Chameleon MediaCenter

Chameleon MediaCenter v3.1 Now Available

CMC v3.1 brings some major enhancements that introduce some notable missing features, and now CMC is mostly feature complete the WMC+My Movies capabilities.

The first thing you’ll notice is a new startup splashscreen, which should make the startup less jarring.  Though if you prefer not to have the new splashscreen, it can be easily disabled.

The biggest improvement in v3.1 is a fully reworked My Movies syncing routine.  The changes are all under the covers, but they result in significantly faster Full Syncs and SmartSyncs, and a LOT of SmartSync bugs have been fixed so you shouldn’t have to do a Full Sync as often anymore.  While the speed improvements are quite nice, the code changes are actually laying the groundwork for even bigger improvements to syncing your My Movies collection in the future.

You can now jump through your titles with your number pad or keyboard using more than 1 letter, and the letters you have entered show on-screen.  Similarly, you can now use your number pad to perform text entry on the Real-Time Search panel, so you no longer have to pull out your keyboard to search by Title, Synopsis, Actor, Director, Writer and/or Producer.

You can finally play Movie Trailers from the movie details screen.  If the trailer is available the “Trailer” text will turn white when you select it, or gray if no trailer is available.  Trailers will open using MPC-BE (so this must be installed).  Helpful Tips: If some trailers don’t play but just open to a blank screen, make sure your MPC installation is fully up to date.  Also, you will have to do a full export of your entire collection with CME v1.2 to export the YouTube Trailer ID’s.

A popular request to support DNA files (Do Not Add) to exclude directories from importing into CMC is now available in v3.1.  Just create an empty text file named “CMC.dna” (capatalization is not important) in any folder you want excluded, and CMC will skip that folder and all subdirectories inside of it.

If you have offline titles stored away in boxes/organizers, if you log their location in My Movies (Personal Data > Location) then CMC v3.1 will now display this location info when you go to play the title.

A lot of attention was also paid to fixing memory leaks and other bugs, making CMC v3.1 the best Chameleon MediaCenter yet.

Check out the Downloads page for more details.  And for a nice write-up of What’s New, check out this forum post:  CMC v3.1 & CME v1.2 – Here’s What’s New!

CMC v3.1 is a free upgrade for all users.  For current users, CMC will let you auto-update to the new version the next time you run your current version.

Leave a Comment