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