Competition: Get up to $700CND for a media center or player that can import/read a .MIS

Competition: Get up to $700CND for a media center or player that can import/read a .MIS

To foster the support of the MIS specification in the many free projects currently available, I will give up to $700CND(read the rules, $1500CND in total) to the project or to the person that made it. For that amount, I expect some basic things but it's up to you to expand it in time. Many media centers have their own database and the role of the plugin will be to import those few tags in the database. For a media player, the goal will be to read and display that information while playing(like on a PVR).

Why do I do that?

• To promote the MIS specification, of course.
• To give choices to the current users of MIS Info Video(free) that may want a complete media center or want to change to another OS(Linux, OS X) without losing their .MIS
• I don't have the time for programming for every projects but I will help if you have any technical questions. Besides, it will be simpler for a programmer involved in the project and I expect less than 5 hours per project. If it's less, then good for you.
• By supporting your free project, you will help in promoting it even more. I have a page for the projects that support the MIS specification. Yours, will be added when validated!
• My blog is new but this way you will see how active are your users in searching for comments about a project in blogs.

Why give money and only $100CDN per project?

• The ideal came to me when I first saw the marketplace on LinuxMCE. There, if someone don't have the time or the know how but want some new feature, a small compensation is asked. I took it a step further by making it a friendly competition.
• I'm not made of money(I which) and programmers of free projects don't do it for the money in the first place. It's just an added bonus.
• If it takes you 5 hours to do, then it's $20/hour. Not bad for a few hours of fun!
• They are many projects available and this amount will help me spread it to many more.
• The programmer can keep the money or ask me to make a donation to the project instead.

My rules:

• I make the rules and my decision is final! I may update them to clarify things.
• The goal is one of speed and to have fun with this friendly competition among projects!
• The competition is open to all free projects. A project is defined as a free media center or free media player. No commercial versions must exist.
  
• The first 7 projects to be validated will get $100CND. Of those 7, I will select one that will get an extra $100CND.
• 1 entry per project. If the project is available in Linux, Windows or OS X, take the one that has currently the most users.
• For the 8-12 positions that did not finished in time but was validated, I will randomly select 2 that will get $100CND.
• 2 months after I get 12th projects, I will give $500CND to the project that will support the most tags in the specification and it must support multilingual tags, simple chapters, subtexts while playing a media(audio or video).
• The project or you must have a PayPal account
• Look at the list of projects and look/leave a comment on which one you will support and your role(lead programmer, plugin programmer...). First person to register get a chance for that project. You most already be associated to the project.
• You may support a free project not in the list(just leave the name and URL and your role) and I will decide
  
• If you are a user and not a programmer, do contact your favorite project to participate.
• Once registered, you have 1 week to finish. If it's passed that(based on the date/time of your comment), the plugin become available again and you loose your chance. So, for the others, stay tuned and make one just in case you have your chance!
• The plugin must be available to your peers(and competition) and tested in that time frame. If it does not work, you will lose your chance and someone else in your project will get that chance.
• Leave a comment when you have finished with the URL of the plugin and how many hours it took you
• You can create(optional) a video and upload it to a video site(YouTube, Google Video...)
• Any comments not related to the competition will be deleted. No commenting on other projects except yours. If your are participating and you brake this rule, you will be disqualified. keep it clean and fun for the others!
• If you have a blog/site and you are a user or programmer, you can link to this blog so that your other users knows about the competition. That way, they may fellow and update you in the progress of your competitions And don't forget that I need 12 projects to be able to give the $500CND. So, spread the word!
• Plus, 50% of all donations(if any) received by May 15,2007 to this blog will be given back in a random draw among all participants registered by May 15,2007.
• Most of all, have fun!
  

The tags for the $100CDN:
content-start(validate)
content-type
mis-version
file-name
original-ymd
rating-age
runtime-sec
language-multi
language-start
content-subtype
title
subtitle
description-ce
credit
guest
director
genre
country
picture-content
language-end
content-end

Don't forget that a .MIS may have more that one language. You support only the first one found. So, for example, subtitle can be 2 times but once per language. Read the MIS specification. I manipulated StarWars3.rar(no movie, of course, but with 2 pictures) and it's now in English and in French. The information was taken from IMDB, Cinoche and Allocine sites.

The tags for the $500CDN:
Support the tags above in the $100CDN plus to most that you can. Don't forget about the .MIR and FOLDER.MIF

creating_a_mis_for_a_movie.rar (simple example with chapters and subtext)
Use the StarWars3.rar because it offer many tags in the English section.

A chapter may have 2+ files(i.e. CD1/CD2, PART1/PART2, A/B...). you must support that. In MIS Info Video, the duration is reflected by adding both time. You can add chapter-time to have even more chapters.

List of possible free projects(current programmer)
Each new project will be added at the end of the list.

LinuxMCE
Freevo
GeeXboX
Meedios
MediaPortal
MythTV
GOM Player
VideoLan
GB-PVR
XBMC
iTheater
....

Note: if you see any errors, please let me know. English is not my first language :p