tinyMediaManager is an excellent cross-platform media manager
TinyMediaManager is a free cross-platform media management software that offers an excellent set of features. The program supports movies and TV shows, and can pull information from various online sources to identify movies and shows automatically for you.
As far as requirements go, tinyMediaManager requires Java to run. If you do not want to install Java on your system, you can use a portable Java version instead.
If you are running Java 7 or newer on Windows, you can unlink the browser integration to improve security if you do not need Java support there.
You need to add data sources to the program on first run. A data source is a directory on your system that contains media files that you want the program to scan.
TV and movie data sources are set up in different locations in the settings. You may also want to enable the "allow multiple movies per folder" option so that multiple episodes of a TV show or multiple movies can be identified properly by the application.
Once you have added data sources, select Movies > Update data sources or TV Shows > Update data sources. The program scans the directory and adds any movie or TV show that it can identify properly to the database.
For each file, information are pulled from online databases such as TheMovieDB, IMDB or OFDb. The data is added automatically so that you do not have to do anything in this regard.
You can edit the information manually if you want, or add other information to data sets if you like.
As far as information are concerned, plenty are displayed. The program highlights the existence of nfo files, trailers, images or subtitles on the movie overview page.
A variety of information are displayed for each movie. For one, the video resolution and format, and audio format are displayed prominently.
Below that you find information about the crew, cast and plot, detailed media informatiom, ratings, a list of all media files, artwork and trailers.
Comparable information are displayed for TV shows. Here you also get the video resolution and format, as well as the audio format used. Subtitles, images and nfo files are highlighted, and you find information about the cast and media here as well.
Movies or shows may not be identified correctly on first run. You can search for a movie manually, or semi-automatically to fill out the missing pieces. All you need to do usually is right-click on the media file in question and select the search & scrape option.
You can play any file directly from the program's interface with a click on the play button, and the program will record if you have played the file or not.
Another interesting feature of tinyMediaManager is its Movie Sets feature. This collects information about movies that belong to a certain collection. Basic examples are the Star Wars series, or James Bond movies.
The program produces XBMC and MediaPortal compatble nfo files, and can import those information as well.
Other features include options to rename files and folders, and the ability to set the artwork for selected movies or TV shows.
You will also find advanced options under Settings. Here you can add or remove video, subtitle and audio file types for example, change the title sorting order, change the preferred language and country, or change which information are downloaded and displayed in the program interface.
Verdict
TinyMediaManager is an excellent media manager. It is easy to use, and does most of the things automatically so that you only have to go through the collection once to identify movies or TV shows that the program did not identify correctly.
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Thank you as always. I have been using EMDB as a replacement for Collector’z Movie Collector and it seems decent though some results are not accurate (say PBS shows on DVD) … I still love EMDB (that I can run fine in WIne on Linux) … though I will be giving this one a shot.
-Xmetalfanx
this is exactly the sort of program I have been looking for
Oops .. seems like a great program but the files have to be ON the computer. I was thinking it was just like a regular move/tv show database program like EMDB. I was wondering why ( in this program) I couldn’t figure out how to add a show/move … it scans the directory you tell it to … thats why I was pausing for a minute, scratching my head, lol
My main gripe with all these Media manager applications is, they want ‘one movie per folder’, what for? I rip DVDs and make avi file and put all of them in one folder, so my folder that says comedy movies, there are 12 movies in comedy folder. With their idea, there will 12 folders. I HATE so many folder.
Why the program can not read more than one movie file per folder. If you put 12 movies in one folder and name NFO file just as name of the movie file, it should be all set.
If such features is removed (or I am convinced why it is so important), I will happily use it, until then I am happy with my organization method.
Yeah I’m not sure about that as well, but it has probably something to do with data they create for each file. I like episodes of TV seasons for example in a single folder as it is way more convenient to play them one after the other this way.
TMM can ;)
But it is not activated by default – see checkbox on add datasource in movie settings…
hth
nice program but several shortcomings
1 actor names and tags are not clickable
2 if you have many movies, it becomes glacially slow and almost unusable
3 cannot create any bookmarks or favorite lists