Advice required...

[nblackmore]

Ok, so I have just bought my WDTV Live Plus and paid my $10 for Brad's excellent customised firmware.

One thing has me slightly worried, though - I want to use the WDTV almost exclusively for watching my library of DVD ISOs which are stored on my network. They play fine at the moment, but the interface is crappy and definitely doesn't pass the wife test.

I have been looking with envy at the YAMJ interface for the PCH A-200 and starting to think maybe I should have bought one of those.

I know that movie-sheets are planned for the custom firmware. What I want to know is, do movie-sheets basically serve the same "jukebox" function as YAMJ? Are there limitations to movie-sheets or can they do eveything YAMJ does? I can cope with a bit of user customisation if necessary.

Basically I am trying to decide whether to keep the WDTV or flog it on ebay and get a PCH. Convince me either way.

Thanks,

Nick

[karamazovapy]

I haven't used YAMJ, but moviesheets are just .jpg files that are displayed on screen when you highlight a file or folder. They're (usually) created using ThumbGen, which has a really user friendly interface for choosing your background, cover, and movie data.

[nblackmore]

Thanks. I should've been more specific about what I want to do with movie sheets.

I want to have a folder structure on my network drive which goes:

DVDs
- Genre
-- DVD Title
--- Disc n
---- .iso file

Ideally I want to set up:

- a movie-sheet in the DVDs folder which lets you scroll through the genre folders
- a movie sheet in each genre folder which allows you to scroll through the DVD titles;
- a movie sheet in each DVD title folder which allows you to play each disc.

Happy to read up on all the detail and put in the time to build it all, but first I just want to get an idea at the outset of whether this is achievable.

Apologies if this is a silly question, I am a total noob at this and while these forums have lots of detail it is difficult to get the big picture on what movie-sheets are and what they do!

[kismiace]

they simply tell you what movie you are looking at picture and info

[sucram03]

I thought YAMJ basically worked just like moviesheets do. It essentially does the same thing as what thumbgen does -- it polls and queries different databases for accurate movie info/descriptions/pictures. Although looking at the two, I must say ThumbGen is much more advanced and is in general a better tool to use for customizability. It's sortof the thing that drove me to get a WDTV, as I was looking for this same functionality. Understand that YAMJ isn't necessarily going to do all of what you're asking for.

[karamazovapy]

- a movie-sheet in the DVDs folder which lets you scroll through the genre folders
- a movie sheet in each genre folder which allows you to scroll through the DVD titles;
- a movie sheet in each DVD title folder which allows you to play each disc.

The WDTV will navigate directory structure however you set it up on your disks. It's exactly like clicking on icons in a file explorer. Moviesheets are just .jpg files that display in the background (or, technically, foreground) as you navigate.