XBMC Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowlege Base & Support

 

 

 

Custom Installation Service / Live Tech Support.

For donatoions of 40$, i offer custom XBMC + Windows 7 installs (everything in this guide) or live tech support via a remote desktop client (TeamViewer) over the internet. You can email me on my personal email adress for more info or so that we can schedule an appointment:

• popalex.m@gmail.com

Since updating and offering troubleshooting support for this guide takes up time, if you find this guide & the support provided useful & want to help out the author, any donations are very welcomed :

INDEX

I. Introduction

1. Presenting XBMC
2. HTPC : Audio-Video Basics
3.  

II. The Frontend - XBMC

 

1.  XBMC -> Preparing your file/folder structure for XBMC 
2. Getting your first Addons and first Skin
3. Configuring your first skin : Aeon MQ3
4. Blu Ray disk support
5. External Player playback
6. Adding Hulu & ESPN to your XBMC install
7. iOS/Android apps : Using your smartphone/tablet as a remote control
8. The Web Interface
9. Cinema Experience : Cinema style experience for your movies.

IV. Plex: Streaming your Movies / TV Shows library to your iOS/Android tablet/smartphone

1. Installing Plex Media Server
2. Configuring the iOS/Android Plex clients

Supported Video and Audio formats

Supported containers

• MKV, Blu Ray Folder Structure / Blu Ray ISO, M2TS/TS, VOB, MPG, M4V, AVI, ASF, WMV, MP4, MOV, DVD disk
• Physical Blu Ray disk playback requires external software like Total Media Theatre or Power DVD

 

Supported video codecs

• H.264, VC-1, MPEG2,Xvid, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV 9
• Automatic refresh rate switching (24p/ 25Hz / 29 Hz)

 

Supported audio codecs (decoding)

• Dolby TrueHD, DTS, Dolby Digital (AC3), LPCM, AAC, MP3, FLAC, APE Audio, Vorbis

 

Audio passthrough (bitstreaming)

• DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD , DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, LPCM

 

Photo Formats

• JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF

 

Subtitle Formats

• PGS, SRT, SUB/IDX, SSA

 

Hardware decoding on the GPU

• Windows : DXVA (compatible with Nvidia/Ati/Intel graphic cards)
• Linux : VDPAU (compatible with Nvidia graphic cards) / VAAPI for Intel & XBVA/VAAPI for AMD

 

Interface (skins)

• More then 25 beautiful themes, including Aeon MQ3 (shown in pictures below), Xperience1080p and many others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Addons

• Over 100 addons available in the official XBMC repository + 3rd party repositories, including plugins for Netflix, Hulu, Youtube,Apple Trailers,Yahoo Trailers, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Grooveshark

  

Mobile platform remotes/Web Interfaces

• Android remote (Android smarthphones & tablets)
• iOS remote (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch)
• Windows Phone 7 remote
• 3 different web interfaces for controlling XBMC from a browser

Download links for XBMC

 

• XBMC 12 ("Frodo") for Windows : download

 

Operating Sistem support : Windows 7 / 8 & OpenELEC

 

Windows 7

 

You can find and download the official Windows 7 ISO images directly from the MS Store, using these links. These ISO images are perfectly legal since they do not include any type of serial key.

• Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit : download
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit : download

The Windows 7 USB Tool from and use it to create a bootable USB drive ( a 3GB or more USB thumb drive is required) from which you can install Windows 7.

• Windows 7 USB Tool : (download)

Windows 8

 

Unfortunately, Microsoft has removed their direct download links from the Windows Store for Windows 8. The only download link they provide is for an evaluation copy of Windows 8 Enterprise , which works for 90 days before the trial expires and cannot be upgraded to a full install with a normal license key. The link for this evaluation copy can be found here download (32bit) or download (64bit)

 

 

OpenELEC

• Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center, or OpenELEC for short, is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into a complete XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot as fast as possible and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes.
• The idea behind OpenELEC is to allow people to user their Home Theatre PC (HTPC) like any other device you might have attached to your TV, like a DVD player or Sky box. Instead of having to manage a full operating system, configure it and install the packages required to turn it into a hybrid media center, OpenELEC is designed to be simple to install, manage and use, making it more like running a set-top box than a full-blown computer.

Key Features

• It's completely free
• The whole system only takes up 80MB when installed
• Minimal hardware requirements
• Can easily be installed on a Compact Flash card, SD card or similar
• Optimized builds for Atom, ION, etc
• Simple configuration
• Plug and Play external storage

Open ELEC main web page (and download links) (download)

Hardware support

• Nvidia GPUs, ranging from the first ION family to the GT6xx series cards..
• Intel CPUs (Core 2 Duo family) & Intel Core i"x" family (Sandybrige & Ivybridge) CPU/GPU combos with or without discrete graphics cards
• AMD Fusion (E450/E350 APU) support.
• AMD processors with discrete graphics cards

Edited by GreenEyez - 1/30/13 at 2:41am

Outputting audio from your HTPC to your Audio-Video Receiver

 

There are 2 modes for connecting your HTPC to your AVR :

a) Bitstreaming via a digital connection

Bitstreaming (or pasthrough) means that the HTPC outputs the untouched audio stream to the Audi-Video receiver for decoding, and all of the decoding process is done on the AVR, nothing is being altered on the HTPC. DTS/DTS-HD Master Audio/Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital should appear on the display of the Audio-Video Receiver. Botstreming can be done via the 2 available digital connections :

• Bitstreaming via HDMI - DTS-HD Master Audio*, Dolby TrueHD*, LPCM, DTS, Dolby Digital (AC3).
• Bitstreaming via S/PDIF - DTS, Dolby Digital (AC3), 2 channel LPCM.
•  

*Note : Only the following platforms can bitstream DTS-HD MA & TrueHD :

• ATI/AMD HD5xxx/6xxx/7xxx and the E450/E350 APU series graphic cards
• Nvidia GT430, GT440 & GT520, GTX560 and GT/GTX 6xx series graphic cards
• Intel Core i3 (first and second generation and third) with integrated Intel HD 1000/2000/3000/2500/4000 GPU
• Asus Xonar Hdav 1.3

b) Decoding the audio on the HTPC and outputting the audio either via an digital or analog connection

This is done by decoding the audio on your HTPC via a specific filter (XBMC internal decoders or the Total Media Theater 5 internal decoders) and outputting the analog signal via the analog connections of your soundcard to your amplifier/Audio-Video Receiver

• XBMC audio decoder : Can decode Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby TrueHD. Cannot decode DTS-HD Master Audio, it only decodes the "core" DTS stream
• Total Media Theater 5 internal decoder : Can decode Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio

Edited by GreenEyez - 1/30/13 at 2:44am

 Preparing your Movies & TV Shows file/folder structures for XBMC 

 

 

 

To start off , we need to first ensure you have the proper file/folder structure for XBMC . Why does XBMC need this? Well, XBMC uses the names and year of the files/folder to download information about your movies from sites like themoviedb.org ,imdb etc. , so incorrect names can lead to incorrect metadata being retrieved.

 

Movies 

 

In order to be scanned correctly, movie file names should only have the title and the year  followed by the file extension. It is also recommended that you have each movie in it`s own folder, and the folder name should be the same as the movie name + year, like the movie files. This is most importantly when you rip Blu Ray or DVD folder structures to your hard-disk, and not something like MKV, Since in this case XBMC will read the Movie name from the folder name.

 

Here are a couple of examples for single files types , like MKV, M2TS and AVI:

 

D:/Movies/The Dark Knight Rises (2012)/ The Dark Knight Rises (2012).mkv.

D:/Movies/The Avengers (2012) / The Avengers (2012).mkv

 

 

  

 

 

TV Shows

                                                                                                                        

 

For TV Shows, XBMC needs a structure like this : a main TV Shows folder, followed by a folder which contains the said TV Show name (Game of Thrones for example). In that folder, you will have season folder, like Season 1, Season 2 etc., and the video files will be stored with the following naming convention : Game of Thrones S01E01.mkv , Game of Thrones S01E02.mkv etc. , where S01 represents the Season number, and E01 the episode number.

 

D:/TV Shows/Game of Thrones/Season 1/Game of Thrones S01E01.mkv, Game of Thrones S01E02.mkv etc.

D:/TV Shows/Game of Thrones/Season 2/Game of Thrones S02E01.mkv, Game of Thrones S02E02.mkv etc.

  

 

  

Edited by GreenEyez - 1/30/13 at 3:33am

Adding you movies and tv shows to the XBMC library

 

 

After you have installed XBMC, the next step is to add those folders containing you media (Movies/TV Shows) to the XBMC library.

 

 

 Adding your Movies folder to the XBMC Library

 

• First step will be to go to Videos -> Files. There you will have the Add Videos option and click on it, as below :

 

 

 

• Next up, we  use the "Browse" function to navigate to you movies folder, like below :

 

 

 

• However, if your movies are stored on a NAS or server, you may need to use the "Windows Network (SMB)" option to connect to it and add the network location, like below :

 

 

 

• Now since you`ve already added one folder, you may want to add others, in case you have multiple folders with movies. You can do so by clicking Add , and then Browse again to add the second folder. Same method for the 3rd and so on.

 

 

 

• When you are done, hit OK and let`s move on to selecting the content type. Since we added a movies, we will select Movies under the section "This directory contains". We will also do a small adjustment. By default XBMC retrieves metadata from the TheMovieDB.org , including the rating. But most people want the movie rating from IMDB, so we need to do to the Settings option down below. The last option in the list is the "Get Rating from", which we will change to IMDB and hit OK

 

 

 

• After you hit OK on the Set Content windows, XBMC will ask you if you want to refresh information for all the items withing this path. Select Yes , and XBMC will automatically start scanning you folders and retrieve metadata. If you have a large collection of movies, this can take a long time, 15-20 minutes for 200 movies for example.

 

 

 

 

 Adding your TV Shows folder to the XBMC Library

 

 

• Adding TV Shows implies the same method as the Movies part, but you need to select TV Shows under the "Set Content" window.

 

 

Edited by GreenEyez - 1/30/13 at 7:19am

Basic Settings for XBMC

 

Now that you have added you media libraries to XBMC, it`s time to do some basic settings to ensure proper playback, and some miscelanous network settings.

 

First of all, under the System main menu item you will find all these settings. Let`s start of with Appearance.

 

Appearance

 

• Here , under the International tab you may need to adjust you current region (by default it should be USA), and you have 2 options to set the "Preferred audio/subtitle language". These option affect what language will be selected automatically by XBMC when playing a movie for subtitles and/or audio. So for example if you set these to Dutch, and you play a video that has 2-3 audio tracks in English/Dutch and say Chinese, it will default to Dutch. Same goe for subtitles.
• Under the Filelists tab , we need to disable "Show parent folder items".

 

 

 

 

Videos 

 

• Here, under the Library tab, we have some options to take into consideration. "Group movies into sets" is an option that will stack the movies that belong from a duology/trilogy etc. into one set, so for example, when you access your movie library, instead of seeing 3 entries for your 3 Lord of the Rings movies, you will see only one, called "Lord of the Rings Trilogy". When you press Ok on it, obviously you will be takes to each separate movie entry.
• Update Library on Startup will update the library both on startup of XBMC, and once you bring back your computer from sleep.

 

• The Playback tab features some options regarding playback. "Adjust refresh rate to match video" should be turned on , set to "On Start/Stop". This means XBMC will set your refresh rate according to the video that`s being played. A Blu Ray is encoded at at 23.976Hz (known as 24p) for example. Normally your desktop runs at 60Hz, meaning playing back a Blu Ray will result in the renderer doing 3:2 pulldown (which results in slight shuttering during panning scenes ). If this option is enabled, XBMC will switch the refresh rate to 23.976 Hz and the movie will look smooth. Same goes dor DVD content, or HDTV content (that runs at 25 or 29Hz, depending on your region (Europe/USA).

 

• If you are an Intel HD graphics user, you might want to turn off DXVA2 Hardware Acceleration. Intel HD graphics have some issues like macroblocking (weird colored pixels) when used in conjunction with ffmpeg based decoders (what XBMC uses), but fortunatly, even the lowest end dual core SandyBridge/IvyBridge (second and third generation Intel Core arhitectures), like the Celeron G530, have enough power to software decode even high bitrate Blu Ray material.

 

 

 

Services 

 

• Under the network section, we can enable some options regarding controlling XBMC via an iOS/Android app (we`ll get to presenting a couple of them later on in the guide), and AirPlay support. On the Webserver tab , enable "Allow control of XBMC via HTTP", and under "Remote control" enable "Allow other programs to control XBMC". Now if and when you decide to use your tablet/phone to control XBMC instead of your remote, the iOS/Android/WP7/8 applications will be able to detect XBMC on the network.

 

• AirPlay is self-explanatory, but one important note is that XBMC only supports AirPlay streaming (streaming videos from your iOS device to XBMC), it does not support mirroring (mirroring your iOS device`s screen to XBMC, useful if you want to play games from your tablet/phone on the big screen).

 

 

 

System

 

• Here, under the Audio Output tab, we will need to set up your settings according to your audio setup. Analog should be used if you have a dedicated/integrated soundcard connected to your amplifier, while HDMI and S/PDIF (the Optical/Coax option) is for those using an A/V receiver connected via one of these 2 digital connectors. Some older receivers from 2004-2009 have an HDMI connector, but do not support decoding of lossless formats like DTS-HD M.A. and Dolby TrueHD (and are limited to DTS/Dolby Digital  for bitstreaming), so check your A/V receiver`s list of supported formats so you can adjust the settings accordingly.
• Another setting here we need to adjust is  the "Audio output device " and "Passthrough output device". Both of these should be set to WASAPI, not the default Direct Sound option, like in the picture above. 

 

Edited by GreenEyez - 2/24/13 at 10:51am

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Edited by GreenEyez - 1/29/13 at 8:52am

1) Software :

• Media Center Master (download)

2) Description :

Media Center Master is a meta-data and media organization solution for Windows Media Center, which downloads more comprehensive metadata than the default XBMC scrapper, and stores it locally. This tutorial sets up MCM on your HTPC, running in the background, automatically gathering metadata for the desired media collections and renaming your movie files/folders with the proper names.

2) Configuration :

Click Application -> Settings and preferences

General Tab

• Select Minimize to tray

Metadata Tab

• Select generate XBMC compatible metadata (.nfo)

Artwork Tab

• De-select "Download all backdrops when available" and select "Limit to only 1 backdrops"

Organization tab

• Select Rename folder during fetch & Rename files too

XBMC tab

• Select all the first 3 options, including "Use [videofilename].nfo/.tbn modern style naming

Application -> Set scan folder (setting up the media library directories)

• Select "Set Scan folders"
• Select your media folders and then click "Done"

Minimize the app and and let it run in the background. From now on, when you add a new movie MCM will automatically pick it up and do the proper renaming/metadata scraping.

Edited by GreenEyez - 1/30/13 at 2:46am

Ofcourse, i`m just beginning the guide, probably 10% of it is finished. still have a lot to write about plugins and themes, additional repositories etc.

Np, criticism and feature requests are always 2 things i always welcome , they make things better for everybody .

I`ll base my initial settings on the default Confluence theme. Then moe on to the Aeon MQ Theme for a demonstration of the skin settings. After that, the reader can toy around with the other themes since a guide explaining each one would be impossible to do, due to the lenght.

As for the remote, i`m clueless in this department. I use a crappy Asus remote i got with my mobo with EventGhost (thank god for the guy who invented it). I`ll do some digging around the XBMC forums bcz i rememeber i saw something about MCE remote guides, and see if i can make any sense of it.

XBMC doesn`t use Ember MM, Ember Media Manager is a standalone application similar to Media Center Master for scrapping metadata for local storage. The problem is i don`t like Ember. I doesn`t have an automatic way of doing it (auto-scanning for new content, auto downloading the metadata and auto-renaming the files) these things are crucial for large libraries and for a metadata app that will sit on the backend of the HTPC, doind these things in the background, just like in the 7MC Software guide. This is my goal when it comes to metadata, in both 7MC and XBMC