[evlo]

Hello,

i have been using windows 7 media center with bunch of 3rd party plugins and it is quite nice, but there are still few things taht i don't like (ie. long makeup time). I also used meedio, old xbmc and mediaportal way back. Now i have looked at XBMC again and it is very different from what it was, now here are my questions:

1. I read the wiki and it is quite outdated - so i understand that xbmc uses myth for TV (or maybe media portal TV server too?) - i have no problem with it if it is really integrated to xbmc and don't use native not-eyecandy mythtv skin , but i found about 3 differnt plugins for it so which one is currently developed and bes (there is allways one best ? And is it possible to use it on mac? I don't have TV tunner yet, so i will buy one according to what is supported. Does it support DVB-S?

2. is ember media manager best scraper/manager for xbmc nfos?

3. i did not found any info what naming convention to use for multi cd rips - what is convention? ie. "mosies\2012\2012.cd1.avi"?

4. what is convention for series - can i use same one as in media browser "series\Californication\season 01\Californication.s01E01.avi"? I did not tried it jet because i don't want to mess up my current metadata files for mediabrowser for wmc, so that is why i ask.

5. i think it is not very likely, but is there any chance that someone will develop plugin that will make use of tiny screen on my remote SRM7500 that windows media use for library browsing and selecting music to play?
ad 5. the easiest thing probably would be some plugin that would connect xbmc and itunes(preferably) or wmp(i don't like it ), remote can allready use it's library, and plugin would synchronize music playback status and selected song and it would all work and be awesome (ideally ). But i did not found any like plugin for xbmc Does some exist?

[MartijnGP]

About TV, it's in development. There used to be a development branch (pvrtesting2) which incorporated this Live TV feature in XBMC. You can check this topic. Somewhere down, there is a link to a development site and it shows some screenshot of this pvrtesting stuff at work, build right into the Confluenze screen. When using this, it's all nicely integrated into XBMC and you won't notice a difference. Up intil now you had to build XBMC-PVRTesting2 yourself from source as it was a development feature. In the next version, 10.5 most likely, this will be build in as an official feature.

PVRTesting is just a front-end, though. XBMC still can't handle a TV tuner itself. You need a backend which can (amongst others) be MythTV or MediaPortal TV server. I don't know if those work on an Apple machine, but you can use them over a network. Watching TV on a pc is always tricky. My current situation involves a custom build XBMC install (r. 27611 I believe, not sure) of this PVRTesting2 branch. Then I have another PC set up in a different room (because of it's noise and better TV reception) to run the TV server.

This other PC uses a Technotrend TT-1500 DVB-T tuner. To run that, I use MediaPortal TV Server software. To link that to the TV frontend in XBMC, there is another program running on that machine which takes commands from XBMC and then controlls MediaPortal. It sends back the URL to the TV stream file (my server for example shows TV on rtsp://10.0.100.137/stream5.1). Then there is another tool running every day from a scheduler which picks the EPG from a website here and sends it to MediaPortal. MediaPortal then sends this, though the other nameless program, to XBMC.

That's pretty much how complicated this is at the moment. Lots of trouble, but worth the effort in the end. Also, it's pretty well documented and the ability to have the TV server in a different room is quite welcome. Just still needs some polishing.

[evlo]

I have tried xbmc a little myself and i'm not probably geek enough for it, it seams to me that from screenshots it looked nice, but in real use it is still geeky.
I used latest nightly to get all latest features, maybe it was misstake and i should take stable (and i will try it).
But then i get aeon install script, installed skin and some buttons in system config. didn't work, fonts was weird and overal look was ... blurry. Also i din't get where i can setup video library, i always had to add shares (ok, once add) and then to select them, separately. But maybe it was just because i used nightly, i will try stable tomorrow and see how it works. I'm mostly interested in xbmc because i want to migrate my whole small home network to mac ... anyway i definitely want to have tv "server" on same pc i run xbmc on.

[MartijnGP]

I have tried xbmc a little myself and i'm not probably geek enough for it, it seams to me that from screenshots it looked nice, but in real use it is still geeky.
I used latest nightly to get all latest features, maybe it was misstake and i should take stable (and i will try it).
But then i get aeon install script, installed skin and some buttons in system config. didn't work, fonts was weird and overal look was ... blurry. Also i din't get where i can setup video library, i always had to add shares (ok, once add) and then to select them, separately. But maybe it was just because i used nightly, i will try stable tomorrow and see how it works. I'm mostly interested in xbmc because i want to migrate my whole small home network to mac ... anyway i definitely want to have tv "server" on same pc i run xbmc on.

You do have to point XBMC to where it can find the media. It won't go hunting for it by itself (thank god, I hate that). Then you need to specify which type of media it is (audio, movies, TV shows, etc). When your skin goes pear-shaped, make sure you're using the right aspect ratio. When you use a 4:3 skin on a 16:9 screen, it gets stretched.

[evlo]

I searched the options and didn't find anything about libraries. Then i selected video and there i added network path i have some videos, and other one, but xbmc didn't created library from theese two, insteed i get just directory browser. I guess it is not excepted behaviour.
Currently i have only metadata for windows media center, but i tought xbmc was supposed to get metadata on its own ..

[MartijnGP]

Made a video for you which discribes this. Don't mind the part where I go into settings, you don't need to do this. Head straight to the VIDEOS tab. I had disabled the video froms disappearing in the menu as I use the mobies/tv shows structure, but as I deleted my movies to make this video the movies tab disappeared.

http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stUEt...ry_to_xbmc

[evlo]

Thank you, i totaly missed 'set content' button, shame on me.

Now i'm most curious about question 3
3. i did not found any info what naming convention to use for multi cd rips - what is convention?
I use "movies\2012\2012.cd1.avi" and it seams to add two records to the library ...

[evlo]

Another one:
is it possible to set up library xmbc to behave like this:
> select movies
> choose between movies hd, movies czech and movies - each of these is separete directory containing movies
> after selecting ie. movies czech get library listing in predefined view of movies in movie library created from folder set for "movies czech"

i really like this system and it would be nice for me to keep it with xbmc

[snoxbox]

I use "movies\2012\2012.cd1.avi" and it seams to add two records to the library ...

It's been a fair while since I used 2 part movies, but that naming convention used to work fine. There was an option titled 'Stack' that needed to be selected for the 2 part movies to be 'stacked' together though. Try looking for that.

[snoxbox]

Another one:
is it possible to set up library XBMC to behave like this:
> select movies
> choose between movies hd, movies czech and movies - each of these is separete directory containing movies
> after selecting ie. movies czech get library listing in predefined view of movies in movie library created from folder set for "movies czech"

i really like this system and it would be nice for me to keep it with xbmc

Sort of. You'll need to create some smart playlists. E.G. you'd create a smart playlist with the filter being path= 'c:\movies\czech'.

[evlo]

I tried to set path filter, it works, i have playlists, but still:
how do i set library default view?
how do i set playlist default view?
So i can
> select movies
> select movies HD
> see ie. media info 2 view of smartplaylist movies HD.

I only managet to set playlist as default item after i select movies, but it is still one more more unnecessary click.

Would would be best behavior:
> select movies in top screen, but only select it not click it
> then there will be 'movies czech, movies hd, movies' right next to it
> use right arrow to select one of these will bring me right to specified library
is there some skin where is this possible?