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Media Center: Used for viewing/interaction of media (music, photos, video, games) in one place. This also is usually a one stop shop, with plenty of eye candy and functionality.
Everything says "new" because I through this together on my PC for screenshots for this guide.
When you first saw this post some of you knew what I meant by media center, some of though were thinking some kind of theater setup where the only difference between it and a normal living room was you used a projector. That is wrong, a media center is far more then simply a bigger screen or speaker system or dark room.
The media center I will show you to setup to day is a one stop shop for your anime, tv series, movies, pictures, music and if you really want retro gaming. It requires only four things...
- A Computer (desktop, laptop, android device, tv box/stick <-- data-blogger-escaped-choice="" data-blogger-escaped-li="" data-blogger-escaped-personal="">
- Internet (to download all the files you need)
- Media collection (on your computer hd, memory stick, disc)
- Time
Lets make something clear, im not going to show you how to simply download and install the software, im going to show you how to setup your media center for anime (requires some changes) and give you tips and tricks I have come across, as well as give you an idea of other things you can do (you can message me for details/further info). Ok, got your shit together? Lets do this.
-Step One Setup-
Some links you need...
- Latest Version Of KODI (this guide used 14.2)
- Superrepo
- Wallpapers/screenshots you might like
Install Kodi.
This should be very simple regardless of what device your doing it (unless your trying openelec, but thats another thing).
Install Superrepo.
This should not be a problem as the link gives you step by step with pictures as to what to do.
Once your done there lets move on to getting some of those fancy new addons.
-Step Two Skin-
This is the skin you will be getting in this step, later you can try other ones.
Go to the main menu (press back all the way).
Then follow me!
System
(submenu)Settings
Add-ons
Get Add-ons
All Add-ons
In here we can see a great many categories for different kinds of add-ons, from web interfaces, to skins. Speaking of which, lets grab a new skin.
Go into the category "Skin", near the top is one called "Convergence" lets grab that one for now (its the one shown in the screenshot).
Mind you, different skins change many things, including the location of menus, name of menus and can even change contents of menus and functionality of different things, its not just new colors and pictures. In the future you might want to play around trying different menus for different things.
-Step Three Add-ons-
I suggest using google to find new add-ons as the shear number of them is staggering.
Go to your main menu, looks alot different doesnt it. Go ahead, play with it a bit, but once your done head back to it and click "Add-ons", then "Get More", thennnnn the two dots at very top "..". We are now going to get a bunch of new addons.
Install these...
- Tv information / AniDB.net [MOD]
- Services / Watchdog
- Video add-ons / animehere
- Video add-ons / Icefilms
- Video add-ons / pick a few more if you want, click it it will show more info.
This is a scraper, but its modified, trust me its better then the default one.
Watchdog
You just install this, you dont have to do anything, when you add content (say a new episode), to one of your media sources (folder) this will auto update your library of anime/tvshows/movies to include that new episode.
animehere
This allows for online streaming through kodi from animehere, there are many others you can get as well, some may be even better.
Icefilms
This one is like the animehere one, but its for tv shows, and movies, and it does require a little setup to get the full experiance (just go to add-ons, click on this one, go to settings and download the metadata).
Now lets get to adding videos and such to your Kodi library!
-Step Four Media-
My anime, my beautiful beautiful anime. I also add my anime movies separately as their own source.
Go all the way back to the home menu again. Click "Videos", then click "Add Videos...".
- Browse
- Find the location of your files (the first couple, usually C: E: F:, etc., are your harddrives.)
- Once you find the correct folder, click "OK" on the right.
- Enter a name for the videos (anime for anime, tv shows for tv shows you get it).
- Click "OK"
- BREATH, I know it looks like alot but its not.
- Choose what kind of media it is by clicking the arrows under "This directory contains" (pick tv shows for anime)
- On the right side choose the "scraper", which is where you want KODI to get information about the media. (pick anidb for anime.
- Click "OK"!
With that you your Kodi will start downloading all the information, depending on the size of your collection this could take forever, so give it a while. You can continue on with the steps while it does that. If you notice issues, such as episodes not showing for an item, then see the last step, it will help fix such things.
-Step Five Menu-
Time to make some smart playlists. Not all skins support smart playlists.
In this step we will edit the main menu to your preferences, and add in a few menu items for our media (only if you add anime, or home video type stuff, normal stuff will work with standard movie/tvshow menus).
First we need to make those playlists...
- Click on "Videos" on main menu.
- Click on ".." at top.
- Click on "Playlists"
- "New smart playlist..." (had to break that trend)
This shows what settings I used for my anime playlist.
The options are pretty self explanatory, you can ignore "playlist options" if you want to, the important parts are "Type", "Name of the playlist", and "New rule...". "New rule..." is likely the only one a person needs help with, it tells Kodi how to determine what to put in the playlist (it fills the playlist itself, thus smart playlist).
As you can see in the picture above I choose the option "Path" (in the first box) and "Contains" (in the second box), you can change whats in the box with the arrows. Once your finished move on.
Alright next go all the way back to the main menu (yes again). From here go to "System", then "Appearance", "Skin", then "-Settings".
In the new menu that pops up go to "Home Menu Items", scroll down to "Menu Item - 7", it should be blank. When you click on it a side menu opens, click on "Playlist Menu", then "Videos - Playlist", here you should see the playlist you made earlier, click it. It will pop up asking for a Menu label. You could name your anime playlist "Anime" as I did, or even "SUPERDUPERSHIT" as I wanted to, its up to you.
You can do these steps for anything you want to put into a playlist, and if you look through the different rules, you will find all kinds of interesting things you can do (you can do more than one rule to).
To remove a menu item (im sure you noticed this though), click on the menu item of your choice (like "Menu Item - 7") and click the first option "clear menu option". Thats it.
-Step Six Tweaks/Fixes-
First and foremost we need to edit how Kodi looks at your episodes (for anime only) so that it can tell the difference between them, for a normal tv show its set as S01E01, but as you might know anime does not follow that. Go Here, its the page shown in the picture, its from the Kodi anime wiki page, where a the community has compiled a lot of useful information for anime users on Kodi. Just follow their instructions and you should fix most problems with Kodi not seeing episodes.
Showing Files On Disc In Kodi
So you can have part of your collection on dvds, and they, and their information/pictures, will still show up in Kodi.
What we are going to do will allow for media to be added to your Kodi that you dont actually have, then when you choose to play an episode of such an media it will instruct you to put in the dvd (you can edit the message). We will accomplish this via media stubs Wiki info here.
Alright lets get to it...
- Make a folder in the directory where you store your media, name it the same as the dvd.
(For example if its Trigun, name it trigun. However, if its Psych season 2, name it "Psych", but then make another folder inside that one called "season 2") - Create a new text document inside the folder.
- Name the text document "1" for episode 1, or name it "1,2,3,4" for episodes 1 through 4. Or if you have such info, the name of the episodes.
<discstub>
<title>.HackSign</title>
<message>Episodes are on disc in 3rd case.</message>
</discstub>
Of course you should edit the title ".hacksign" and the message "Episodes are on disc in 3rd case." to what you need. When done simply refresh your library (not sure if watchdog will notice this file), which means you just need to restart Kodi (theres other ways to do without restart but I want to tell you in the simplest way).
If you have any requests or comments regarding anime kodi setup let me know in the comments!
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