Table of Contents

XBMC (Android)

Basic settings

  1. Go to System → Settings → Appearance and set the Settings level to Expert
  2. Change the Settings within Skin
  3. Change the Startup window within Skin
  4. Change the Region within International
  5. Go to System → Settings → Video and set Update library on startup within Library
  6. Change the Preferred audio language within Playback
  7. Change the Preferred subtitle language within Subtitles
  8. Go to System → Settings → Music and set Update library on startup within Library
  9. Go to System → Settings → Weather and install Yahoo! Weather as Service for weather information
  10. Enter the location information within Settings
  11. Make sure the Weather add-on is enabled. If you cannot find it using Nebula or your skin, switch back to Confluence where it is easy to locate within Settings.
  12. Go to System → Settings → Services and Allow control of XBMC via HTTP within Webserver
  13. Go to System → Settings → System, check whether the display matches your TV screen, and modify the settings if required within Video output
  14. Enable passthrough within Audio output
  15. Once you have populated your library, go to movies, tvshows or music and select the display type in the left banner

Path equivalents on device

The following paths are mapped to eachother on the device:

/data/media/0/
/data/media/legacy/
/storage/emulated/0/
/storage/emulated/legacy/

Access the media library

Add a network share

  1. Go to Video → Files → Add videos…
  2. Click [Browse], select the network share type, and enter credentials

Remove a network share

  1. Go to Video → Files and select the share to remove
  2. Press the menu button on the remote

How to prepare your media library

See How to setup and manage your media library

Delete the whole media library

Remove database:

/data/media/0/Android/data/hk.minix.xbmc/files/.xbmc/userdata/Database/MyVideos78.db

Skin

After trying several skins, I found the Nebula skin to be the most functional skin. One of the important features is to allow custom main menu items, which let's me have a Concerts entry for music videos.

Where to find the default background images:

/storage/emulated/legacy/Android/data/hk.minix.xbmc/files/.xbmc/addons/skin.nebula/backgrounds

Add "Concert" main menu item

  1. switch to thumbnail view
  2. click context–>manage…–>manage movie sets
  3. select movie, add movie to new set…
  4. In Nebula skin, reload the library and find the Concerts set
  5. Add the set to the favorites through context menu
  6. Go to settings, and add a custom menu entry in Skin settings. Name it Concerts.

Add a favorite to the main menu in XBMC 13

  1. Go to settings, Skin settings, and add a custom menu entry. Choose the favourite created before.

Add a favorite to the main menu in Kodi 15

  1. Go to settings, Skin settings.
  2. Choose the favourite created before.

XBMC settings

When setting up movie sources, enable:

Movies are in separate folders that match the movie title

When setting up tvs how sources, disable:

Selected folder contains a single TV show

TV settings

Set Aspect ratio to Just scan on LG TVs.