Automatic Metadata Retrieval with Media Center Master

by Michael Healy @ 10:30 am on April 16th, 2010 in metadata with 20 Comments

mcmlogo One of the advantages of having your own personal Windows 7 Media Center setup is the ability to automate mundane tasks, like metadata retrieval. Many of the metadata retrieval tools available feature ways to completely automate the process as they run in the system tray. Media Center Master does all that and more, checking multiple sources before deciding whether or not it’s even got the correct movie and then acquiring a ton of data and images for each listing. We’ve looked at MCM before, almost a year ago now, but let’s take a look at what’s new since then.

To get started with the latest version of Media Center Master head over to the MCM official forums and select the thread with the latest version. Download and installation is fairly standard procedure. Launch Media Center Master from Start –> Programs –> Media Center Master. First time users should go to the Application menu and select Set Scan Folders.

Add your movie folders and hit done, Media Center Master will begin scanning those folders for movie or TV content as this version supports TV series as well. Press the triple arrow button to expand the TV Series view. Looking in the option there is certainly quite a bit more to the program than there was a year ago. Much of it has become standard options for metadata retrieval tools: renaming, actor images, poster downloads, etc. A few of the options, however, are quite impressive (and slightly confusing).

The new downloader feature is particularly interesting and seems to be a major of Media Center Master though instructions on how to work it seem to be quite unavailable. Inferring the intent is to automatically download television and movies one may also question it’s legality. Losing as great a metadata tool as Media Center Master to some legal quagmire would be a big loss. It would be good to see Downloader become a second program that’s capable of interacting with Media Center Master.

The addition of a Post-Processing is an exciting addition to the program, allowing you to execute batch files and such after Media Center Master has finished processing a movie. This means the ability to monitor a folder for new movies then automatically retrieve metadata and apply Stark Covers (though you’ll need to use this workaround). Also, a set of options for automatically (or manually) downloading theatrical trailers for your collection is great to see included.

Back in the main dialog Media Center Master begins to automatically process the movie folders and at metadata retrieval it really is a master. With options set to check multiple sources for the best possible results and download backdrops, posters and actor images all automatically the program is remarkably accurate. There were very few movies that the program couldn’t identify on the first run.

Media Center Master was able to update our metadata in a matter of minutes over the network updating all the relevant data and giving us a nice clean default Movie Library view (which seems an impossible endeavor some days). For those movies not picked up automatically, simply right-click the listing and select Fetch Metadata. If no listing is found on this manual run the MCM will prompt for you to enter an IMDB number, typically found in the url of a movie on IMDB.com and beginning with tt. This will help the program find the correct title and fill out the metadata for the movie.

The program also supports downloading content for Media Browser, XBMC and Boxee for users of those programs and plugins. That’s all there is to it, using Media Center Master really is both automatic and incredibly accurate following a quick setup of the options. The author of the software is extremely dedicated having posted 33 updates in the last year adding countless features to the program. Best of all the program is completely free and has a great community of users as well as the developer on the Media Center Master forums. Media Center Master is definitely worth a try and will likely have to back to watching movies instead of filling out metadata in no time.