Quick start guide

Introduction

Welcome to XBMC!

Congratulations new users to your choice in media center software, the XBMC interface is designed with the 'Home Theater' in mind. This means it is best viewed on a large-screen TV with you sitting in your couch 10-feet away from your TV, rather than on a small monitor while you sit at your desk. And, because it is all about the home theater experince, the best way to interact with XBMC is with a remote control, rather than a computer mouse. If it helps, you can think of XBMC as the ultimate DVD-Player or Set-top-box, rather than just another program on your computer, (and NO ONE uses a mouse with a DVD-Player or Set-top-box).

First Steps

XBMC Main Features

XBMC does two things really well. It can play your music and videos, and it can display all of your music and videos in something we call the "library". In fact, if you have ever read anything about XBMC before, then you have probably already seen pictures or videos of the Music and Video Library in action.

Getting ready to play music and videos

To play Music, a TV show Epsode, or a Movie, you first have to tell XBMC where your media is located.

Letting XBMC know where to find your videos and music is very simple. First, open XBMC, then just click up or down in the home menu until either "Videos" or "Music" is highlighted. For the rest of the explanation in this guide we will use "Videos" (and, specifically "Movies") as the example, but it works the same way in Music, (as well as for TV shows and Music Videos).

Adding a Video Source

Click "Videos" in the home screen menu, for this example we are going to use Confluence skin, which is the default skin in XBMC since version 9.11 (a.k.a. "Camelot").

Now click "Add Source".

The "Add Video Source" screen will be displayed.

Click on "Browse" button. The following screen will be displayed.

Now browse to where you keep your videos stores. If you keep them shared on a network drive, read the Configuring PC Shares artcile for more information about setting up a share on your computer first. If you have already done that then all you need to do is to scroll down the list until the "Windows Network (SMB)" choice is highlighted and click that option, and then browse through your network shares.

Once you have found the folder you keep your videos in, click the "OK" button.

NOTE! When you begin using the library, you will find that it is a really good idea to keep your "Movie" folder and your "TV Shows" folder and files stored separately from each other, so keep that in mind.

Now name this Video Source to whatever you want. If it is a movie folder, you would probably want to name it "Movies", and if it is a TV Show folder then you would probably want name it TV Shows, at least if you using the English language in XBMC interface. The name for the Video Source is totally up to you. For this example, since we are dealing with movies, we just nameed it "Movies".

Next, you have to tell XBMC what type of content is inside of every folder you just added, so click the button "Set Content".

Setting Content

This section is why keeping your TV Shows and Movies separate is important. When you click set content, you can set your video content as Music Videos, Movies, or TV Shows. Scroll through the options until you get to the correct one. Since in our example we're doing Movies, we will scroll to "Movies" and go through the Movie Settings.

Setting Movie Content Options

If you keep each of your movies in its own folder with the movie name in it, like:

C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny\Big Buck Bunny.avi

Then you'll want to check off "Use folder names for lookups."

If you keep all your movies in one big folder, like:

C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny.avi

C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny II: Rise of the Lycan.avi

Then leave everything unchecked.

If your movies are ripped DVDs using a Video_TS folder structure, like:

C:\Movies\Big Buck Bunny\Video_TS\

Then you'll probably want to tick "Scan Recursively."

Finally, since this is your first time through, we may as well take care of everything right now, so let's go ahead create that pretty Library.

To do so, tick "Run automated Scan."

Now, click OK. And OK again. XBMC will begin to scan your folders. Depending on how many movies you have, this scan could take a long time. When it is finished, you're library will have been created, but you won't be taken to it immediately.

Turning On the Library

Assuming you are using the default skin Confluence, from the videos screen, to turn on the Library, just click left once to pull up the Side Menu. Then scroll down and click "Library Mode."

Voila, you're done. You now have a beautiful Library full of all your great movies, complete with titles, fanart, and tons of information.

Final Note

You should be able to figure out how to put your TV Shows and Music into the Library following this guide (but, of course, dealing with different choices). As you read the wiki and experiment on your own, you should learn about using the Menu when watching a video and clicking the Info button to pull up info about the video or song you have highlighted.

The one additional thing that's useful to mention here is the context menu. On the keyboard, you pull it up by typing C, while highlighting an item. If you are using a mouse, you can right click while hovering over an item. With remote controls, the option differs based on the remote.

The important point is that the Context Menu is how you really control XBMC. With it you can queue an item, play it, set its content, update the library, scan for new media, etc., etc.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this Quick Start Guide. Below you will find additional suggested reading that may be useful for getting started. We have done our best to answer every question, but if you can't find your answer after extensively searching, feel free to ask.

Additional suggested reading:

- http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Video_Library
- http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Set_Contents_(Video_Library)
- http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=TV_Shows
- http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=IMDb