Decorum for the Forum:
  • Be nice. If you want to be mean, try Reddit.
  • No Piracy. If you want to be a thief, there are dark places on the internet dedicated to that.
  • No Cracking. Discussions on AnyDVD, DeUHD, DVDFab, UHDKeys and similar tools are not permitted here.
  • No Spamming. If you want to make a buck, work smarter... somewhere else.
  • No Adult Content. Half the internet is dedicated to adult content. This half isn't.

Privacy Policy: Click Here to Review (updated September 30, 2020)

Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post here to suggest ideas for future versions.
Post Reply
User avatar
Pauven
Posts: 2777
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:28 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Contact:

Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Pauven » Sat Oct 10, 2020 2:47 pm

As we arrive at the 3 year anniversary of Chameleon MediaCenter, I thought it would be interesting to share a look back at these first 3 years.

Programming CMC is a side project for me, but it's not my only side project. Some of you may already know that I have developed my own pinball machine control ciruit boards and software. My pinball project started about 10 years ago, and is one that I've worked on sporadically through the years. In the summer of 2017 I was busy working on my pinball machine controller software and was getting a little burnt out, when I decided that I needed a short break to reset.

Back then I was in the habit of checking the My Movies forum every few weeks to see if there was a solution for replacing WMC, and it occurred to me that it might be possible for me to create my own My Movies GUI. After all, how hard could it be to show DVD cover pictures and command PowerDVD to play an ISO file? I figured if I could design and program pinball machines from scratch, surely I could make a movie browser. I gave myself two weeks to work on this side project before getting back to pinball.

After a couple weeks, I had a fairly decent demo program up and running. It would scan my media folders, find my movies, display their covers, mount ISO's with VCD and start playback with PowerDVD. It wasn't near as nice as WMC... but it actually worked so it had that going for it. I thought it was pretty awesome, and I wondered if anyone else would want to use it.

I'd always wanted to sell a product I made, mainly just to see if I could. While I had intentions to sell my pinball controller solution, I was intimidated with the thought of trying to sell and support both electronics and software costing thousands of dollars per machine - it made sense to try something a little less ambitious. Now I had literally stumbled into creating a product that might just be a perfect low-risk opportunity to get some sales and support experience.

So I put my pinball project on hold, and spent the next 3 months improving my demo, making it look more like My Movies on WMC, and adding in features like the auto-updater and license management. I also had to set up a website and figure out a safe way to process payments. Finally, on Halloween, October 31st of 2017, everything was ready, and MM Browser v1.0 was released. In case you're wondering, MM stood for My Movies.

The initial My Movies community excitement was promising, and I was sure everyone who tried MM Browser would love it as much as I did. But I wasn't prepared for what came next. The software just didn't work for regular My Movies users, for oh so many reasons. Chiefly among those is that My Movies is a very complicated product with multiple ways to do things, and my own use of My Movies was so limited that MM Browser really only worked on my collection. Plus, users wanted more functionality, a lot more... they wanted a real replacement for WMC+MM.

Not one to give up easily, I spent the next 3 years making MM Browser better, not just with bug fixes but also new features and improvements. How do you summarize 3 years? Perhaps in numbers. To date, there have been:
  • 20 Major Version Releases
  • 16 Bug Fix Releases
  • 186+ New Features
  • 59+ Improvements
  • 182+ Bug Fixes
  • And 1 Name Change

Here's another way to look at it: That's an average of 1 new feature, improvement or bug fix every 2.5 days, for 3 years!!! And while many of these fixes and new features were small, some were very significant, like the addition of the new Metadata Exporter program.

Here's a few more numbers for you: I've spent well over 3,000 hours programming and providing user support (I wasn't keeping track, but I estimate that the actual number is closer to 4-thousand hours) - all unpaid. That's right, sales of CMC licenses go to pay expenses like website fees, subscriptions for various development tools, and 3rd party library licenses that make CMC better. So far, revenue has covered out of pocket expenses, but not labor. Good thing that I'm not trying to make a living off of CMC license sales, as otherwise I would need to charge about $3,700 per license. I doubt any of you are willing to pay that much...

That last number is probably why Binnerup decided it wasn't worth developing a replacement for WMC. I'll give him credit, financial-wise I think he made the right call, though it still stings a bit that Binnerup didn't at least try.

Perhaps the statistic that I'm most proud of is this: All upgrades have been free. For those early users who gave MM Browser v1.0 a chance, they've been rewarded with 3 years of regular updates at no additional cost.

Personally, I consider CMC to be my gift to the community, freely donating my time as long as license purchases cover my expenses. It's also been a great educational tool for me - I am a much better programmer today than I was 3 years ago, so it's not like I didn't get any personal benefit.

Oh, and the biggest benefit to myself is that I get to use CMC too!


Now that we are approaching Halloween, I'm thrilled to be preparing CMC v4.0 with some amazing new features. CMC v4.0 will be easier to use and more feature rich than ever before. But as the previous 3 years have shown, I don't expect v4.0 to be the last version. It's just the next version, to be followed by many more. Perhaps one day I'll consider CMC to be good enough and feature complete... someday... far in the future... maybe...

-Paul
President, Chameleon Consulting LLC
Author, Chameleon MediaCenter

Jamie
Posts: 942
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:26 pm

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Jamie » Sat Oct 10, 2020 9:48 pm

I'm happy you showed up on the scene and that you never took it personally when "we" CMC users would say that things did not work as "we" thought they should. I know that it's very disheartening when we say, "It doesn't work". Keep up the good work Paul and I can't wait until 4 comes out.

dsteinschneider
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2020 9:06 pm

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by dsteinschneider » Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:19 am

It's a strange coincidence that I finally decided to put WMC to rest on the three year anniversary of my first MMB (CMC) license. I was able to successfully upgrade our MyMovies folder set to CMC in half an hour and get our MCE remote working. I showed it to the family and they all agreed it's a better experience than WMC so that's a huge accomplishment! One man programmed a solution that a behemoth software company declined to upgrade for tens of thousands of users. Congratulations!

User avatar
Pauven
Posts: 2777
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:28 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Contact:

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Pauven » Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:41 am

Thanks guys for the great feedback!

Better than WMC is high praise indeed! I'm humbled to even have CMC mentioned in the same sentence with giant endeavors like WMC, Kodi, and Plex.

All the critique has made CMC so much better than I ever could have imagined. Plus, I've learned a lot about My Movies along the way that has greatly improved my own enjoyment - especially TV Series, I'm never going back to watching TV Series via disc menus! I'm grateful for all the users who clued me in on WMC+MM features I never found on my own.
President, Chameleon Consulting LLC
Author, Chameleon MediaCenter

Teddyboy
Posts: 268
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2018 10:30 pm
Location: San Diego, Ca

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Teddyboy » Fri Oct 30, 2020 1:43 pm

Has it been three years already!? Wow! Paul you’ve come a long way. Lots of great improvements. I’m looking forward to the next release. I thought I would finally surface. It’s been a rough year for me, and I haven’t had much time to think about let alone play with CMC. Moving during the shut down, my truck was totaled, getting laid off from my job has been a big readjustment. I just started a new job with every other Friday off, so I’m getting back on my feet. My movie server and htpc has been sitting in storage since I moved. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to bring them out and get started again. I may have a couple of questions about hardware for my htpc because I want to upgrade it. I have a old thread about it, so I’ll post there there to make sure those selections we discussed are still relevant. If not, maybe you can point me in the right direction. I’m really looking forward to 4.0.

Have a great weekend.
Mechanical Engineer, Solidworks junkie, Reef aquariums, sci-fi, weight training, orchids, Ferns, Kaiju, model kit building, balboa park, scripps aquarium

User avatar
Pauven
Posts: 2777
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:28 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Contact:

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Pauven » Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Hi Efrain, so sorry to read about your challenging 2020. I'm glad you're getting back on your feet, and welcome back to our little corner of the internet.

CMC v4 is a big change - hopefully we all can say bye-bye to folder-scanning Syncs, and hello to a full My Movies export including offline titles, discless movies, and even the brand new My Movies feature Movie Collections.

You're gonna want to upgrade to the new My Movies v5.30 - it's required to get the most out of CMC v4.0. So definitely get your old gear out and start playing.

And there's no shortage of help here if you need input on HTPC gear.
President, Chameleon Consulting LLC
Author, Chameleon MediaCenter

lovehtpc
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun May 06, 2018 1:32 am

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by lovehtpc » Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:03 am

Pauven wrote: Sat Oct 10, 2020 2:47 pm After all, how hard could it be...

...I spent the next 3 years making MM Browser...
This sums up every side project i have ever started myself, lol "how hard could it be" is the famous line :D :lol:

I am very thankful you created this product and made it such a great replacement for the old WMC. My wife was thrilled when she didn't have to look in windows explorer for movies, as was I. Thank you for all of your hard work that you put into it! The numbers speak for themselves :)

User avatar
Pauven
Posts: 2777
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 10:28 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Contact:

Re: Looking Back on the First 3 Years of CMC

Post by Pauven » Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:09 am

LOL! :lol: Exactly!

lovehtpc wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:03 am My wife was thrilled when she didn't have to look in windows explorer for movies, as was I.
So I wasn't the only one who did that?

lovehtpc wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:03 am Thank you for all of your hard work that you put into it!
:D My pleasure!
President, Chameleon Consulting LLC
Author, Chameleon MediaCenter

Post Reply