Frequently Asked Questions

Contents:

1. Registration and installation:

2. Adding films and actors:

3. Using Movienizer:

4. Information backup:

5. Illustrated movie catalogue for Dune media player:

Contacting Movienizer support centre

1. Program setup and registration:

1.1 How to buy a license?

You can purchase a license using links on the registration page. When buying, choose between 1-year and lifetime subscription licenses. Additionally, you can purchase a family license.

1.2 What is the difference between 1-year and lifetime licenses?

With both subscription types, you get full access to all organizers (Booknizer, Movienizer, Musicnizer). The only difference between the two types is their validity period. With 1-year subscription, you can use the organizers for 1 year since the purchase date, including all upgrades released during this period. After 1 year, your license expires. If you start an organizer after the expiration date, the program will start as the free trial version. Unlike this, Lifetime subscription never expires and includes all future upgrades without limitations.

1.3 How many computers I can use my license with?

The program is licensed on a per-computer basis and bound to a computer using an activation process. A regular license can be activated on two computers, a Family license can be activated on up to 5 computers. An activation cannot be moved to a different computer.

1.4 I did not receive my license key after some time of waiting, what should I do?

For your safety, our orders are processed by PayPro Global, Inc. On their website, it is stated that the maximum term of delivery is 24 hours. But usually our customers get their keys immediately, or within a few hours. The most frequent reasons for delays are registration e-mail getting into a "Spam" folder and so called "greylisting". The latter is a special method that allows to catch junk mail and is applied on the side of your email provider. "Greylisting" may delay email delivery for several hours. That's why we would recommend you to check your purchased registration key on this page...

1.5 How to update Movienizer to a newer version correctly?

Firstly you should back up your database and close the program. Download and install the newest version of Movienizer from our website. After you start the new version, the program will automatically open your movie database. Sometimes new features may require a database update. Please wait until the program is completely loaded, do not kill it while it is updating your database, as this may damage your data.

If any problem comes up during the setup of a new version, try to uninstall and then reinstall Movienizer. This will reset all incorrect settings, however the program will "forget" the path to your movie database as well. So after you start the program after installing it, a demo database will be shown. Do not worry, just open your database by clicking "File" - "Open database" or double-click on the .dmo file in Windows Explorer.

1.6 My antivirus reports that Movienizer is infected, does your program contain a virus?

Movienizer does not contain any viruses, provided that you have downloaded it from our official website or from other trusted resources (like CNET or from a site that links its download to our site). Movienizer's website has the McAfee security certificate, which means that the site is checked for viruses and all sorts of threats every day. The certificate is not shown if any potential threats for visitors are detected.

False alarms of antiviruses are not uncommon. There were interesting cases when antivirus would panic seeing its own unchanged files, so it's no wonder if some antiviral program may consider Movienizer dangerous.

If your antivirus alerts you about some malware in our program, please make sure you have the latest version both of our program, of your antivirus, and of antiviral bases. If everything is up to date, but the problem remains, send a report of the false alarm to the developer of your antivirus. Typically such reports are considered within 24 hours and the antiviral bases are updated correspondingly, which means that the next day your antivirus will be able to live with Movienizer peacefully.

1.7 I am planning to reinstall Windows, what should I do to secure my movie database?

Please backup the movie database .dmo file and the "Covers" folder. Of course, you would also need your license data, so please save or print it for further reference.

1.8 What will happen to my purchased license if I reinstall the operating system or move to another computer?

Please keep your registration data in a safe place. This will let you reinstall the program at any time on the computer where it was first activated. However, please note that your copy can be registered only on a number of computers that does not exceed the one specified by your license type. If you have already used up all activations and move to a new computer, you need to purchase an additional license.

1.9 I lost my registration key, how can I restore it?

You can see the details about your purchased products on this Pay Pro Global webpage...

If for some reason you cannot find your data, please fill out the lost key form.

1.10 What is the difference between the portable and the regular versions of Movienizer?

There's almost no difference. The regular version needs to be installed and the portable one has only to be unzipped. This may be useful, if you do not have the necessary privileges to install software on some computer. You can start the portable version both from the installed package and from the unzipped one by running "portable.bat". The portable version uses scripts from its own folder and saves settings to an INI file instead of Windows Registry.

1.11 I can't register the program: after I enter my key Movienizer prompts to restart it, but then it starts unregistered again. What should I do?

Your registration key is generated to your registration name, so they can only be used together. They both are case sensitive and should be used exactly as provided. To avoid any typing errors, just copy and paste first your registration name and then your code into the corresponding fields.

If you did not use the correct case, please reboot your computer and enter the data again.

Please do not hesitate to contact our support if you cannot unlock the program.

1.12 How can I get a license for free?

If you have some programming skills you can help all the Movienizer community by writing an additional module (plug-in) for the program, or by creating a new user interface script, or by adding a script for a new movie database site that isn't supported by the program yet. Other available options to get a free license are listed on Movienizer forum. Please contact us before getting started.

2. Adding films and actors:

2.1 No information about movies or actors is downloaded, or the downloaded information is incorrect, what should I do?

There are several possible reasons: a wrong download script, unsuitable downloading settings, or just outdated scripts.

Firstly, try to update the scripts. Click "Tools" - "Update scripts" - "Check all scripts". If that doesn't help, please check your download settings ("Tools" - "Options" - "Download options"). It is possible that values there are not suitable for you. Also try to increase "Timeout" setting, this can help if the server responds slowly or you suffer some connection problems. Finally, check what download script is used ("Tools" - "Options" - "Scripts for movies").

If the above solutions don't help, please contact our support or post a request on our forum. In order to get a solution as soon as possible, please describe the problem in detail and specify the following information: version and build of Movienizer as shown in the "About" window; the name and the version of the script used (can be seen in "Tools" - "Options" - "Scripts for movies" or "Scripts for persons"); title of the movie that you have the problem with (if many, please specify several ones); screenshots of the problem if you feel that they may be useful.

2.2 How can I increase the speed of the information download process?

Maybe you need only a part of the movie details that Movienizer can download. You can optimize download time by selecting options that you need in the "Download options" menu ("Tools" - "Options" - "Download options") and in the script settings ("Tools" - "Options" - "Scripts for movies" or "Scripts for persons" - "Settings"). Just choose information that you want to be downloaded and uncheck options that are not important for you.

2.3 How to add a TV series, its seasons and episodes to Movienizer correctly?

  1. Add the TV series by its title using the "By title" option of the "Add movie" dialog.
  2. Open the "Edit info" dialog for the TV series and select a season number on the "Seasons" tab.
  3. Click the "Find files of TV series" button and specify the folder where you keep episodes of the TV series. Movienizer will automatically recognize episodes if their filenames contain episode numbers (which is typically the case).
  4. Hit "Save"

2.4 How to add a two-disc edition to the Movienizer's database correctly and create a Dune catalogue for it?

In the "Edit info" menu, on the "Editions" tab add another edition of the film and specify the path to the second disc. The first disc is already set in the first edition. The program will create a folder containing editions as subfolders for your Dune movie catalogue.

2.5 How can I add many movies to my collection at once without clicking "Next" for each movie?

On the first step of the "Add movie" Wizard check the "Get the first title from search results" box. If there are movies for which no info can be found, Movienizer will list them after adding the complete group.

2.6 In the list of search results, sometimes the movie I'm looking for is not available. The "Skip" button is inactive, how can I go to the page where I can enter information manually?

Uncheck the "Download info about the movie from the internet" box on the first step of the "Add movie" Wizard. You will be automatically redirected to manual input. Please note that Movienizer supports quite a number of online movie databases and you can always try to get information from another source.

When you add movies from files, the program tries to detect movie names from filenames. Check the list before clicking the "Next" button. If you see titles that would probably cause problems, edit them manually by clicking the corresponding title in the list and making necessary changes. This will reduce the chance of wrong hits.

2.7 How to download information about all actors and directors for my movies at once, not for each movie separately?

Please consider results of such a "mass download". It would be a huge amount of information, most of which you would probably never use or see, it would take much time to download and would clog your database. That's why the feature of "downloading everything" hasn't been implemented in Movienizer yet. However, there is a feature called "Info about persons". This button can be found on the toolbar when a movie page is shown. With its help you can retrieve information about people that participated in the film. The information is downloaded for the persons that have a checkmark on the left. Several persons are checked by default (you can change the number of automatically selected persons in "Tools" - "Options" - "Download options").

2.8 How to arrange a mass update of the information in my entire movie database?

At this moment there is no way to re-download all information about all your movies/persons in one click. However, if you mean mass update as the feature to set flags like "In collection", "For sale", or change the media type and location for a group of movies, this can be done quite easily. Just activate "Manage" - "Group operations". You will be able to select movies in the list and set necessary values using the right-click menu.

2.9 How can I get information about actors while downloading information about movies?

It is impossible to download data about a movie and about persons from the movie simultaneously. But right after the download process, when the movie page is shown, click the "Info about persons" button on the toolbar and retrieve info about people that participated in the movie (directors, writers, composers, actors). Information is downloaded for the persons that checkmarks on the left in the "Info about persons" dialog.

3. Using Movienizer:

3.1 What movie databases are used as the sources of information?

The list of all supported online movie databases is available in the "Tools" - "Options" - "Scripts for movies" or "Scripts for persons" menu. Here you can also switch between databases. After registering Movienizer you will be able to download additional scripts. Click "Tools" - "Update scripts", check the "Download missing scripts" box and hit "Check all scripts".

3.2 I'd like to see more/less text in the film review on its page and in the printable reports, how can I change this?

Click "Tools" - "Options" - "General" tab. The "Number of symbols in the synopsis" field controls the amount of text on movie pages and in reports.

3.3 I do not want "the" and "a" to be taken into account when sorting the movie list. What should I do?

Switch to the "Sort title" option in "Manage" - "Sort movie list by". Your movies will be now sorted by their Sort title ("Edit info" - "General" tab - "Sort title" field). Movienizer creates the Sort title automatically using rules from the "Title sort" tab of the "Options" menu, but you can edit it or enter it manually.

3.4 How can I change the main photo of an actor?

Enter the "Edit info" menu on the page of the actor. On the "Pictures" tab, right click on the photo that is to be set as the main one and change its type to "User images". Hit "Save", then go to the "Pictures" tab again. In the "User images" category right click on that photo again and put it back to the "Photos" category. After you hit "Save", this picture will be shown as the main photo of the actor.

3.5 Why does my Blu-ray movie added from the hard drive open without the menu?

Please make sure that you have specified the path to the disc in Movienizer correctly: it should lead to the main Blu-ray folder, but not to the .m2ts file.

3.6 The internal player does not play my movies. Is there a fix?

Please make sure that you have all necessary codecs installed on your computer. The internal player is capable of playing all video formats if the corresponding codecs are available in the system. You can check this by opening the same video file with Windows Media Player.

3.7 How can I use my favorite video player program instead of the built-in one?

Movienizer has very flexible playback settings. To use your player, press F10. On the "Play options" tab, select the option that is the most suitable for you.

4. Information backup:

4.1 How to backup my movie database?

Click "File" - "Backup" and choose "Database only" or "Database and pictures". Please take into account that the second option creates a much bigger archive. More information about database files and backup...

4.2 I've made a backup of my database but when I try to restore it, an error message comes up. What should I do?

If you use Windows 7, it will not allow you to unpack your database into any Program files folder. It is recommended to use another folder. You can also unzip your database from a backup manually using Winrar/winzip and open it by double-clicking on the .dmo file.

5. Illustrated movie catalogue for Dune media player:

5.1 What kind of relationship is there between Movienizer and HDI Dune players?

Movienizer is primarily a movie organizer for your PC. As a bonus it includes a built-in feature of creating a nice looking movie catalog for Dune media players. This catalog is a set of folders, text files and pictures that should be put into a directory, to which Dune would have unlimited access (a shared network folder, an internal or external HDD, a memory stick connected to USB, etc.). If you open this folder with your Dune player later, you will be able to see illustrated movie catalog with detailed information about movies, nicely sorted by categories, instead of the usual file list.

5.2 How to create a catalogue for my movies on my Dune player?

Please note that you can create a Dune catalogue only for those movies that you have already added into your Movienizer database and that are linked to the corresponding video files. The catalogue itself is a set of folders, text files and pictures stored in a directory, which we can open with our Dune to see a graphical catalog of our films represented as covers and icons. Thus the created catalogue, just like the video file of the movie itself, should be located in a fully accessible for your Dune place (a shared network folder, an internal or external HDD, a memory stick connected to USB, etc.).

In order to begin creating your catalog click "Tools" - "Create Dune movie catalog". A Wizard window with three options will pop up:

  • Create Dune catalog by sections and save movie covers in it.
  • Save covers in the folders of the movies.
  • Remove unused movies from the catalog.

The first option allows saving your Dune movie catalog anywhere, on any available device (for example, on an internal HDD of your Dune player). It doesn't matter where your video files are stored (but remember that they must be accessible for Dune, if you want to be able to play them).

The second option will create descriptions for movies in the folders of the movies. For this option, only one movie per folder is allowed. If you have folders with several movies, the program will prompt to rename your video files and move them to newly created subfolders.

The third option will be useful, if you delete movies from time to time. The program will check if video files actually exist. In not, it will remove catalog entries for the files, so that covers of the movies don't show up in the catalog anymore.

In the field below, please specify a directory for your catalog. Please take into account that it should be accessible for your Dune. Here you can also adjust network settings by clicking the corresponding link.

Click "Next" to proceed to the next step.

Here you can choose categories for your catalog. The "Movies" category is editable, which means that you can rename it to "Anime", for example. Such category can be created in a new catalog or added to an existing one (if you choose to save it in the same directory with an already existing catalog). However, if you rename the "Movies" category in this way, it is recommended to create/add no other categories along with it.

Additional options here include swapping first and last names for persons (so that Dune sorts them by their last name), use the "Sort title" field (Dune will sort your movies the way Movienizer does, without "A", "The" etc.), remove movies that changed their status to "seen" from the "unseen" folder. You can also specify a custom prefix for the main folders. The prefix is used to put the folders at the beginning of your Dune catalog, so that you easily find them. You can also select movies only with a certain rating in this step as well.

Click "Next" to continue. In the third step of the Wizard you are supposed to choose the connection type, i.e. how your Dune should access the corresponding movie files. Select folders that you want to create a Dune movie catalog for, or unselect the ones that you don't need. Specify how the disk is connected to Dune. "Connected to Dune" means that you connect the disk to Dune directly (for example, an external HDD). You can also choose NFS or SMB as the preferred connection type for playing your media files, if your Dune should access video files over a network.  

For shared network folders, you can specify login and password data, if necessary. There is also an option to get "Storage_name" from the "Disc label" field of your database ("Edit movie info" menu - "Editions" tab - "General" subtab - "Disc label" field), which may be useful if the "Storage_name" information is not available at the moment (for example, disconnected). Be aware that the "Disc label" field value must match the "Storage_name" parameter value in the the "dune_folder.txt" text file located on the storage device.

Finally, for better compatibility with NFS, you can use two different formats of NFS paths (default settings are recommended). After all options are set, click "Next".

The fourth step lists all movies available in the folders previously selected by you. Here you can select or unselect individual movies, for which a Dune movie catalog should be created. Here you can also add movies to a special list by clicking on the "Add movies to the list of created ones" button. The next time when some new movies are added to your collection and you decide to add them to the Dune catalog, you won't have to recreate the entire catalog for all movies. Simply click the "Unselect movies from the list" button and all movies that were added to the list the last time will be unchecked, and only new "not in catalog" movies will remain selected. So you can add them to the already existing catalog quickly and easily. "Clear the created list" erases all entries about movies that were added previously.

It is possible to use controls on this page to create a catalog only for movies that you didn't see (the "Select unseen" button).  

Click "Next" to proceed. The last step of the Wizard will come up. Here you can choose a pattern for your Dune movie catalog. Movienizer comes with several simple patterns, you can download more on this page. Three options below define what will be used as the background of the movie information page in the catalog: nothing, the default background, or a shot from the film. On the right, you can choose possible movie covers and shots for the background.

For advanced settings, click "Pattern settings". On the first tab you can tune look and feel of your Dune movie catalog created by Movienizer. On the "Effects for covers" tab you can adjust cover-related settings, including highlight colors, scaling etc. This is the point where you can set shots from the episodes as their covers for a TV series. The last tab of the pattern settings menu "Output options" are represented. Here you can specify how many rows and columns of covers your Dune player should show in every category (see tabs for categories in the lower part of the window).

However, in most cases the default settings will be the best. So, you can just click "Create" to build your illustrated Dune movie catalog.  

5.3 How to add another movie to the existing Dune film catalog?

Simply create the catalog for the new movie into the same directory with the existing catalog. It will be added without deleting any existing data.

5.4 How to create a catalog only for those movies that I did not add last time?

In order to do so you should click the "Add movies to the list of created ones" button in the fourth step of Wizard. This will add all currently checked movies to the special list, so the next time when some new movies are added to your collection and you decide to add them to your Dune catalog, you won't have to recreate the entire catalog for all movies. Simply click the "Unselect movies from the list" button, and all movies that you added the last time will be unchecked and only new "not in catalog" movies will remain selected. So you can add them to the already existing catalog quickly and easily. "Clear the created list" clears the above mentioned list. Simply proceed to the next steps, and new movies will be added to the existing catalog.

5.5 How can I delete a film from the existing movie catalog?

In the first step of the Dune catalog wizard, select the "Remove unused movies from the catalog" option, choose necessary movies, and the program will delete all checked entries from your catalog.

5.6 What should I do if the images of the Dune catalog extend beyond the borders of my TV screen?

Try to adjust Overscaling, Resolution, Shift options. This should solve any overscan problems. These options can be found in the "Pattern settings" menu in the last step of the Dune catalog wizard.

5.7 I have all my movie collection located on several external HDDs and I want to create/update the catalog for all of them, how can I do it?

You can create a separate catalog for each HDD and use it while it is connected. A common catalog for all HDDs can be used as well, but in order to play video files, you need the corresponding device to be connected. So, if your devices containing movies are always online, it is recommended to create one catalog for all movies. If you switch devices on and off, you can create a catalog for each device to ensure that you never try to play movies that are currently offline.

5.8 How can I create a Dune catalog only for my new movies?

Suppose you have 10 movies. You want to create a Dune catalog. In the fourth step of the Wizard, click "Add movies to the list of created ones". A text file with a list of the selected movies will be created. Proceed creating the catalog.

Now you want to add 90 more movies. When forming the catalog, in the fourth step click "Unselect movies from the list", and the 10 movies that were added earlier will become unchecked. Now you can continue creating the catalog only for new movies. Just don't forget to click the "Add movies to the list of created ones" button again to use the feature next time, too.

5.9 What should I do to set a different cover for each episode of my TV series?

In the last step of the Dune catalog wizard, click "Pattern settings" and go to the "Effects for covers" tab. The first option to check will be "For covers of TV series' episodes, extract shots from the files". This allows you to set a shot from the episode as the cover for it.

5.10 How can I put a TV series both into the genre (actors, studio etc.) category and into the TV series category?

Check the "Create a folder structure for TV series in all sections" option in the second step of the Dune movie catalog wizard.

5.11 What kind of network connection should I have to use the Dune movie catalog and watch my films without lags?

A WiFi network is enough for watching DVD/Blu-ray rips. And it's more than enough to work with your catalogue.

5.12 Is there a way to create my own categories when creating a movie catalog for Dune?

In the second step, the "Movies" category is editable, so you can rename it to "Anime", for example. This new category can be created in a new catalog or added to an existing one (if you choose to save it in the same directory with your existing catalog). However, if you rename the "Movies" category in this way, it is recommended to create/add no other categories along with it.

5.13 How to view my movies as a list rather than icons on Dune?

To do so, you should edit the dune_folder.txt file and change use_icon_view=yes value to use_icon_view=no.

5.14 I pick the "Save covers in the folders of the movies" option for my Dune movie catalog, but Movienizer prompts to put each movie into a separate folder, what does it mean?

If you use the second option in the first step of the Wizard, you should have only one media file in each movie folder. TV series will not work, if you try to create a catalog for them using the second option. With the first option (set by default) you will not encounter this problem.

5.15 I created a movie catalog on my internal HDD in Dune, but when I try to play a movie, an error comes up. What should I do?

Please create a text file named "dune_folder.txt" with a string storage_name=DuneHDD and put it into the root of your Dune HDD. After you recreate the catalog, everything should work properly.

5.16 When I browse the movie catalog created by Movienizer, my Dune freezes and I can do nothing but turn it off with the rear side switch. What should I do?

Please, try one of the following:

  1. Turn off animation in your Dune player settings.
  2. Disable the "Save PNG files in the interlace mode" option in the "Pattern settings" menu, on the "General" tab.
  3. Set the content_box_padding_top and content_box_padding_left parameter values bigger than 20. This can be done in the "Pattern settings" menu, for each category separately.

 

If you still have any questions:

If you cannot find any solution for your problem in this FAQ or in the Help, please contact our support or post your question on our forum. We will reply as soon as possible. In order to get a solution more quickly, please describe your problem in detail and specify the following information: the version and build number of Movienizer, as shown in the "About" window of the program; your operating system and its version; screenshots of the problem if you feel they are needed; if the problem is related to information download process - the name and the version of the script used (can be seen in "Tools" - "Options" - "Scripts for movies" or "Scripts for persons"); movie title that produces the problem (if many, please specify at least two of them);  if your problem concerns Dune media player - Dune software version and template used, location of your catalog files and movie media files, network connection type.

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