[Daveybryce]

Basic Setup

After a couple of requests and hopefully a little bit of my knowledge I embarking on a full HTPC setup guide that hopefully will cover most angles users may wish when using Mediabrowser as your HTPC's frontend movie/TV series playing software.

Firstly you will need at minimum Windows 7 Home Premium (As this edition ships with Media Centre). You will also need a range of 3rd Party free software as well as some paid software in order to achieve a good working, almost hassle free HTPC like mine and many others on here. We will take each bit of software in turn so we can set it up as it happens.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A GUIDE BASED ON MY SETUP AND HARDWARE

After Win 7 has finished installing do all your usual driver updates and hardware driver installations. Note: If using an ATI HD5xxx GFX card you will need ATI CCC 9.11 or higher to get HD Audio bitstreaming working from files due to the audio driver contained.

Once you've installed all drivers and updated Win7 (there aren't many updates at all) it's time to start transforming that Basic PC into a stunning HTPC, so lets crack on with the Programs.

1. Install MP4 and mkv splitter -
Please note you will have to disable UAC (user account control) in order for this to work or you will get an error message. If you're not sure how to disable this ... google it, there are plenty of tutorials to tell you how.

I would encourage user to install this over Haali due to the fact that this is constantly being developed with at least weekly if not daily updates and works closely with FFDShow. It also seems much stabler than Haali with subtitles(FFDShow) and HD Audio Bitstreaming in mkv's.

If you are a 64bit user please register both 32bit and 64bit as WMP12 is 32bit and 7MC is 64bit.

This is required to play .mkv extensions and apple movie formats. Download the correct zip file for your OS, found at the end of this post. Extract and run the .bat file, this will register the Matroska Splitter required for .mkv files and an mp4splitter required to play .mov, m4v, mp4 movie files.

2. Launch Media Centre and set up your TV card, if you don't have a TV Card just launch 7MC, click ok and then exit.

3. Mediabrowser - Latest Version is 2.2.1 (Currently) - Download

Note: In order for Mediabrowser (MB) to recognise your movies or TV Series files they need to be in a specific folder/file structure. That is to say that each movie needs to be in it's own folder. In order for mediabrowser to see you movies and movie info you need to have a minimum of 3 movie folders in each Initial Folder or turn off the Movie Playlist option in the config of MB.
For TV Series you need to have a structure as follows; Series Name/Season Number/series number followed by episode number for example:
C:TV Series\Californication\Season 1\s01e01.avi

This version is called Firestorm and differs quite a lot to previous versions but we'll come to the differences later. Install the app then launch the MB configuration wizard. It may tell you that your permissions are not set correctly and would you like mediabrowser to set them up - click yes. Eventually you will be faced with a screen like this - Follow the instructions.

Launch 7MC and you should hopefully see a new menu strip appear under th e heading of media browser. Click on the media browser icon and a notificaiton appears, click ok then your initial media browser screen pops up, follow instructions then click ok, restart MB. you should see your new folder(s). Exit MB and close 7MC.

If you run into any niggles or dramas, The Mediabrowser Knowledge Base should hopefully provide you with a solution.

Something else you need to be aware of is that there is currently a bug within MB that may prevent some of your movies not showing and this only occurs if you mix different types of media types in the same folder. For example, you can have .avi, .mkv, .divx, .xvid, .mov, .mp4, .m4v all in the same initial folder, however as soon as you introduce a .iso or Video_TS folder into that initial folder it causes problems. So my advice is to create new folders for your DVD/BD rips if you wish to use .iso or Video_TS.

For example

D:\Movies\ISO then all your iso rip movie folders
D:\Movies\VideoTSstructure\ then all your Video TS rip movie folders
D:\Movies\BD then all your .mkv's, .mov's, .m4v's, mp4's rip movie folders but not ISO or Video_TS folders
D:\Movies\DVD then all your .mkv's, etc.... but not ISO or Video_TS folders

4. Metabrowser - download

This program is designed to work with mediabrowser and will retrieve all your metadata for your movies including cover art and backdrops.

Download this and install it, then run it.
Initially you need to set up your folders again exactly as you did with MB, however if you point your metabrowser to your startup folder C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\Startup Folder this contains all of your virtual folders required.

Just click on the ... browser icon near the top right and add your media folders then click save and the window will close. Now click the refresh button next to the options button and your movies will start to populate.

click on the movie and select fetch meta data and you're away, if your title returns no movies then try altering the title.

5. FFDShow - If you wish to integrate FFDShow into your MCE then please follow this guide. Using FFDShow also allows you to Bitstream HD Audio. Also in the Guide is a link from Wolvers showing you how to convert your BD Rips to MKV to maintain native play in MCE.

Setting up FFDShow with Windows7

6. Using MPC-HC as an external player in MB

THIS STEP IS NOT ESSENTIAL FOR NORMAL USE BUT ONLY IF YOU PREFER TO USE 3RD PARTY PLAYERS

Latest Builds available from here

Some peeps prefer to use 3rd party media players to watch their media on. We will set up our remote commands in MPC so we can still control the movie from the comfort of my sofa and close it to return to MB.. Now lets set up MPC-HC so that it does what we want, ie fullscreen, add an FFDShow as an external filter(only if you want to use this decoder, you can add whatever decoder you like) and you can set your output at 24Hz.

Basically Setup the following options in MPC-HC exactly as in the following screen shots, pay notice to the left hand tabs.

Now just add the FFDShow Audio decoder as an external filter from the menu that pops up when you click the add button.

Next we need to control MPC using our mediacentre remote control. This is simply done by double clicking on the App command column along the line you want to add a command to. I've chosen mediaplay for play, mediastop to exit MPC, mediapause for pause, mediafast fwd for slow forward and media rewind for slow rewind. Like so

Then finally we will set up Mediabrowser to launch an external player when a .ts or .m2ts file is launched, however you can add as many or few file extensions that you want to launch the external player for. All we need to do is open the MB config wizard, click the external player tab and add a mediaformat. i.e. TS. then click on browser for your media player and select the file location of MPC.exe. No need to enter any parameters as we have done this in MPC-HC options.

7. Media Centre Studio - Download

This app allows you to add themes, alter themes and move your start menu around, along with rename your strips and items... A must for customization of your 7MC experience.

A tutorial on how to add custom apps to launch within 7MC is available here

That is basically it for your basic movie viewing pleasure. My next post will discuss the new features available in Firestorm and how to download the new plugins and themes available, also setting up the new images by name folder structure and adding some cool features to MB to make it look rather sexy.

[jimnorth]

Thanks Davebryce........I'm about to build a HTPC once Scan has all the parts in and this will be invaluable.

[runkmeister]

Can you please post the 64 bit file you mention in your post.

[Daveybryce]

ImagesByName Folder Setup

So now we have our basic setup it's time to add some pretty much must have features to the experience. First and foremost is the "ImagesByName" (IBN) folder. What this does is when you download your actor images in metabrowser it stores them in a folder for MB to use so when you check out whose in a movie it will show a little picture of the actor.

There is a project ongoing over at the mediabrowser forums where you can download actor packs, studio packs, genre packs etc - More info here

The location of this folder must be placed in C:\ProgramData\Mediabrowser\ and must be called ImagesByName

In any version of MB previous to 2.2.1 (Firestorm) you only require 1 folder called ImagesByName and this is where you would place all actors and studio folders, however in Firestorm they have sub directoried the IBN folder like so:

Obviously you place studios into studio, genre types into genre however people will be collected by metabrowser when you click the download actor images so we need to set this up in metabrowser. So Launch Metabrowser, click on options and browse for your images by name folder as shown in the shot below. Because I'm using firestorm I need to point it to my IBN People folder.

REMEMBER IF YOU ARE USING FIRESTORM THEN YOU NEED TO RESTRUCTURE YOUR IBN FOLDER, HOWEVER IF YOU ARE STILL USING A PREVIOUS VERSION THEN YOU ONLY NEED TO ADD THE IBN FOLDER AND NOT TO RESTRUCTURE.

And thats it for the metabrowser side of things all we need to do now is tell MB where this folder is. So in the C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser folder right click on MediaBrowser.xml and select edit. Then add the location of your IBN folder, like this. Notice that we haven't included the People subfolder so that MB will look for all data included within the folder.

StarksCovers - Download

In order for this program to work you must have already downloaded cover art for your movie as this program looks for a folder.jpg in order to apply the masks.

Official Starkcover Forum

A very nice edition to customise your Cover art for movies and TV Series. It's a very simple programe to use, just run the application. Select either a movie folder select your covers and run the app on media location you can also preview the design before you run it on your location. You can also run it on individual movie folders. This single program will probably prompt you to organise your movie collection into categories such as defining folders for BD, HDDVD's and DVD's to all you to run this program with ease. It can also be used for TV Series. After running it and selecting your preferred profiles you should get something like this.

To pull it all together this is the kinda stuff you should see by adding these 2 features to your MB experience

[Daveybryce]

Themes and Plugins for Mediabrowser

To get themes into MB 2.2.1 (Firestorm) you have to download a plugin now rather than them already being preloaded into MB.

I wont write the tutorial as there is a very good one over at the MB Forum which you can look at here, you can also see all available plugins and see which ones are coming soon.

This allows you to chose what you want and will keep this post totally upto date.

Add a Movie Trailer Feature to Movies in Mediabrowser - Tutorial Here

DemonSeed over at the MB forums has done a grand job writing this tutorial up for you, if you wish to add a trailer function to MB for each movie you have.

I find it good when you have peeps round for movie night and they don't know what to watch, bang a few trailers on to wet the appetite and you're away.

[Daveybryce]

Other Programs Essential to complete the 7MC Experience

TunerFreeMCE - For all your available on Demand Channels, iplayer, 4oD, demandFive, Hulu, etc
My Channel Logos - Good app for auto assigning channel logos for your EPG - can also add your own logos to channels.
Media Center Studio - Re-arrange your menu, add custom strips to start menu, create your own 7MC theme, add applications and browsers, add games... All to customise the look and feel of 7MC. Please donate to this one.
Arcsoft TotalMediaTheatre 3 - Bluray,HDDVD, DVD player with SimHD(upscales SD DVDs) and supports HD audio bitstreaming from the Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 soundcard only.
Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra - Another Bluray, DVD player however this supports HD audio bitstreaming from the ATI HD5xxx range of graphics cards and Auzentech Hometheatre HD soundcard.

[gamingdave]

Really looking forward to this being completed. Cleaned up my HTPC last night, and uninstalled most things.

Still not sure if I will go for MediaBrowser, or MediaPortal. I prefer the StreamedMP skin in MP, I just think it looks nicer, but it looks like some cracking skins are coming to MB soon, especially Maelstrom. The biggest advantage of MP though seems to be auto refresh rate changing, which I think is a must.

Prepared the machine so that I have 2 extra partitions, both 50GB (I have loads of room and getting a Drobo to actually store all my media) to try and install MB and MP into, and all their metadata and databases, so hopefully I will be able to run both for a while and see which I prefer.

My biggest problem at the moment is getting MPC HC to play properly. Got ffdshow installed, still not getting HD audio through MPC HC (PowerDVD9 works fine for BR disks and images) but the biggest problem is the picture quality. It regulaly breaks up into a pixelated mess, or with big blocks of colour. My processor is hardly being taxed (it shouldnt, its an i5 at 4GHz) and the files run fine in PowerDVD9 and WMP). I will have to start another thread on that, and see if I can get Wolvers solution working, so it just plays MKV directly in WMC whilst retaining HD audio. Dont mind if I play MKV, or ISOs, and at the moment, ISOs mounting with Deamon and playing in PowerDVD is my only option, but not the most elegant.

Anyway, looking forward to the next installment, and will be sure to let you know how I get on.

[Daveybryce]

first post is complete now, moving onto second post prob a bit later

[Daveybryce]

Originally Posted by runkmeister

Can you please post the 64 bit file you mention in your post.

There is no 64bit version, just realized... sorry

You can register the attached file in first post, it will run in emulated 32 bit mode on your 64 bit system.

[djcla]

any thoughts on why i can not get anything to appear in the plugin list via mediabrowser config tool?

[Daveybryce]

Dave,

was just writing something and went to take a screenshot and I too have no plugins listed. Check the MB forum under general disscussions to see if anythings been posted regarding this, dont really have time at the mo mate, sorry

Obviously a glitch/error somewhere or they are creating something new which means their sites maybe amalgamating.

[djcla]

Originally Posted by Daveybryce

Dave,

was just writing something and went to take a screenshot and I too have no plugins listed. Check the MB forum under general disscussions to see if anythings been posted regarding this, dont really have time at the mo mate, sorry

Obviously a glitch/error somewhere or they are creating something new which means their sites maybe amalgamating.

sites have been down for ages so maybe that, have managed to get the vanilla 2.0 theme loaded although i can not enable it

[Daveybryce]

from the desktop config or 7MC config, I found that Vanilla 2.1 alpha doesn't work you have to use the official release. Could be something frog is working on. Also to enable the themes you need to enable in the 7MC interface and not the desktop for some reason.

[djcla]

Originally Posted by Daveybryce

from the desktop config or 7MC config, I found that Vanilla 2.1 alpha doesn't work you have to use the official release. Could be something frog is working on. Also to enable the themes you need to enable in the 7MC interface and not the desktop for some reason.

what interface options sorry dont get you? Not sure if it was 2.1 i installed it was from a plugin but i see no way to enable it.

[Daveybryce]

Go to the mb options (config spanner) menu in 7MC then scroll across until you hit the tab labelled themes and just click the + button and you should see the Vanilla theme, if not then you may need to install the official release.

[gvers]

Here's a bit from hack7mc regarding the vanilla theme

In order to download the Vanilla theme you’ll need to open the MediaBrowser Configuration and select Add from the Plugins tab. Next select the File –> Sources menu and Add the following source: http://www.throgsoft.com/plugins/plugin_info.xml. Afterward, a restart of the configuration utility is required to load the new plugin listings.

[Theydon Bois]

Nice guide mate, thanks for taking the time to write it up!

[deksawyer]

For those having problems installing Vanilla2, here's a manual method from the developer himself;

"Download http://www.throgsoft.com/plugins/Vanilla2.dll and copy it into your Windows/ehome directory.
Create a new file in ProgramData/MediaBrowser/Plugins called Vanilla2.pgn (just an empty file will do)

Then launch Mediabrowser from MC"

You'll need to select Vanilla 2 from within MCE.

D.

BTW excellent guide Davey, but for the life of me (I've been tweaking again) I can't get ffd show to work properly in live/recorded tv.

[gamingdave]

Realised why I wasn't gettting HD audio. I hadn't selected the "Connect to:" drop down to DirestSound

Now I am getting HD audio bitstreaming and for some reason, I now have judder free video aswell No idea why changing that would sort the video, but for some reason it has!

The HTPC is now chomping a .m2ts into a MKV using MakeMKV and if that works aswell I will be a very happy man.

Ordered a Harmony 555 so we only have one remote, and if I can get that all setup then the wife should be happy too. Hopefully I can set that up so I can have a button to change display profiles in Catalyst so on the projector I can quickly select 1080p24 or simply 50 or 60Hz. Still going to look into MediaPortal aswell, as that has auto switching, but once this MKV is done Firestorm is going on.

--edit-- well that was a waste of time, seem MakeMKV doesn't like VC-1 streams. Trying a BR with h264 now!

[Daveybryce]

Originally Posted by Theydon Bois

Nice guide mate, thanks for taking the time to write it up!

No Probs Theydon, they just take so much time and there is still so much to add

Originally Posted by deksawyer

BTW excellent guide Davey, but for the life of me (I've been tweaking again) I can't get ffd show to work properly in live/recorded tv.

Cheers fella, btw you may need to take ownership of a few files in the system32 folder but it's easier to take ownership of the whole directory and then set full control for you. Another thing that maybe causing you issues is if you haven't taken ownership of the registry folder required to set the default decoders. I've had to take ownership twice of the following folder before to get it working.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectShow\ P referred

Originally Posted by gamingdave

Realised why I wasn't gettting HD audio. I hadn't selected the "Connect to:" drop down to DirestSound

Now I am getting HD audio bitstreaming and for some reason, I now have judder free video aswell No idea why changing that would sort the video, but for some reason it has!

The HTPC is now chomping a .m2ts into a MKV using MakeMKV and if that works aswell I will be a very happy man.

Ordered a Harmony 555 so we only have one remote, and if I can get that all setup then the wife should be happy too. Hopefully I can set that up so I can have a button to change display profiles in Catalyst so on the projector I can quickly select 1080p24 or simply 50 or 60Hz. Still going to look into MediaPortal aswell, as that has auto switching, but once this MKV is done Firestorm is going on.

--edit-- well that was a waste of time, seem MakeMKV doesn't like VC-1 streams. Trying a BR with h264 now!

Out of interest is there some reason you object to launching MPC as an external player, it really makes no difference to watching movies thru MB. You can keep your ts or m2ts transport streams with the HD audio and not have to recode every movie to mkv format.

[Daveybryce]

Updated Second Post which deals with Imagesbyname folder and Starkcovers.
Updated 3rd Post which covers Themes and Plugins for MB.


Further to this, some good news with regards to MB and metabrowser, you will no longer require the mediainfol.dll. A long time ago I planted a seed over on MB forums regarding custom icons for TrueHD, DTS_HD MA, Bluray, etc... well Xzener over there loved the idea and we have been trying to get this feature added. Well Yesterday the request was approved by both Sam and Fatal and should be getting implemented soon, which should be a very nice edition to an already great front end.

[djcla]

you may want to add this to post 2

http://www.ebrsoft.com/software/mb/MigrateIBN.zip

also i have not ventured into starkcovers for my TV eps but my films look just like yours. Can you do all the whole TV series at once?

[djcla]

i really like the look of the layout and theme in the picture on hack7mc any ideas which one it is?>

Hacking Windows 7 Media Center - Plugins Codecs FFDShow dvrmstoolbox showanalyzer comskip haali shark007 - Hack7MC.com

[Daveybryce]

Originally Posted by djcla

you may want to add this to post 2

http://www.ebrsoft.com/software/mb/MigrateIBN.zip

also i have not ventured into starkcovers for my TV eps but my films look just like yours. Can you do all the whole TV series at once?

I did try that migrate tool, but it didn't work so great for me, so a fresh start and downloaded the actor pack and studios pack from the link I provided in 2nd post.

I did my whole TV Series in both my media locations and only had couple of hickups which I manually did using the starks covers app. Basically just set your Base and Series covers the same then chose your season view and then your thumbs(episode) view then run the tool.

Originally Posted by djcla

i really like the look of the layout and theme in the picture on hack7mc any ideas which one it is?>

Hacking Windows 7 Media Center - Plugins Codecs FFDShow dvrmstoolbox showanalyzer comskip haali shark007 - Hack7MC.com

That's the diamond theme (built into MB) and i think it's using the list view.

[m4rky]

Great tutorial. SWMBO is out tonight so I am going to wipe my Win7 64-bit install and go back to 32-bit. I will follow you notes to the letter :-)

4. Register MP4 Splitter - File attached at the end of this post for 32bit, if you require 64bit registration just ask and i'll supply another bat for this.

BTW where is the link???

[Daveybryce]

Originally Posted by m4rky

Great tutorial. SWMBO is out tonight so I am going to wipe my Win7 64-bit install and go back to 32-bit. I will follow you notes to the letter :-)



BTW where is the link???

Cheers Marky, if you find anything seems a little tricky or not explained well let me know and I can edit the posts.

edit: 64 bit version added now, found it MPC's standalone filters pack.

[theodotcom]

Excellent tutorials mate, they will come in very useful as I'm going to be reinstalling my HTPC with win 7 in the next couple of days, thanks.

Just out of curiousity do you all have your HTPC's online all the time, and do they have antivirus software on? If so what do you use?

[gamingdave]

Originally Posted by Daveybryce

Out of interest is there some reason you object to launching MPC as an external player, it really makes no difference to watching movies thru MB. You can keep your ts or m2ts transport streams with the HD audio and not have to recode every movie to mkv format.

I have no problem using .m2ts and MPC at all, its more for stripping out the other audio tracks and subtitles that I dont want. I only want the movie, HD audio, and DD or DTS for playing back on the TV (when not using the amp with HD audio) or an extender. I thought MKV would probably give me more compatibility down the line, and it doesnt take long for my machine to crunch through a file. Whatever the format, it looks like MPC will be my player anyway.

At the moment I am sticking with .m2ts as MakeMKV simply doesnt work for me. It cant handle VC1 properly, and when I try to convert an H264 file, it simply hangs at the end.

[Daveybryce]

have you used a program called tsmuxer. I use this to do exactly what you want. I keep the 1080p video stream and only the HD audio track as most of them contain the core track also.

You will need Anydvd HD but i imagine you have this already.

[Useless_Help]

Thanks mate, appreciate something like this, with me being a noob/revisiting the HTPC segment and all the software (such as codecs) available, it's been a bit of a long read to get up to date on all the stuff, I'm still reading....

Thanks again!