsoft has yet to allow us to stream DVDs to our extenders. This is a little understandable with the current questions over copyright and such. Luckily for us there are apps out there willing to fill the gap and allow movie streaming with the right preparation.
My Movies, developed by Brian Binnerup, in my opinion, is one of the premier apps out there for just this purpose. With the ability to rip your DVDs to your hard drive built in, and easy, one step installation, you can't beat it. There are of course other apps out there that will give you the same functionality and ease of use, but you're also going to pay a pretty penny for them. My Movies is built on donation only.
The first great thing you notice about My Movies is that even though it requires an SQL database in the backend, this is packed into the installer and gets put on your system automatically. It's using a modified version of SQL so this makes sense. Once installed, you have two things going. First, in your Windows Taskbar, you have your Collection Manager. You will also have a new line in your Vista Media Center for My Movies. More on that in a minute, but let's look at the collection manager first.
Some people don't like apps that make you go to the Windows desktop to do things. Personally in this case, I love it. You have full control of your movie collection and it's much easier to navigate such things with a mouse and keyboard. From inside the Collection Manager, you add, delete, modify entries and maintain your database with backup and restore functions. I won't go into all of the details here but suffice to say, I have yet to use every feature in the collection manager. There are so many aspects to control and you have all the tools you need to control them.
Adding movies is absolutely painless. You can search by UPC, title and several other means. I usually search by title since I don't have the DVD right next to my computer. When you type in the title of your movie, My Movies heads out and searches an online database for the info you need. You're then presented with a list that matches your search criteria. Simply select your version of the movie, and hit "Add". You can queue up as many as you want to add at once. When you add the movie(s) to your collection, the software downloads all available movie information including front and back cover art, actors, director, etc.
The first time you enter Media Center after installation, you'll be presented with a pop-up that will ask how you want My Movies to appear within the UI. You can have it integrate into the My TV bar or put it on its own. I keep mine separate. The UI for My Movies is very nice. Your movies are listed with cover art presented by default but this can be turned off. I do find that my list loads a little faster with it off. Once you highlight and click into a particular movie, you're presented with a nice interface. Full size cover art, while not really readable, does make a nice inclusion. You have a full synopsis, and access to all of the actor/production information. One other nice feature is the ability to watch the trailer for the movie you're interested in. And, you don't have to store it locally. My Movies will search Yahoo! Movies and find it for you. The trailer can then be streamed to your media center or extenders.
There are a lot more features included in My Movies that can't all be touched on here. If you have a large DVD or movie file collection on HDD, I can wholeheartedly suggest it as a great 3rd party app. It's not perfect. With larger collections, your database can get a little bogged down and become slow to load on extenders and other PCs in your home. (You can share the database with client installations on other PCs.) Also, changing screens between your movie list and individual movies can be slow at times. I'm not sure what My Movies is written in, but there are faster apps out there.
Overall, if you're looking for movie collection software that will enable you to watch your DVDs either locally or streamed to extenders (in the right format) then you can't go wrong with My Movies. It has more features than most other apps in its class and it's free. Again, donations are asked for but not required. You can pay for something else and get a lot less for your money.