Media Browsing software

[SmAcKpOo]

Hey guys,

What are you using to browse your media on your HTPCs?

I have tried XBMC, MediaBrowser, and Media Portal and they do not offer the kind of interface I desire. Basically, I either can't alter the menus, it doesn't read the metadata that I have for all my media, or I can't get it to look the way I want.

Media Browser has offered the best so far in terms of what I am looking for but I was wondering if any of you knew of alternatives.


Thanks!

[tenth]

Have used XBMC and Media Browser pretty extensively. They're both a pain in the ass to get working initially, but I didn't think it was TOO bad to get it operating and looking the way I like. I've started giving up on MediaBrowser because there has big a big move towards mandatory donations to use the software and its plugins/skins.

For the metadata problems, is it due to folder structure problems, or is it weird media? It was a huge pain in the ass restructuring all of my media library to get it set-up to be easily recognized by the HTPC software, but with that done, it's very rare for me to have metadata issues these days.

In terms of highly customizable free software, I think those are the big 3. I believe Boxee and Mymovies (also MCE based) are popular simpler programs which may be worth checking out, but also less customizable.

[mushi_mushi]

What is it that you dont like about some of the media browser software that you tried so far? I know you mentioned that you cant get it to look the way you want, lack of menu customization and metadata. From my experience xbmc and im pretty sure media portal offer this functionality. It seems to me you just might not be setting things up properly.

Initially when I wanted to get an idea of what each front end could do/looked like I went on youtube and looked at trailers for different skins. ie xmbc trailer, mediabrowser trailer... For my purposes xbmc offers the best looks/functionality. I know you are looking at new suggestions as opposed to ones you already tried, but I think you must have done something wrong setting these up. Some of these arnt the simplest to setup but once you get the software running properly its smooth sailing. There are tons of themes/skins available for each of the software packages you listed, each with a very different look and feel.

Make sure you are scanning your media properly, if you are you should be getting all the cover art, fanart and metadata. Make sure you are browsing your library in "library mode".

[tictactoe2004]

XBMC is the best media PC software bar none.

If it's not scanning your meta data correctly it means your meta data is either wrong or not set up properly. Recently I changed my media center PC and when I scanned my media files with XBMC it worked with over 99% accuracy. Genre, artist, album, year, album art, DVD covers, you name it, it was all correct...

As far as looks, XBMC has the highest selection of amazing looking skins out of any HTPC software I've ever used. You can add, change or remove items in the main menu or the sub menus and you can use your own background images, there is even drivers written for it if you are using it with a home automation system. It supports every type of audio and video file I've ever thrown at it, I can even run my arcade/NES emulators through it, Netflix support, weather network support with full satellite images of Canada. The list goes on and on...

It's the only software that can give Kaleidescape a run for it's money which is pretty insane consider people pay $25,000+ for those.

http://www.kaleidescape.com/

[SmAcKpOo]

I think I am going to give XBMC another try and really dig deep in to the XML configurations to see what I can customize.

Do any of you have skin suggestions? Aeon looks a good bet right now.

What do you use to scrape your metadata? I use media center master which grabs fan art/covers/folders/episode data and more automatically.

How is your metadata structured?

[mushi_mushi]

There are really too many skins to list and much of them are personal preference but some of the good ones include:

Transparency
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLlUiYhPQLU

Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP7oQova9cA

Alaska Revisited
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBIuEQv2C8

Shade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogkvqL1BC_s

You mentioned Aeon, there are lots of different variations of that skin out there as well.

XBMC grabs all the info on its own, but you have to make sure to select the right content type when adding your library. There are also a few options you have to select to get it to scan. Im going to look to see if I get find a guide with some pictures, its really simple. The reason people use the media manager software is that its easier to customize the album/fanart and it also speeds up the processes of setting things up as you dont have to download all the info each time you setup a machine.

I havnt used the media manager your using but from recollection I think it can grab the covers/metadata for both mediabrowser and xbmc. Im not sure where the setting to enable that would be.

If your looking at media managers for xbmc lots of people use ember media manager or media companion. Both are free. I think these are specifically for xbmc. (I use media companion)
http://code.google.com/p/embermediamanager/
http://mediacompanion.codeplex.com/

You dont have to know any xml to edit the menus, its somewhere it the settings of xbmc. Its also skin dependent, not all skins allow you to alter the menus but most of the new ones do. you can change the menu/submenu any way you want.

[SmAcKpOo]

Thank you Mushi!

[mushi_mushi]

No problem. Let me know if you need any help with anything. I recently build a server/HTPC for a family member. It took a bit of time to set it up, but now that is up and running its kick ass. If you have an ipad I would also suggest you check out an app called xbmc commander.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aIwN6bbtZ8

You can do something similar on an iphone/android phone with xbmc remote.

[jav_]

speaking of xbmc, is there an addon for it where i can stream shows off the internet?
kinda like the feature in boxee

[mushi_mushi]

Use this example when adding movies to your library. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkWYxqoOF3c)

Each skin will also have different views for each type of media. ie you can browse your movies with fanart, in details view, cover stream etc. To change the view, select media type, (so from the main menu select movies for instance) press the left directional button on the keyboard and select the view you want. Make sure that you are viewing things in "library mode".

[mushi_mushi]

Originally posted by jav_
speaking of xbmc, is there an addon for it where i can stream shows off the internet?
kinda like the feature in boxee

xbmc does offer several apps which allow you to stream online content however they are really limited. I havnt used boxee in a while, but some of the things I didnt like the last time I tried it was even though they have lots of shows available they usually dont have entire seasons. The video is lacking etc.

If you want to watch tv shows on xbmc I would just download them. If your to lazy to scour the web look at something like TED (torrent episode downloader) im sure there might be better apps out there as well for a similar purpose. Basically the concept is you select the shows you watch from a long list. It will then scour the web, every time there's a new episode of a show you watch it will download it automatically.

The program is free and can be found here: http://www.ted.nu/

I think there's a ted plug-in within xbmc if thats what you use.

[SmAcKpOo]

Can TED differentiate between SD and HD torrents?

[mushi_mushi]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
Can TED differentiate between SD and HD torrents?

Yes. Dont know how well the software works as I havnt used it. There is a plugin for ted within xbmc. Also check out sick beard. It does the same thing. There is also something like this for movies, but the name escapes me right now.

[jav_]

yeah the one on boxee is still flawed...not a lot of shows specially the recent ones, not all seasons/eps are listed and some dont work as well...was hoping xbmc had one with recent stuff.
i will try TED when i get home though, thanks

[mushi_mushi]

I havnt got around to using these auto downloaders but from what I remember support for ted has ceased and its not as good as it once was. Im sure its still works now. ted relies on torrents.

I think if you are somewhat technically inclined you should check out sick beard + sabnzbd. I think this is the best combination right now for grabbing shows. This mainly uses newsgroups.

sabnzbd: http://sabnzbd.org/
sickbeard: http://addons.sabnzbd.org/sickbeard

And the similar application that exist for movies is called couch potato.
http://couchpotatoapp.com/

[bball2]

So I was checking out XBMC after reading this thread and saw this skin:

http://xbmc.org/skins/aeon/

:drool: Looks awesome!

[tenth]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
I think I am going to give XBMC another try and really dig deep in to the XML configurations to see what I can customize.
I haven't had to dig into the XML really at all. It's more getting used to the sometimes cumbersome menus and options that are a bigger pain than MCE. Media Browser is way simpler in that regard.


Do any of you have skin suggestions? Aeon looks a good bet right now.
I run Aeon MQ2. Great skin, and highly compatible with the plug-ins.


What do you use to scrape your metadata? I use media center master which grabs fan art/covers/folders/episode data and more automatically.

How is your metadata structured?
Media Center Master is fantastic. I paid the lifetime membership so it automatically pulls the movie trailers and auto-downloads new TV shows as well. Great program, and works well with XBMC with the option checked.

My Organization:
Movies -> Movies\Movie Name (Year)\whatever it extracts as.mkv/avi
TV -> Television\Show Name (Year if needed)\Season X\episodes.mkv/avi.

[SmAcKpOo]

Okay,

Tenth, can you give me a rundown on installing Aeon? the guides on the net are all fucked up and never work.

My metadata is in that exact format, I just didn't have the XBMC option checked, refetching now.

Okay, so I know you can hide the Videos menu button, when I added my TV show source it created a home link for TV shows fine, it will not create a home link for HD movies or movies. I want to keep the videos menu hidden as I want selection to be seamless.

Any easy way to fetch music metadata?



I want my home screen to look like "music, movies, tv shows, weather, settings, shutdown" but like I said above, I cannot get movies to show up on home screen

[mushi_mushi]

Ill take a quick stab at this.


Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
Okay,

Tenth, can you give me a rundown on installing Aeon? the guides on the net are all fucked up and never work.



Sorry just to be clear, do you mean installing the actual aeon skin ? If so, are you running xbmc on windows? Have you tried following the steps listed on the first page here:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=81601


Originally posted by SmAcKpOo

Okay, so I know you can hide the Videos menu button, when I added my TV show source it created a home link for TV shows fine, it will not create a home link for HD movies or movies. I want to keep the videos menu hidden as I want selection to be seamless.


Which skin are you using, most of the ones that ive used come with movies, tv shows, music etc by default. In the setting options you can also choose which menu options are available and which ones are disabled. Sometime the menu options can be non-intuitive at first glance as the menu might ask which options to disable as opposed to which ones to enable.


Originally posted by SmAcKpOo

Any easy way to fetch music metadata?



xbmc scrapes music data just the same as it does movies and tv shows. Just go into music, add source, set the content type and scan. By default metadata is collected from allmusic.com, you can change the default scraper in the settings menu under music. Be advised if you have a sizable music library this can take a while, best to do it overnight.

[SmAcKpOo]

Thanks Mushi,

Is there a way to change mouse over backdrops for menus?

[mushi_mushi]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo

Is there a way to change mouse over backdrops for menus?

All the menu images can be changed within xbmc. These are found somewhere in the setting options. You can define you own menu picture for each one of the menu options. You can also make it so a random picture is chosen from a particular folder. So you can have numerous different backgrounds for movies and tv shows etc.

Im using a different skin but the menu option should be located in the same spot. Check settings >> skin settings. There should be a backgrounds option somewhere in there and you can change the backgrounds for each menu item. You can also create a custom menu item and set a custom background image.

[SmAcKpOo]

Okay here is where I am at now.

The episode level is perfect and displays episode thumbnails with episode descriptions

The problem now is that the season level will not display the season specific banner/poster but the global show banner from the parent show directory

This is the same banner that is seen from the show selection


Basically, every season has the same image and you can't tell what season you have selected other then by the text.

What banner/poster structure does Aeon use?

[mushi_mushi]

Hey, I dont have the aeon skin installed at the moment, but on the transparency skin, I get the wide folder icons. Once I go into a show I get a cover for each one of the seasons. I suggest trying to switch the view for tv shows and see what it looks like. This can be done by going into the tv show menu and pressing the left directional button or sometimes the bottom directional button. Let us know if a different view fixes this problem, if not I'll have a gander at the aeon skin tomorrow.

If you look at a given folder the tv show folder you should see something like this.

The Office
------------Season 1
------------Season 2
------------folder.jpeg
------------fanart.jpeg
------------Season01.tbn
------------Season02.tbn

Those .tbn files are the individual cover art for each of the seasons. The folder.jpeg is the banner.

What are your impressions of xbmc so far?

[SmAcKpOo]

Love the front end if I can get it they way I want to look

Does media companion scrape those season tbn files?

[mushi_mushi]

Originally posted by SmAcKpOo
Love the front end if I can get it they way I want to look

Does media companion scrape those season tbn files?

Yeah it does. All your movies will also have numerous .tbn files. You can open these with any photo editor. If you want to run a simple test I would just copy the .tbn file from two different movies.

Copy the .tbn file from say "back to the future 1" and "back to the future 2". Put these in the directory for one of your tv shows like the above examples. Rename these .tbn files Season01.tbn and Season02.tbn. Now does the different cover art show up for each season?

[SmAcKpOo]

Awesome. I'll be deleting existing meta data in all my folders and will scrape again with media companion. I'll still use media center master as my episode renamer


On a side note. Removing all metadata amd mapping the older in xbmc will fox my above issue. Seems my existing metadata was the issue

[mushi_mushi]

Im not sure what kind of a setup you have, whether you have a server/htpc setup or all both on one computer. I like media companion its not flashy but it gets the job done, some people might like ember. For whatever reason on a very few movies it doesnt scrape all the info, so some of the main fields end up blank, its rare, but im just saying the program isnt perfect.

I dont like scanning tv shows with media companion because what ends up happening is it creates metadata for each episode and puts it in the same folder. So what happens is if you have a tv show with 20 episodes you get 20 different .nfo files for the metadata.

I let xbmc scan this stuff, that way it keeps all the info in a seperate database. This isnt a huge deal, I might not be explaining it properly either. In any case if you do scan your tv shows with an external program I would recommend you just try it out on one tv show first, see if it works and look in the tv show directory to see if it created a bunch of files. The additional files may not bother you, I just like to keep things clutter free.

[mushi_mushi]

If your still looking for some backdrops for menus you can check out:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5504495/Aeon_backgrounds

Additionally the fanart for movies is scraped from the sites below. So you can grab stuff from there if you still havnt found what your looking for.

http://www.themoviedb.org/
http://thetvdb.com/ (same as above for tv shows)

On my current setup the contents of a movie folder look like this:

MovieTitle
-----------.actors (folder)
-----------MovieTitle.mkv (main movie)
-----------MovieTitle.nfo (meta data)
-----------MainMovie.tbn (movie cover)
-----------fanart.jpeg (movie fanart)
-----------folder.jpeg (movie cover)

I download the folder.jpeg manually. Its only for viewing in windows explorer. If you change the folder view to something like large icons, the folder will show the movie cover.

You can also include a trailer in the movie directory. Once of the nice things about the paid software software your using is it can either download the trailer or store a link in the metadata. So you have access to all the movie trailers.

[SmAcKpOo]

I think I might just let XBMC do the scraping.

It is easier and totally automatic and I do not have to deal with it.

The only downside I can see so far is that XBMC only scapes 1 fanart image when multiples are available.

Media center master was designed to work with media browser and it downloads 20+ backdrops and will cycle through them during a mouse over.


Not a huge deal but meh.

[SmAcKpOo]

Thanks for TPB link, downloading it now.

I don't know why I have such a hard on for metadata. I think it is because I am worried that the databases these applications scrape from may disappear in the future. I really like having episode and movie synopsis.

[mushi_mushi]

I know for sure xbmc does let you use multiple fanart backdrops, I think it might be skin dependent, im not sure if you have to use a 3rd party app to scrape all the fanart or if xbmc can do this on its own. Lots of people really like the media browser scrapper your using, I would probably stick with that.

[mushi_mushi]

I dont think these sites are going anywhere. They scrape from all the main sites . Theres a bunch of pretty cool stuff you can do with xbmc. There are plugins for trailer addicts/apple trailers, you can view hundreds of them at 1080p.

There's also plugins that allow you to put custom intros for movies, you can download those thx/dts clips that play before movies set it up so its exactly like the theaters, with trivia questions pre-movie and trailers, the whole nine yards.

xbmc takes some time to setup the first time around but you only have to do it once.

[SmAcKpOo]

Where do I drop custom backdrops so that XBMC cycles through the backdrops when mouse over the menu item?

[tenth]

If you've got Aeon MQ2 going now, then it's under Styles, and then in the background editing. When selecting the background, I think up will let you select an entire folder, while down will let you select a single image.

Alternatively, for the movies and TV shows I have it set so it will randomly scroll through the movies or TV fanart I have for the Movie/TV options, so it's not a single static image. I don't recall exactly where I set that option (either under general settings, or under TV/Movies options).

If you haven't gotten MQ2 installed yet, basically go to his website and download the repository file. Then in XBMC go into skin selector -> get more -> click .. (back one level) -> install from Zip -> select the repository file.

http://www.marcosqui.com.br/downloads_english.html

The repository is just a listing of add-ons at a specific site, so you still need to install it from there. So go into add-ons -> get add-ons -> select his repository -> skins -> Aeon MQ2 -> Install. Once installed it should auto ask if you want to switch, and then you can select the settings (background styles, etc) in the skin options.

EDIT: Just built a second HTPC using the new fusion mini-itx boards, so getting all the joy of setting it up again. I feel your pain. It's FAR easier, although still a pain, the second go around.

[SmAcKpOo]

Yea, I did get it installed Tenth, much easier then when I tried it months go.

I did find the options, looks good. I am just downloading the backdrops now.

Ill post screens when I am all done

[SmAcKpOo]

Wouldn't you just be able to copy/paste the xbmx folder from app data in to the new HTPC?

[tenth]

Probably. I out of nowhere had some remote issues with the harmony though, so doing it from scratch and hoping I won't duplicate that problem.

Need to get a MySQL database going now too, in order link the "watched" and "resume" attributes across the multiple xbmcs.
http://ca.lifehacker.com/5634515/how-to-synchronize-your-xbmc-media-center-across-every-room-in-the-house

[bball2]

So I've been playing around with XBMC for a couple hours now and I must say I'm quite impressed :thumbsup:

A few things that took me a little while to figure out:

- press c when over an item to access the context menu

- if you want to install the aeon skin, make sure you download the repository (a few 100 kb's), and not the full skin (~100mb). I downloaded the full skin the first time and it got really frustrating since using the install an add-on from a zip file does nothing

Anyways definitely gonna play around with it some more, only wish my apple remote would work on it though (doesn't work using boot camp)

[mushi_mushi]

Agreed, xbmc looks sweet. Some of the menu buttons and stuff took me some time to figure out too. I ended up just pressing every key on the keyboard to see if any of them did anything.

I dont know too much about macs/bootcamp, but I did a quick google search, this may or may not help you with the remote:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=73947

Is there a reason your running xbmc using bootcamp, why not just download xbmc for osx. If your using osx another media browser I would check out is plex.

http://www.plexapp.com/

Ive never used this but its similar to xbmc, it was originally meant for osx. Until now I didnt even know it had windows support.

[bball2]

@mushi_mushi

Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out, but I think I might pick up a media center remote to go with xbmc which looks to be a lot better than the apple remote (and won't disable all other remote functions outside of xbmc).

I'm using a 27" iMac, but I vastly prefer using Windows 7 over OSX, so I'm on boot camp about 95% of the time.

[mushi_mushi]

^^^^
Those 27" imac screens are pretty nice. There's alot of htpc remotes out there ranging from anywhere from 50 to 300. If you want you can also use voxcommando (not sure how well it would work with bootcamp) with xbmc and operate the whole using voice commands with the use of special remotes or the addition of a mic.

video of voxcommano + xbmc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kR2C6IeaPw

I think the whole voice thing is a novelty but its an option. I like a remote that allows easy text input. A gui is nice too.

[SmAcKpOo]

On a side note Mushi,

Steaming 1080p video through XBMC uses primarily what resources, processor, RAM, or Vid Card.

My one box is having a hard time with lossless Avatar in 1080p and the specs are the exact same as my other HTPC with the exception that this box has integrated graphics. Would an onboard 256mb integrated NVIDIA geforce be causing the slow video?

[mushi_mushi]

Most hd rips support hardware acceleration, in this scenario the gpu does most of the work. Otherwise all the load goes on the cpu. Hardware acceleration is a relatively new feature of xbmc. Not sure which build of xbmc you are using but im pretty sure dharma (10.x) supports hardware acceleration. A dual core with a chipset that has a decent decoder should get the job done.

Post the specs of your htpc mobo/cpu. In any case you can pick up a video card under $50 and have flawless playback. I cant remember which are best/cheapest but its something like the geforce 220, 240...in that range. Ill post links for some of them tomorrow.

There might be some settings in xbmc to deal with these issues, but im not sure where they are as ive never looked into it personally. ( Check Settings > Video > Playback. Select Allow Hardware Acceleration (DXVA2)).

[SmAcKpOo]

I am all finished my first XBMC. Will post screenshots tonight.


Regarding the MySQL database. If I add any media to the source folders for my media, XBMC will auto update and scrape the data but will the new updated library export automatically to the sql database?

[tenth]

It's actually an SQlite database by default. Just need mysql if you have multiple installs and want multiple XBMC instances to be able to write to it at once.

And ya, as soon as the auto-update happens, it writes the data to the configured db (which is the library storage).

[thorin33]

Seeing as you guys were talking about XBMC...finally was able to configure XBMC on my orginal Xbox to playback HD videos. I am using PS3MS via uPNP to do the transcoding....works pretty good.

[visualk]

Do any of you know of where I can get a plug-in that will show graphic equalizer visualization when playing music?

Also do any of you find that after installing XBMC it changes your display resolution? I had mine on magnify, but a balloon always pops up and says not at optimal resolution. I tend to ignore it but when I restart it changes my magnification off, any way around this?

[SmAcKpOo]

What are u using magnify for?

You can avoid using it by changing icon sizes and default text sizes within windows.


I am still looking for an equalization plugin

[SmAcKpOo]

Finally done the TV Shows and Movies sections as well as configurations

Menus pull backdrops from a random selection of backdrops

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/smackpoo/screenshot005.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/smackpoo/screenshot004.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/smackpoo/screenshot003.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/smackpoo/screenshot002.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v363/smackpoo/screenshot001.png

[SmAcKpOo]

Working on VM'ing a sql lite xp machine for library sync between multiple PC's

My music still needs work as the ID3 tags don't mesh with xbmc's music scraper

Working on getting music visualization to work