How To Install Xbmc On Windows Xp
Ane of the most pop front ends for Home Theater PCs is XBMC. It is a light-weight application that has a huge user base and community. Adding to its popularity XBMC can exist installed on practically every platform (OSX, Linux, Windows, AppleTV, and Live via USB Flash Drive). XBMC has set the standard for how a UI should look and act, and many of the skins accept influenced the look of other Media Center front ends. With the release of the side by side XBMC beta codename Dharma I thought this would be a proficient opportunity to accept a closer await at XBMC and walk through the basics of setting up.
I am going to set up XBMC on my Windows vii x32 auto using the latest Dharma build.
TIP: If yous are interested in bitstreaming Hard disk drive Audio y'all are going to either want to use the DSPlayer build I wrote virtually or utilize the latest Dharma build merely have MPC HC launch. Also, if y'all are a Windows Media Center user you can easily add XBMC as a card item to launch direct from WMC.
Files To Download:
XBMC Dharma Beta1
Installation:
Actually not much to it, only run the downloaded file and go through the typical setup steps. Yous can choose to customize the install process, only I simply left all the defaults checked off.
Once the installation is consummate y'all tin at present launch XBMC and volition be presented with the default Skin called Confluence.
Setting Up Your Media Libraries:
My current video library is set based on folder structures. For example:
- Movies – Videos Shared Folder -> Movies -> Individual folder for each movie. The movie folder and the actual movie file name should be named exactly as the motion picture itself (I utilize IMDB or TMDB equally reference)
- TV Shows – Videos Shared Folder -> TV Shows -> Individual folder for each TV show -> Private Season folder for each season. The Goggle box show folder should be named exactly as the Television bear witness itself (I use TVDB as a reference). Each episode is placed ion the respective season folder and is named ShowName – S##Eastward## – EpisodeName (i.e. Supernatural – S01E01 – Pilot.mkv)
It is not absolutely necessary to sort your video library as in a higher place, merely I have constitute this yields the all-time and most consequent results across a variety of platforms.1 thing for certain, make sure your Movies and TV Shows are in divide folders.
XBMC has its own built in scraper that will assemble all metadata/fanart. However, you can apply a 3rd political party metadata program such as Ember Media Manager to collect and maintain your metadata/fanart locally. XBMC will first search to run into if local metadata/fanart is available to use, and if not then it volition fall dorsum on its internal scraper.
With XBMC select Videos on the main carte. This should take you to a card where y'all want to cull "Add together source"
A popup should appear, choose "Browse" and navigate to the binder where your media is located. You can fix multiple sources, and if yous have both TV shows and Movies you will need to fix upward a carve up source for each.
Afterwards your media location has been added the next step is to click the "Set content" button. This is where you tell XBMC what type of content the Video source is as well equally to ready scraping
Afterwards selecting "Set content" you lot will now be able to select what type of content and and then choose a scraper
Below are the settings I chose for my Movies, using The MovieDB as scraper (there are additional scrapers which can be added via the Add-ons)
Below are the settings I chose for my TV shows, using The TVDB equally scraper (there are additional scrapers which can exist added via the Add-ons)
Depending on the size of your library when y'all first set up up the content it may have a while equally XBMC builds the library database too every bit scrapes (if applicable)
Once done setting upward your Videos library the aforementioned can be done for Music and Pictures from the Chief Menu (obviously the "Set content" role volition non apply).
If you content was fix properly when you lot go back to the Chief Carte and tab beyond the "Videos" menu item you should at present see a "Movies" and "TV shows" line particular.
You may notice nevertheless that when you go into your Movies or Telly Shows information technology has more of a Windows Explorer blazon experience, where you lot are actually browsing files. This is plain not ideal, so yous will need to make sure that Library Style is enabled. While in the videos section using the left pointer key should bring up a menu screen as seen below. There volition be an pick for Library Mode that can be enabled. Once enabled, when y'all select a movie poster in any of the views the movie will automatically play without having to actually navigate to the file.
Now what happens if XBMC scrapes incorrectly, or you decide y'all want to use dissimilar fanart? To edit only navigate to the video in question, right-click which should bring up a bill of fare
Select "Movie information" from the carte. To re-scrape the picture click the "Refresh" button which should bring upwardly a list of possible matches (you can as well enter the proper noun in manually). You can also apply the "Get thumb" and "Get Fanart" to supplant the current artwork with local content.
Settings:
In that location are way too many settings to try and cover them all here, so I idea I would just point out a handful of them that were useful
Settings -> Advent -> Skin / This is where you lot can switch to dissimilar skins
Settings -> System -> Video Output / Here you can specify the display manner and resolution to exist used.
Settings -> System -> Audio Output / Here y'all can specify your speaker/receiver setup
Settings -> Video -> Playback / In that location is where you would enable hardware acceleration (DXVA2)
Setting -> Video -> Library / Here you tin specify to have XBMC automatically update the library on startup
Settings -> Network -> Services / This will come in handy when setting up an iPxxx/Android as a remote to control XBMC
Settings -> Weather / Here you can customize upwardly to three locations where XBMC will display the conditions statistics.
Video Playback:
There were a few features I wanted to test out as far every bit playback:
- BluRay Binder Structure – I had to navigate to the "index.bdmv" file, just once selected the chief motion-picture show played (no BD menus)
- mkv w/ PGS subtitles – played, although the subtitles would remain on the screen fifty-fifty afterwards the scene ended (issues)
- DXVA w/ ATI 4670 GPU – for both VC-ane and H.264 CPU remained around 5% indicating that DXVA was working properly
- DXVA w/ core i5 GPU – for both VC-1 and H.264 CPU was around 30% with spikes above indicating that DXVA does not piece of work properly with intel graphics.
- DVD ISOs – XBMC mounted properly and played dorsum with full bill of fare back up
- BluRay ISOs – Did not play
A few other quick items to signal out, during playback the controls are located at the elevation of the screen
From here you tin can navigate to some of the sound and video settings
Add together-ons:
This was originally chosen I believe the SVN repository, Add together-ons serve as a identify where developers can make their plug-ins available to the community. Examples of Add-ons would be skins, online services, metadata providers, etc… The Add together-on concept has really taken off amidst the community, and this is the area which I believe offers the almost growth and excitement. XBMC has a decent selection of add together-ons, and this is something that hopefully will continue to grow (additions such as Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, etc…).
To view and install add together-ins go to Settings ->Add-ons. From here you can view what Add-ons you accept enabled, go to the repository to get available Add-ons, and install an Add-on from a zip file. Select "Get Add together-ons".
At this signal you lot should have merely one selection and that is to get to the Add-ons available at XBMC.org. I am non quite certain what the purpose of this is expect that possibly down the road Add-ons could exist hosted at multiple locations.
Here yous will have a list of categories to choose from. The easiest manner to become familiar with what is available is just to simply go through each category.
The first add-on I was in search for was Apple Trailers. To observe this I clicked on the "Video Add together-ons" category which brought upwards a listing of available add-ons.
Installing an Add-on is very like shooting fish in a barrel to do, just select the Add-on which volition provide information about the Addition, as well as the power to install, enable, configure, update, and view whatsoever change logs.
A list of the current skins bachelor from the Add-on section.
Where you admission the Add-on depends on what blazon of Add-on it is. For case, if you lot install a pare, you lot would go into the settings -> appearance to change. If yous install a Video add-on such as Apple tree Trailers yous would get to the Video menu choice on the Master Menu. You tin can too customize the Chief Menu to have specific Add together-ons listed on your home page.
Various Screenshots:
Peel: Confluence
View: Affiche Wrap
Pare: Confluence
View: Media Info 2
Skin: Confluence
View: Thumbnail
Skin: Confluence
View: Music
Skin: Confluence
View: Pictures
Pare: Nighttime
View:LandPanel
Skin: Nighttime
View:Episode
Pare: Alaska Revisited Mod
View:Panel
Skin: Alaska Revisted Modern
View: Master Carte du jour
Final Thoughts:
XBMC makes a great improver to any HTPC and I highly recommend everyone at to the lowest degree try it out. XBMC does not have PVR functionality (although I accept heard that is in the works, possibly piggybacking off MediaPortal's TV server) so for people who utilise their HTPCs equally PVRs this is probably non the front cease for y'all.
Source: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/09/07/guide-getting-started-with-xbmc/
Posted by: lieberknespolow.blogspot.com
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