60 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|JAN 2011 |www.maximumpc.com
R&D^
EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE3
ADDING MEDIA
Your freshly installed XBMC is
already looking snazzy, with a
high-res skin and a slick user interface
(image D), but right now it’s sorely lacking
in functionality. That’s because, so far,
XBMC has no idea where your media files
are. You can fix this problem by select-
ing one of XBMC’s libraries (the possible
libraries are Videos, Music, Pictures, and
Programs) and then selecting Add Source
(image E). We chose the Video library in
this example.
As you might guess, the Add Source
dialogue lets you specify a new source for
media fi les—this can be a drive, a folder, a
network location, or a combination of the
three. If it’s a drive or a folder, you can ei-
ther type the full path into the list, or click
the Browse button and select the location.
To add a network location (a NAS box, for
instance) you just click Browse, then select
“Add network location...” from the list. An
alternative is to mount the network loca-
tion as a drive on your system, then addthe source that way.
A single source
can draw from
multiple locations,
so it’s best to have
one source for
each “category” of
media. For instance,
we named our first
source “Movies”
and it contains (sur-
prise!) all our mov-
ies. Once you’ve
selected all the
drive locations for
your source, make sure that you’ve given
it a name, and click on the Set Content
button at the bottom of the window.
The Set Content menu is exclusive
to Video sources, and lets you tell XBMC
what kind of videos your video source
contains (image F). There are three op-
tions, with slightly different behaviors:Movie A Movie source assumes that each
video file is a single movie. If
your movies are in fold-
ers (with subtitle files, for
instance) you’ll need to check
the option that says “Use
folder names for lookups.” If
you’ve got lots of nested fold-
ers with movies inside, you’ll
need to check the option
labeled “Scan recursively.”TV Show A TV source as-
sumes that video files will be
arranged in folders by series.Unlike a Movie source, TV sources are
recursive by default.Music Video A Music Video source as-
sumes each file is a single music video.
The primary difference with Music Videos
is that you can enable Party mode, which
tells XBMC to play files from Music Video
sources at random.
Whichever type of source you select
will also determine which scraper will be
used to identify your videos. You can se-
lect from a large list of possible scrapers,
but for most purposes the default is the
best choice. Once you’ve added a video
source, select that source and press the
context key (C on the keyboard, by de-
fault) and select Scan for New Content. If
everything is set up correctly, XBMC will
find and download data for your files.
Adding music is a bit easier, since
there’s no Set Content or scraper to deal
with. Once you’ve added all the sources
that you need, you can start using XBMC.
Select the library you want to view with
the up and down arrow keys, then press
the right-arrow key, and select Library.
You can now navigate through your entire
video library—movies, TV shows, and
music videos. If you want to change the
view mode, just press the left-arrow key
to access a small menu of view options
(image G).D
F
G
E