Video playback

About My Videos

My Videos is the component of Xbox Media Center that handles videos. To access My Videos, select it from the Home screen. Some of the key features of My Videos are: Support for a countless number of formats and codecs. You can find a full list here A full-featured Video Library that makes it easy to organize, find and watch your favorite videos Built in ability to stream media from computers on your network gives you access to your entire collection Full support for Playlists, including Smart Playlists The capability to stream video directly from the internet Fully integrated support for The Internet Movie Database Support for Subtitles DVD video playback, including the ability to play imaged DVDs over a network A fully customizable view

Using My Videos

You will find the interface of My Videos as easy to operate as the rest of Xbox Media Center. General Navigation

Using Bookmarks in My Videos

Bookmarks are an important aspect of My Videos. Setting bookmarks allows you to easily access your videos.
Xbox Media Center gives you the ability to bookmark media that is:

• On your PC (or any other network attached storage (NAS) system, which supports SMB Sharing)
• Stored directly on the hard drive of your Xbox
• On CDs/DVDs in the Xbox DVD drive
• Streamed from the Internet

For information on setting up your bookmarks, see Bookmarks.

Listing Modes available in My Videos

Files View Files View is the most basic way of browing your videos. In Files View, you browse through your bookmarks folder by folder, in the exact same way that they are stored. What you see in Files View is the same as you would see if you were to view the folders on your computer. XBMC also supports stacking of video filenames. Stacking means that if you have multiple video files for one movie (usually VCDs or SVCDs) XBMC will display them as only one file. For more information on this feature, see Stacking.

Library View Library View is much more advanced and has many more features than Files Mode. In order to utilize Library View, you first need to scan your music into the Video Library using the context menu. Be patient, as this can take quite a while if you have a large music collection. For more information on using Library View, see Video Library.

Thumbnails

There are a number of ways to get Thumbnails to display in My Videos. One is described in the IMDB section. If you want a custom thumb, or just don't want to use the IMDB feature, you can add a tbn file to your movie directory. The tbn file can be either a jpg or a png (with transparancy) eg:

Movies\moviename\moviename.avi
Movies\moviename\moviename.tbn

For the above example moviename.avi will now use the thumbnail moviename.tbn

If you store each of your movies in a separate subfolder to keep things organized, you can also make the movie folder have a custom thumbnail image.
To do this you need to save your jpg thumbnail as folder.jpg and place it in your movie folder.

Movies\moviename\folder.jpg

Now your movie folder will have a lovely custom thumbnail image.

On Screen Display

The majority of the video functions can be controlled through the On Screen Display The Visualization OSD The OSD is pictured to the right and is available by pressing Start (Menu on the Remote) while playing videos in fullscreen mode. The Buttons on the OSD are as follows: 1. Now Playing - Selecting this opens the Now Playing Playlist 2. Audio and Subtitle Settings 3. Video Settings 4. Bookmarks

Subtitles

XBMC supports SRT, SUB, TXT, SMI, SSA, AQT, JSS, MPL and VobSub subtitles. To use them with video files place the subtitle file in the subtitles folder defined in Xboxmediacenter.xml, or alternatively use the same folder as the video file. The subtitle folder defined in Xboxmediacenter.xml can be a SMB share.

The subtitle and video files must have the same name, for example:

Video File: The Matrix.avi Subtitle: The Matrix.srt

By default subtitles are turned on except when playing a DVD. They can be turned on\off manually from the OSD.

XBMC also supports (Compressed) VobSub subtitles. Please note that the subtitles inside the archive still need to have the same name as the video file.

It is also possible to use flipped subtitles. This means that the subtitles will be displayed from right to left instead of left to right. This is useful for Hebrew subtitles.

Using Multi Language Subtitles

XBMC supports the use of more than one subtitle. This of course is most useful when you have more than one subtitle file, ie more languages.

To use this functionality you need to rename the video file and subtitle files as follows:

Video File: The Matrix.avi
Subtitle 1: The Matrix.English.srt
Subtitle 2: The Matrix.French.srt

The dot after the filename but before the extension specifies the language (you can use anything).

The subtitles can be changed using the OSD when watching a movie

Adjusting Subtitles Position

The position of the subtitles can be adjusted vertically (but not horizontally) in the Video Calibration screen.