Movie Collector from Collectorz.com can be a handy tool for organizing a large real world DVD collection. If you’re currently a Movie Collector users you may have noticed a new feature included in the latest versions, a Media Center plugin. This MCE Zone product has been available for some time now but has recently become an official part of the Movie Collector program. Getting the plugin working properly can be somewhat tricky however and isn’t very well documented.

Movie Collector is a paid program but offers a free trial limited to 50 movies which is enough to give it a good try-out. Of course, paid programs and plugins aren’t for everyone but if you’re still in get started by downloading the free trial from Collectorz.com’s Movie Collector page.

After installation launch Movie Collector as an Administrator. This step is fairly important as the Media Center plugin won’t launch otherwise. You’ll need to enter the Tools –> Options menu and select the Media Center tab. No actual changes are necessary but you’ll need to save the settings before the plugin will operate properly.

Once that’s done you can either add movies from your collection or use the provided example database to try out the program. Adding movies to Collector can be a fairly daunting process though straight forward. The program doesn’t scan your hard drive and instead relies on manual input, though an option to import from MyMovies is available.

You can find more information on adding movies to the database from Collectorz.com’s manual here. One important thing to note, however, is that you’ll need to link a movie file to each movie in order to play them from Media Center. Right-click a movie and select edit, then in the Links tab add a movie file to the entry by selecting the button above the lower text area labeled “Add Movie File”. This enables the movie to be played from Media Center.

You can launch the Media Center plugin from either the Collectorz program in the upper right hand corner of the program’s toolbar or from the Extra Programs menu inside Media Center. Once inside the plugin you’ll find a fairly full featured interface rivaling some of the best Media Center movie library options.

Bring up the onscreen keyboard and options by pressing ctrl on your keyboard or the Play button on your remote. From here you’ll be able to select sorting options and view styles as well as zoom to certain selections by letter.

The number of available viewing modes is quite impressive and you’re sure to be able to find one that suits your particular preferences. The plugin pulls information from the database and displays information about each movie in each view in a different an unique manner. For example, in the wall view stopping on a selection will bring up details on that movie without having to enter each one in turn.

Movie Collector’s Media Center plugin even comes with a search function that allows you to search through your database by specific metadata categories including title, actor, genre and rating. As well as selectable actor names inside each movie details screen.

MCE Zone and Collectorz.com have truly provided a feature rich platform for serious movie collections. Though the Collectorz database editor could use some more options to ease use for Media Center users like automatic hard drive scanning and file linking taking the time to do the extra work can provide one of the best Media Center library experiences available.

Be sure to give this handy tool a try and subscribe to Hack7MC to get the latest on even more tools and plugins in the future!