Hi Guys
My HTPC is now complete. But have a few Questions now.
My PC Confg( AMD A6 3500, MSI A75G55 MAtx, Iball Baby cabinet, 4 GB corsair ram 1333, 64 GB Kingston SSD, Movies and TV shows on TB of HDDs)
1. How to auto start XBMC in Full Screen. If I put it in Start Folder the it starts but now its in Menu bar but not Full screen . I would hate to change shells as i need Explorer time to time.
Option 1 - Create two user accounts and set one to boot directly into XBMC. You will need to click the required user account manually. I think MCE remote can do this by using the arrow keys to select the account and enter key to activate.
Option 2 - Use only one account and set XBMC as shell. Then call explorer from within XBMC when you want to see the desktop.
2. All my movies and particularly TV shows are not scrapped properly. Is there any way to correct scrapings and movies naming. Also some TV shows are not even scrapping.
Create a 'master' movie folder and put all your movies in sub folders with folder name in the format 'Movie Name (year)' as in Rango (2011). Add the master folder to your movie library and select the movie scraper. Default scraper is 'The MovieDB' but I use imdb scraper. If you use 'The MovieDB' then enable 'Group movies in sets' under settings> Video settings>library to automatically group movies of the same series.
For TV shows, the naming should be as given in the TVDB website. It is better to search the TV show in TVDB and rename them. Renamer tools are available to rename movies and tv shows automatically. Each episode should be named in the format 'S01E01' where S01 is season 1 and E01 is episode 1. For 'Tom and Jerry' the seasons are 1940, 1650, 1960 as in 'S1940E01 Puss Gets the Boot'. Put all episodes in the same folder with folder name same as that of the show as given in the TVDB site.
3. i have ordered HP MCE remote for use with logitech harmony. Any hints how to proceed on that.
HP MCE remote can be used out of the box, but for added usability install this small file
xbmccustomregis. It will add a custom keyboard configuration for xbmc and also control the 'green start button' to start xbmc instead of windows media center. Normally if you press the green start button, WMC will start if you are using Win 7 HP or Ultimate. You will also need to install
autohotkey for this tweak to work. All the details are given
here.
It is also recommended to disable Windows Media Center so that it is not launched accidentally. I use '
Ultimate Windows Tweaker' to do that. Another method is described
here.
There you go all the methods listed here
HOW-TO:Make Windows boot directly to XBMC (as a shell) - XBMC
I'll also try it today or tomorrow and let you know what worked for me. I've windows 7 home edition , so eventghost method will work for me i suppose. If you've ultimate or professional you can do this through group policy. Getting to explorer is also explained.
I recently reinstalled my XBMC system. I will share here how to boot to XBMC directly without using eventghost and start Windows explorer from XBMC. The boot time is now incredibly fast 20~25 seconds after pressing the power button. My bios takes ~ 5 seconds to boot into windows, so that is 15 seconds to boot into XBMC on my 5400 RPM WD Green HDD.
Do a fresh install of Windows 7. Install all necessary drivers, XBMC, autohotkey and the customregis file for remote control. The customsregis will install a custom keyboard for xbmc and an autohotkey script file 'GSB_Win32bit_v1.06' under the startup folder to control the behaviour of MCE remote control. Disable the Windows Media Center.
Download '
Instantsheller'. Select the path to XBMC. Check only 'Change shell for current user only' and 'Change shell application'. This is important to get the Windows Desktop when you want. Otherwise you will see only the explorer. Restart your computer and you are booting directly into XBMC without starting Windows desktop or explorer.
I have discussed how to start Windows desktop from XBMC
here.
