Couldn't find any one post that covered this directly, so I'll ask.  How well does MyMovies (www.mymovies.dk) work with Unraid?  I've read a little about it on the MyMovies forum and it sounds pretty good.  Wanted to get some feedback from the Unraid forum and see about it here.  Is there anything speical to take into account with an Unraid server running the MyMovies program?  Do any of the users here have some info on their set ups and how they connect?

 

I'm looking to move from WHS over to something else.  I'm thinking that Unraid is what I want.  I've looked at a SAS setup, but from a cost standpoint and what I want to do I think it's over kill.

 

 

I've been running MyMovies for quite awhile now.  I use a stand alone installation on a single client with all the movie directories in the database aimed at folders on a share on my unraid server (ie unc paths ala \\tower\movies\movie title).  I generally rip blu-rays and dvds using anydvd to folders on an unraid share but do have a few .iso files as well. MyMovies can handle both assuming a virtual disk utility like slysoft's virtual clone drive is installed for mounting .iso files.

 

It works very well and there's nothing special about the setup except that I did find the unraid Settings,Enable spinup groups = yes to be a critical setting to avoid stuttering during a movie whose files may span different disks.

 

The enable spinup groups feature was added to a revision of unraid at some point due and unfortunately didn't get added to either the documentation or the wiki from what I can tell.

 

The best advice I can give is to do a forum search on 'enable spinup groups'.  

 

Example quote on spinup groups from one of those search resuts....

 

"It is an attempt to over some some of the Windows samba problems and a few others....spinup groups will keep a disk spun up that is in the same group as any other so as not to produce IO conflicts on the bus while a drive is spun up."

I generally rip blu-rays and dvds using anydvd to folders on an unraid share

It works very well and there's nothing special about the setup except that I did find the unraid Settings,Enable spinup groups = yes to be a critical setting to avoid stuttering during a movie whose files may span different disks.

 

Thanks for the tip on spinup.  One other question for you.  Is there any reason why you don't let mymovies rip your movies for you? 

I use MyMovies along with WHS and UNRAID. The main reason I moved from WHS was it's extremely poor performance on streaming movies. This was particularly bad with bluray .iso files. Also I do not like the way WHS handles drive pooling (disk extender). No fault tolerance - unless data is duplicated and the DE-migrator - a process which moves files / parts of files across multiple disks and completely kills disk i/o while it is active - makes WHS a poor choice for large scale movie storage. MS have announced that they are doing away with both DE and Migrator in the next version WHS (Vail).

I have a small older pc now running MyMovies on whs which is purely for database management. I have all titles stored on unraid (12Tb storage so far) - about 600 movies and tv series - my DVD's are in video_ts folders and my bluray (about 160 titles) are in .iso files. You never know what will happen with software players with regard to MKV or folder playback. I can always re-rip iso's to folders, its harder the other way round. I have set unraid storage options so no singles folder/movie spans more than one drive. iso files are never split so this is good for bluray playback without stutter.

Whilst mymovies (both whs and win 7) can ID and rip your movies, due to the way anydvd works you can only rip bluray to a local drive - I don't have / want a bd drive on my whs. I prefer to rip on my fast i7 desktop and then copy to unraid box from my desktop. This lets me make any minor tweaks on the title details/data from the desktop collection manager.

Very happy with My Movies, and the new ipad app which also acts as a remote is great too.

 

K

So how is WHS acting in your current setup with mymovies?  Sounds like it's no longer in the mix, but want to double check.

The reasons you stated are why I want to move away from it.  I had some problems with iso files playing back and went to folder rips for my blurays, but I have worried about folder support going away one day.  

 

Edit:  Ok I think your using the older pc(which is using whs) to manage the mymovies db.  

Thanks for the tip on spinup.  One other question for you.  Is there any reason why you don't let mymovies rip your movies for you? 

 

Because personally I find the amount of money he's asking for the app to be able to perform that specific feature way too much...

Ok I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a network/setup reason.

I'm using myMovies with my Unraid and love it.  Works flawlessly with my standard and blu ray dvd's ripped into folder structure.  I've even used it for all my boxed tv sets and grouped everything under one heading like The Wire: The Complete Series, then beneath that each of the seasons.  I wish he would create something similiar for music!

 

I actually use AnyDVD HD with ClownBD to rip my movies.  I don't believe myMovies can rip out individual tracks but rather the whole dvd.

 

 

 

 

The Whs works perfectly fine with BD ISOs. I use an HP MED WHS and have thirty one drives in/attached for 56TB of storage. I can stream three high bitrate BD ISOs concurrently to my media players with zero issues. I have not tested my unRAID build yet for max concurrent streams

I use MyMovies along with WHS and UNRAID. The main reason I moved from WHS was it's extremely poor performance on streaming movies. This was particularly bad with bluray .iso files. Also I dopp not like the way WHS handles drive pooling (disk extender). No fault tolerance - unless data is duplicated and the DE-migrator - a process which moves files / parts of files across multiple disks and completely kills disk i/o while it is active - makes WHS a poor choice for large scale movie storage. MS have announced that they are doing away with both DE and Migrator in the next version WHS (Vail).

I have a small older pc now running MyMovies on whs which is purely for database management. I have all titles stored on unraid (12Tb storage so far) - about 600 movies and tv series - my DVD's are in video_ts folders and my bluray (about 160 titles) are in .iso files. You never know what will happen with software players with regard to MKV or folder playback. I can always re-rip iso's to folders, its harder the other way round. I have set unraid storage options so no singles folder/movie spans more than one drive. iso files are never split so this is good for bluray playback without stutter.

Whilst mymovies (both whs and win 7) can ID and rip your movies, due to the way anydvd works you can only rip bluray to a local drive - I don't have / want a bd drive on my whs. I prefer to rip on my fast i7 desktop and then copy to unraid box from my desktop. This lets me make any minor tweaks on the title details/data from the desktop collection manager.

Very happy with My Movies, and the new ipad app which also acts as a remote is great too.

 

K