Bad experience for a first time user of XBMC

No, I do remember that Media Portal was no walk in the park, but then there were guides online that stepped me through it exactly and it worked as expected after following them.

The guides here do highlight the things that the xbmc interface do not make at all obvious, and as said they got me to the point where it kind of works. But why doesn't it tell you anywhere the status of the scans. It is supposed to tell you in the info panel at the top of the screen, and it did for a while, but then went away, and then I'm left not knowing if it thinks it's finished scanning or if it had an issue, or needs a restart or anything. FEEDBACK is what this is lacking, in a big way.

At least in Media Portal, in the TV Series and Movie plugins you have a clear indication of the state of the scans, what they believe to be the entirety of your library and the easy ability to quickly rescan for anything they may have missed. I see nothing like that in xbmc.

Also, why are the three content types for videos 'Movies', 'TV Shows' and 'None', and can I see the 'None' while still seeing the other two, because doesn't having the system in library mode hide anything not in the library (which would be all those videos I have that are not tv shows or movies)? It really does not make it clear how to set up display modes on a per share basis and then show these easily in the main menu.

FishOil Wrote:Jesus Christ.....how do you find your way to the bathroom without GPS?

And how do you communicate with anyone without being a smug git?

Really, how does a comment like that help anyone?

My post is trying to demonstrate how frustrating xbmc is to set up... coming from someone who has programmed computers since 1983, and still does as a living.

I do know tech, I do know software, and I know a bad interface when I see one.

ONCE you get xbmc setup I can see it can be a great way to access your media, but the initial setup is horrible. It's not intuitive, it gives little to no feedback, and does not gear itself to the primary use people probably want from it.

Comments like yours are how projects like this never get better 'Oh bugger off, I finally worked it out after wringing my hair out and trial and error, and damnit, so can you, I refuse to accept that this could be made any better'

Everyone else is giving FAR more constructive feedback than you sir.

If you are going to insult me at least have the courtesy to do it in English.

I have no idea what a git or bugger is. Should I have been insulted?

FishOil Wrote:If you are going to insult me at least have the courtesy to do it in English.

I have no idea what a git or bugger is. Should I have been insulted?

Ha! Git and bugger are both English insults... from the motherland (I'm not, but they are)... so I did insult you in English

"Git is mild bad language with origins in British English for a silly, incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile elderly or childish person. It is usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than ****** or ******* ."

And

"Today, the term is a general-purpose expletive, used to imply dissatisfaction, or used to describe someone or something whose behaviour is in some way displeasing, though in general Australian and New Zealand English the expletive force has largely disappeared; the word there now has a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality."

And I'm Australian... hence I use it that way.

spoco2 Wrote:Ha! Git and bugger are both English insults... from the motherland (I'm not, but they are)... so I did insult you in English

"Git is mild bad language with origins in British English for a silly, incompetent, stupid, annoying, senile elderly or childish person. It is usually an insult, more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than ****** or ******* "

And

"Today, the term is a general-purpose expletive, used to imply dissatisfaction, or used to describe someone or something whose behaviour is in some way displeasing, though in general Australian and New Zealand English the expletive force has largely disappeared; the word there now has a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality."

And I'm Australian... hence I use it that way.

OMG British / Commonwealth humor IS dry.

It was a rhetorical statement. You weren't supposed to actually spend time trying to educate an uninterested person.

Well I went from GBPVR->MediaPortal->Moovida->XBMC

And I have to say that of all those XBMC has been the easiest by far to setup. I can't understand why you had problems, it's very intuitive.

As for WAF, well last night I came home to see my wife actually showing off our setup to her friends. I was very proud My friends all want me to set it up for them, and once again I can't understand why anyone would have any problems.

Your issues seem to be with scraping, perhaps your internet connection is flakey? BTW, Dharma (the beta version of the next XBMC) allows you to 'correct' incorrectly scraped fanart and lets you choose from the gallery found on your scraped site (ie thetvdb or themoviedb)

FWIW, My remote doesnt have a 'C' button (at least not that I've noticed) and I wouldn't know what it does anyway since I've never had to press it!

WAF is not an issue with these apps as my wife is all for them after using MediaPortal for years.

Maybe you didn't have issues, and maybe if your internet connection is perfect and you suffer no problems at all during the install then it's perfect. But what if there are problems? What if you chose something incorrectly? How do you fix it? Where is the screen prompting on what to do next?

I am using Dharma beta 3(or 4, whatever the latest one is). And I have a media center remote which I'm sure has a button I could use instead of 'C' on my wireless keyboard, but the instructions on the website say press 'C' for a keyboard and for a remote it's variable... which isn't very helpful.

And I ended up in an interface for trying to fix the scraped tv info but I'm not entirely sure how I got there and it didn't fix much once I did.

I'm just saying it could do with some work that's all.

If you read the quick start guide first you wouldn't or shouldn't have had a problem there is no reason what so ever to press "C" to setup XBMC or to populate either the Movies library or TV library

First time you select video you see "Add Source" which is self explanatory in the add source window you also have "Set Content" its all in the same window and every option in set content is explained in the quick start guide all this is done from arrows and ok on the remote

How hard is it to go to "Video > Add Source > Set Content" especially when set content is in the add source window

Think you have been stumbling round in the dark because you haven't taken the time to read a dam thing

While I agree with some of the OP’s grievances, I can’t support his post. He states that XBMC isn’t the easiest thing to set up (which I agree) then calms MediaPortal is better BECAUSE of the walk through online. XBMC has online walk throughs for nearly everything and there is a quickstart guide (linked in this thread).

IMO, when you add a source there should be a pop up asking you if you now want to scan this source (and set content if needed).

XBMC doesn’t currently handle home videos very well. It is a weakness that I know some of the devs are looking at (maybe 3 types of video; Movie, TV and Home Vids).

I don't think xbmc does a bad job of explaining things to new users. For instance when you jump into a menu such as Movies before having added any sources it tells you that no sources have been configured and tells you to add them under the Videos menu. Same goes for when it warns about the library view not being ready etc.

There are a couple of things I can suggest to newcomers aside from the already suggested (and best piece of advice you can get) "read the wiki":

1. If you require a guide to show you every step to take then Lifehacker had this pretty good one. Granted it may be a little dated now if you are running the latest builds but the basics should all be there; and

2. See this thread for a useful cheat sheet that you may want to stick to your keyboard or keep nearby.

In my personal experience, I can't stress enough that as good as scrapers may be, there is nothing better than using a media manager (I use Media Companion but there are plenty of others out there) and managing everything yourself. Whilst it may seem a little daunting at first, once you get the hang of it and you know what files are used where, your artwork issues will be a thing of the past and if you ever need to rebuild your library you won't have to wait ages for everything to be rescraped. Don't forget that if you find artwork changes aren't reflecting in xbmc, use the "reload" option on that specific item.