XBMC help please

[broona]

7MC crashes every time I try and play a video on my Revo 3610, tried a few fixes, but a Windows reinstall is looking like the only fix!

In the meantime, I'm trying to set up XBMC in a similar fashion to the way I had 7MC with MediaBrowser.

It's my little boy's Revo, so everything's just stored in one directory, which worked perfectly in MediaBrowser, everything showed up nicely, and we could just scroll through and select movies, tv series, etc.

XBMC appears to work differently, and tries to organise everything into categories, which I don't want. I've tried setting it to library view, and this almost works, but it seems that any directory with more than one video file in it doesn't show up at all!

I want it to boot straight into the movie posters, and simply allow me to pick what to watch from there, any help much appreciated!

[broona]

Anyone know how to get it to show all video files on a drive please?

[evilsatan]

In XBMC go to Videos, Add Source, add the directory which contains all of the video files and select ok. You then have the option of categorising the files to movies, tv shows, music etc. I categorise mine properly but the default is no category so have you tried this?

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a directory for movies and another for TV shows and setting it up so you goto the appropriate section from the main menu? It won't boot straight into the movie posters but all you have to do is navigate to movies and there are the posters. You can even disable all the other main menu entries from the settings section so you have less to scroll through.

XBMC should have no problem with multiple files in a single directory, my setup:
X:\Media\Movies\*All movie files*
X:\Media\TV Shows\Name 1\Season 1\*All season 1 files*
X:\Media\TV Shows\Name 1\Season 2\*All season 2 files*
X:\Media\TV Shows\Name 2\Season 1\*All season 1 files*

In Videos I have set X:\Media\Movies\ as my movies folder and X:\Media\TV Shows\ as my TV folder, XBMC does the rest.

When in the movies section press the up key and it should open the left hand sidebar, change the view types until you find one you like. If you prefer to just see posters then try the 'wall' view. I like to have posters scrolling at the bottom with details appearing at the top.

[{{909}}]

I'm not quite sure, I have mine set up by putting movies in one folder and tv eps into another, which are organised show/season/01.epname.mkv and this works fine, but you do need to tell xbmc what is in the folder, be it movies or tv eps. works beautifully.

[broona]

Thanks for the replies, will have a play.

Don't wanna set up different sections in the main menu, trying to keep it as simple as possible for my wife and 3yr old boy, as he could just scroll through everything and press play on whatever he wanted to watch in 7MC, so I just want to boot straight into poster view with everything instantly selectable.

[evilsatan]

I'm no aware of a configuration which will bypass the main menu and boot straight to a section but if it is possible it will be in the settings menu. Also have a browse on the XBMC forums for a custom 'simple' skin.

[{{909}}]

you can remove options from the menu but i think at minimum you would need movies, tv and settings. May not be as simple as 7MC, but its pretty much fool proof, even for a woman.

[Mystical_2K]

are you asking if you can have Movies and TV shows mixed in together? if thats the case i dont think its possible as XBMC always seems to have seperate entries for each

[DejaVu]

They need to be in separate sections in order to scrap the information from the internet correctly.
You cannot scrap a TV Show from TheMovieDB and you cannot scrap a Movie from TheTVDB.

The way you are doing it, although you believe it to be simpler - will not work properly as either one or the other will not have the correct information.

Once you have it setup right and your 3yr old's played with it for a day or so, he'll pick it up.

I also recommend the Simplicity skin. You can have

Home - TV Shows - Movies

The rest is hidden from view. To get to the settings, on Home, press Up arrow - your boy will probably not know this and will save headaches if it gets messed up.