XBMC setup assistance

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dar124

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 21, 2012
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I've been in the process of setting up my HTPC for a little while. I've finally got the PC all together and a bunch of the cabling ordered to get everything connected to my living room TV. Throughout this process I've also been "cleaning up" and organizing my media library to get it ready for the HTPC. I was recommended Media Center Master as a program to help get everything in order with the metadata, backdrop & folder images, etc. I've used MCMC for the past couple of months and it has been a really good program. I actually just purchased a Lifetime license for it.

So I think I'm probably at a good point to start working with XBMC. I had an install on the HTPC from a few months ago, but I updated it to Gotham today. So I'm now looking for a guide and/or instructions to get my media setup within XBMC. I've looked around a bit on the XBMC forums and also did some googling. But I figured that I'd check here to see if anyone had some recommendations for an XBMC install guide.

Thanks in advance.
 
Not sure what exactly you're wanting help with. You mention instructions for geting media set up within XBMC, then you ask for an install guide.

As for installation, what are your plans for the machine? If it's going to be strictly an XBMC box, I would recommend OpenELEC. It's a Linux Distro built to pretty much turn a machine into an XBMC appliance... turn it on and it boots to XBMC. If you're wanting to run on Windows, it's pretty much like installing any other application. Or you can roll your own on top of your Linux distro of choice, but that's a lot of unnecessary work with distros like OpenELEC and XBMCbuntu

As far as setting up your media, depends on where it's stored. If you're streaming from your server it's as simple as adding the network (presumably SMB since your server is running Windows) source, setting the content type, and letting it scrape the information.

Check out Lifehacker, they have a guide on setting up XBMC that seems to get updated semi-frequently.
 
check assassin htpc blog. everything you could possibly need is there for free
 
PointandClick said:
Not sure what exactly you're wanting help with. You mention instructions for geting media set up within XBMC, then you ask for an install guide.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I guess that was a bit confusing. XBMC is installed, so I'm really looking for an XBMC configuration guide.

Prior to having this HTPC, I installed XBMC and used it for a while to see if it was a program that I'd want to use when I eventually got a HTPC. That's when I realized that I'd need to work on my library a bit to get all the metadata straightened out. From what I'm remembering I'd just point XBMC to my "Movies" & "TV Shows" folders on my server to scan for the media. But I wanted to check to see if there were any other settings, etc that needed to be adjusted within XBMC.



PointandClick said:
As for installation, what are your plans for the machine? If it's going to be strictly an XBMC box, I would recommend OpenELEC. It's a Linux Distro built to pretty much turn a machine into an XBMC appliance... turn it on and it boots to XBMC. If you're wanting to run on Windows, it's pretty much like installing any other application. Or you can roll your own on top of your Linux distro of choice, but that's a lot of unnecessary work with distros like OpenELEC and XBMCbuntu.
Click to expand...

I'd like to keep the PC running W7. I'll mostly be using this as an XBMC box, but will also use the PC for internet some browsing, etc. And I like the administration options from within WHS.



PointandClick said:
As far as setting up your media, depends on where it's stored. If you're streaming from your server it's as simple as adding the network (presumably SMB since your server is running Windows) source, setting the content type, and letting it scrape the information.

Check out Lifehacker, they have a guide on setting up XBMC that seems to get updated semi-frequently.
Click to expand...

Yep, all my media is down on my WHS server. I was hoping that it was as simple as adding the network source, but I wanted to look over some sort of guide or get some input before I just assumed that was the way to do it.

I'll check out Lifehacker and the Assassin HTPC Blog. Thanks.
 
With Gotham you can just add the source and set the type i.e. Movies or TV shows. Then select files are in separate folders with matching titles for your Movies and use local metadata information for both types. That way XBMC will not use an external source for metadata, As you are using Media Center Master, to pull the info for you. This is exactly what I do and it works great as long as you have MCM setup correctly for XBMC.
 
XBMC does not require a server. It plays files from a shared folder perfectly. The only reason in my opinion, to use a server like Mediabrowser 3 or Plex is if you also want to access your media on a mobile device or smart appliance (TV, Roku, and such).
 
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