(Guide/Review) HomeCinema: media cataloging software for Windows

[Karlston]

HomeCinema: media cataloging software for Windows

If you happen to have lots of media files on your system, you may sometimes have troubles keeping an overview. On which hard drive was that movie again that you wanted to watch?

 

HomeCinema is a media cataloging software designed specifically for disk-based collections. It is an open source software that scans folders that you select automatically to add media files, movies and TV shows, to the collection.

 

The program is not a universal media cataloging software; you cannot use it to catalog disc-based movies, e.g. those on Blu-Ray, and you can't use it to catalog media that is not connected to the PC.

 

The application requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 or higher and 4 Gigabytes of RAM or more. The developer notes that it is compatible with Windows 10 only, as it has not been tested with older versions of Windows. There is a chance that the program will run on these versions, but I did not test the hypothesis.

 

 

Just run the program after you have downloaded and extracted it. The app prompts for a folder right away and this is the first folder that it will scan for movies or TV shows. HomeCinema fetches information from IMDB and adds these to each movie or TV show that it detected on the system, provided that information is available. The first load may take a while, especially if the folder contains lots of media files.

 

Movies and TV shows are listed in alphabetical order in the application interface. A search is provided to find media quickly, and you may use filters to filter the listing as well, e.g. to display only a specific genre or year range. A click on a title starts its playback in the default media player on the system right away.

 

HomeCinema supports multiple folders. Select Settings > File to add more locations for movies or TV shows. These are scanned by the application automatically to add the content to the database and display.

 

The app detects common media formats such as mp4, mkv, avi, or ts automatically, and you may add more formats to the list of detected formats.

 

Content that is displayed in the app may be edited; useful if the detection got it wrong and you need to correct titles or other information.-

Closing Words

HomeCinema is a useful application for Windows users who store large parts or even all of their movie and TV show collection on their PC or connected storage devices. The main limitation is that you cannot add titles manually to the collection.

 

Landing Page: https://github.com/Superfly-Inc/ShowKeyPlus/releases/

 

 

HomeCinema: media cataloging software for Windows