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
Integrated support for getting information on your video content from external sites, via scrapers
Fully integrated support for The Internet Movie Database
Fully integrated support for getting info on TV shows from sites like TV.com
Support for Subtitles
DVD video playback, including the ability to play imaged DVDs (iso) 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.

Here you can see the default keymapping for:

OSD (On Screen Display)

The majority of the video functions can be controlled through the OSD (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 (where you can save and manage playlists)
2. Audio and Subtitle Settings
3. Video Settings
4. Bookmarks

Video Sources & Bookmarks

See main article: Bookmarks

Bookmarks are an important aspect of My Videos. They allow you to easily access your videos from anywhere on your Xbox or your Network.
XBMC gives you the ability to bookmark media that is:

On your computer or a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device/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 how to configure remote file shares, please click here

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 Mode

See main article: Video Library

The Library Mode is much more advanced and has many more features than Files Mode. In order to utilize Library Mode, you first need to scan your videos into the Video Library using The Context Menu. Be patient, as this can take quite a while if you have a large video collection.

Thumbnails

See main article: Thumbnails

There are a number of ways to get thumbnails to display in My Videos.
One is described in the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) section.
If you want a custom thumbnail, 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 file (with transparency) and you simply have to rename the extension from .jpg/.png to .tbn.
The size of the picture can be anything from 64x64 to 256x256 in pixel-size (you may want to use a larger pixel-size if you use XBMC in 720p/1080i HDTV resolution to get a sharper image).

Examples:
In the following example moviename.avi will now use the thumbnail moviename.tbn.

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

The same goes for playlists, and internet-stream files, example:

Movies\path\videoplaylistname.pls
Movies\path\videoplaylistname.tbn
Movies\path\videostreamname.strm
Movies\path\videostreamname.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 either need to save your .JPG/.PNG thumbnail as folder.jpg and place it in your movie folder, or you can save it as <foldername>.tbn and place it inside the same folder where your folder is located (XBMC first checks for <foldername>.tbn before checking for folder.jpg).

Example:

Movies\path\moviename\folder.jpg

or

Movies\path\foldername\
Movies\path\foldername.tbn

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

Subtitles

XBMC supports both stand-alone subtitle files, as well as some subtitles that are embedded into the video-file (as is the case when watching DVD-Video movies). Embedded VobSub subtitles, also known as DirectVobSub, inside AVI, OGM, MKV, or MP4 are however not supported yet.

XBMC supports SRT, SUB, TXT, SMI, SSA, AQT, JSS, MPL and VobSub subtitle formats.

To use stand-alone subtitle files with video files, put them in the same folder as the video file or alternatively go to the Subtitles Settings and set a Custom Subtitle Directory. You can also choose to manually browse for the subtitle file. You can configure the way that they are displayed though the Subtitles Settings, and you can adjust where they are displayed onscreen through the Video Calibration Screen.

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-Video movie. They can be turned ON\OFF manually from the OSD (On Screen Display).

Note! External stand-alone subtitle files are not yet supported for DVD-Video movies.

It is also possible to use flipped (bi-directional) subtitles. This means that the subtitles will be displayed from right to left instead of left to right. To enable this Enable Flipping Bi-Direction Strings in Subtitles Settings. This option is used for subtitles in Semic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi..., etc.).

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

Video File: The Matrix.avi
Subtitle: The Matrix.idx (this is the VobSub index-file which should be keept outside the rar-archive)
Subtitle: The Matrix.rar (containing the VobSub-file The Matrix.sub that has been compressed with RAR)

If you want XBMC to automatically turn on packed subtitles, you have to turn on the Search for Subtitles in RARs option in Subtitles Settings.

Using Multi Language Subtitles

XBMC supports the use of more than one external subtitle. This of course is most useful when you have more than one subtitle file, (eg. for more than language).

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
Subtitle 3: The Matrix.German.srt

The dot after the filename but before the extension specifies the language (you can use anything here, mix numbers and and letters or just use one or the other).

You can even mix subtitle format, XBMC currently supports MicroDVD, srt, smi, vplayer, rt, ssa, aqt, sub, jss, mpl and VobSub (idx + sub) subtitle formats. eg:

Video File: Movie Name (2006).avi
Subtitle 1: Movie Name (2006).Chinese.idx
Subtitle 1: Movie Name (2006).Chinese.sub
Subtitle 2: Movie Name (2006).Japanese.idx
Subtitle 2: Movie Name (2006).Japanese.sub
Subtitle 3: Movie Name (2006).English.srt
Subtitle 4: Movie Name (2006).French.smi
Subtitle 5: Movie Name (2006).German.ssa

Adjusting Subtitles Position

The position of the subtitles can be adjusted vertically (but not horizontally) in the Video Calibration screen, you can also configure the way that they are displayed though the Subtitles Settings.

Changing Subtitles during Playback

The subtitles can be changed or turned On and Off via the OSD (On Screen Display) while watching a movie.