Click Here to visit Embedded Automation - mControl
My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning - Chris Lanier's Blog

My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

My Movies - Home | Brian pushed out a new pre-release of My Movies 2.20 today, and among the features are barcode scanning support from your webcam.  You can also just type in the UPC code from the back of your DVD and My Movies will search for the title too.

I tried the barcode scanning with my LifeCam VX-3000, but couldn’t get it to work.  No problems through, it’s a pre-release which means you should only install it if you’re an advanced user and don’t mind the potential of something getting messed up on your machine.

Download it here, and standard disclaimers apply.  When you can’t watch Joe Dirt tonight because you didn’t backup your My Movies database you will understand what I mean.  Also, "You cannot roll back your database version to a previous release, so be sure to manually backup your database before installing pre-releases."

Thanks to Richard for the tip.

Update: I’ve made some progress in barcode scanning thanks to Brian’s comment on manual focus.  Now all I have to deal with is a data lookup problem.  I’ve started a thread in the My Movies forums about it.

This is going to be amazing when it gets released.  The scanning takes less than a second, and so far it’s been 100% accurate.  And yes, if you must know that is “Mean Girls” and no I don’t know why I have it.  It was in the Game Room and contains “Sexual content, language, and some teen partying” so you know it’s good.

image
Published Mon, Dec 11 2006 10:43 by chrisl
Filed under:

Comments

# re: My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

Very cool software!

Monday, December 11, 2006 11:41 AM by Brian Bain

# re: My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

Hi Chris,

You pretty fast I can see ;-)

Please give me a hint of what did not work with the webcam - I am writing a guide to it just now, as it isen't just click and go.

To be able to scan barcodes, you need a webcam with manual focus, so that you can turn it all the way in, and then lights have an influence too, depending on how good your webcam is to handle this.

Before the final 2.20 release, I will have support for the Macrovision Flic barcode scanner - that is a bit easier.

Regards,

Brian

Monday, December 11, 2006 2:47 PM by Brian Binnerup

# re: My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

Chris, I found the problem.

Look at the UPC code you can in - it scan's as 13 numbers where the first two are "00" - an UPC code is normally only 12 numbers, but as it's a subset of EAN 13, a 13 number digit is then properly allowed with "00", as it then simly displays the UPC as an EAN13 code.

"My Movies" then looked up your title as was it an EAN 13 code, and due to the "00" number (which is not a known country code for EAN 13), the webservice failed and your client did not get a response.

I have now changed the webservice so that a UPC code shown as EAN 13 with "00" is handled as an UPC code instead of an EAN 13 code, and that means it should now work for you.

It looks up as "Mean Girls (Collector's Edition/ Pan & Scan/ Checkpoint)".

Thanks for reporting it in.

Regards,

Brian

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 2:01 AM by Brian Binnerup

# re: My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

Perfect Brian, Now it works!  Great application for a webcam I never use.  :)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 8:32 AM by chrisl

# re: My Movies 2.20 to Support Barcode Scanning

very cool!

Thursday, December 28, 2006 7:21 PM by Mike