Favourite XBMC skin?

Supercell

The default "Project Mayhem III" skin is a little dull imho.

Wondering what skins boardsies like?

The wide icons are really cool too, though i think that should be supported in most skins now? (yes its all new to me and am like a kid in a sweet shop right now).

kaisersose77

get the xbox 360 skin

Supercell

MC360 ? Incoming

ongarite

I liked MC360 alot but I've gone back to PM3 as it has the best feature set.
PM3 has TV scraper support with plot outline, TV ep screenshots, film and cast photos support and coverflow support for music albums and video scraper support for music videos.

A really nice skin is xTV, an apple iTV clone. You would be best to download Tortoise SVN to sync and download these skins.

ongarite

Some of the advanced features with PM3 skin:

Supercell

Nice screen caps there ongarite.

I've been downloading some of those icons myself, they really do add to the whole appearance. My dialup connection makes the process is extremely painful (broadband coming in next couple of weeks thankfully).

One thing I haven't got my head around is the "library" mode whenever I select this it tells me nothing has been scanned abut i haven't been able to figure just what that means.

On the MC360 skin I see you can watch Youtube and other streams as well as directly see new skins and download them to the box - which will be pretty cool once I have a connection capable of doing that stuff.

The file naming conventions for the "scraping" are interesting, certainly opened my eyes as to why certain downloads are named as they are - a LOT of people must use their Xbox's like this.

Playlists are another thing thats a bit weird - especially since everything I play is on a network share but have been reading up on it and will get to grips with that properly shortly.

Can show icons be fetched automatically from the console or are the sites to download them?, i'd very much like to get icons for my rather large music collection.

Thanks for your help so far, its much appreciated!

ongarite

OK the library is the guts of the whole XBMC package and works like this:

You make a shortcut to your stuff (TV Shows, Films) and then press WHITE I think and "SET CONTENT" to TV SHOWS (TVDB scraper). I have a folder on my PC and in that folder are subfolders with my indivisual TV series.
So I set content to TV SHOW on the parent folder and then I scrape (set conent) the series inside that. I will download the wide icon banners automatically and pull plot lines and ep screenshots also.

Supercell

Aha!, that sounds cool, I had downloaded a few series "wide icons" and just renamed them to folder.jpg which gave the cool images, didnt know if was possible to automagically do them - think I'll need the broadband connection for that to work (I currently download at approx 3k which is pure torture...).

I've so much crap scattered over my pcs, I guess this will be motivation to organise it all, it all looks so much better on my nice widescreen 32" telly than on crappy 17" pc monitor!

ongarite

Things work better if they are organised well on your PC. I also spent a week tagging all my mp3s and also downloading all the correct albums covers. Its was torture at the time but if you do everytime you add album it only takes a min or 2.

xbmc.dublin

I would have to go for the XTV myself but I wish slideshow would work the same as the apple TV version too.

BTW!

I'm selling one of these xbox with XBMC installed and with about 500 old arcade games on it.

Willing to sell it for 100euro and 10euro more if you need a remote control.

let me know if you are interested, I'm in dublin 3 area.

my email is xbmc.dublin@gmail.com

craze7

i love xbmc, have 4 of them connected in me house.
anyway i was an xtv user for the last year or so but i made the switch to Vision a while ago and never looked back.

So i'd have to say the Vison skin with the Blaze theme is prolly the most polished skin out there, also get the vision animation mod its awsome!!

Get ur skins and themes here: http://blackmarket.ictcsc.net/

The vison animation mod is on xboxscene but im too lazy to go get the link.

Supercell

craze7 wrote: »

i love xbmc, have 4 of them connected in me house.
anyway i was an xtv user for the last year or so but i made the switch to Vision a while ago and never looked back.

So i'd have to say the Vison skin with the Blaze theme is prolly the most polished skin out there, also get the vision animation mod its awsome!!

Get ur skins and themes here: http://blackmarket.ictcsc.net/

The vison animation mod is on xboxscene but im too lazy to go get the link.

Thanks for the link craze7.
Unfortunately that site is unusable on dialup , any chance you have a direct link to the vision skin you like?

Supercell

NVM found the blaze theme,screenshots look nice , so incoming..slowly!

ongarite

Alright I compiled the lastest build of Vision skin from SVN.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nk2q15

Supercell

Big thanks ongarite, the link I was downloading kept dying after about 5 mins so couldnt get the skin down.

Really appreciate you putting it up on sendspace.

Supercell

I like that Vision, a lot, it is pure eye candy, going to play about with that for a while, its gorgeous!

craze7

longfield if your using the vision skin u should apply this mod its awsome!

Download Vision_mod_v1.3.zip
http://www.4shared.com/file/31236221/10b48c5f/Vision_mod_v13.html

Spunge

I have PM3 like above but doesnt have the search feature or album art like that in music library. Is this dependant on the skin or the version of XBMC ?

ongarite

The last official release of XBMC release is over 14 months old and is very outdated compared to the latest weeekly versions.
You can find weekly builds with all the latest features and plugins like apple movie trailer plugin at http://t3ch.yi.se./

Its just as stable as the official release and is supported by the developers, if you find bugs, you can report them...

Spunge

Oh, sweet, got it running now. Thanks.
One Question.
I was able to scan the files in Music so they showed in library but i dont see a scan in Videos.

craze7

u have to set the content for the video folder and pick imdb look ups for movies, do the same with ur tv show folder look ups on tvdb.

Spunge

Oh, right, should have read the whole thread. Nice one.

mfield

Sorry to hijack the thread lads but I would be well interested in getting my XBMC fully pimped up! Do ye all have your Xbox's connected to the net and if so what way did you do it?

ongarite

Connecting your XBMC to the internet is a requirement if you want to use all of its advanced features.
I have mine connected to my wireless router using CAT5 network cable using DHCP to auto-assign a network address.
You can also connect XBMC using wireless bridge but I have found this to be a bit iffy at times.
If you are going to be streaming video, audio to XBMC; a network cable would be the best option.

How far is your TV, XBMC from your router?

mfield

ongarite wrote: »

How far is your TV, XBMC from your router?

Many thanks for that info.

Oh stop, it's absolutely miles from the router! I may give it a lash for the craic though, I'll work something out, I have a roll of CAT5 at home.

Is there a guide on the XBMC site to tell you how to set it up?

ongarite

If you go to the "Settings" tab and then "Network" and change network type to automatic (DHCP), XBMC will pick up an IP address when you connect it up with CAT5 cable.

mfield

ongarite wrote: »

If you go to the "Settings" tab and then "Network" and change network type to automatic (DHCP), XBMC will pick up an IP address when you connect it up with CAT5 cable.

Sweet! I'll give it a shot later!

Supercell

mfield wrote: »

Is there a guide on the XBMC site to tell you how to set it up?

This the online manual for XBMC, everything you need to know is there pretty much.

Believe me once you get it up and running you wont know how you ever did without it.

I've now got two Xbox's just for XBMC, one upstairs and one downstairs!

How do you change the skins? How do you get screencaps of your xbox? I have a softmodded XBOX and Eircom wireless. What do I need to be able stream stuff from my laptop to my XBOX?

ongarite

Deleted User wrote: »

How do you change the skins? How do you get screencaps of your xbox? I have a softmodded XBOX and Eircom wireless. What do I need to be able stream stuff from my laptop to my XBOX?

You need to download them, FTP them to XBOX and place in E:\APPS\XBMC\skin.

Press down the L-Trigger to take screenshot.

You need crossover network cable for direct laptop to XBOX connection.

ongarite

ongarite wrote: »

You need to download them, FTP them to XBOX and place in E:\APPS\XBMC\skin.

Press down the L-Trigger to take screenshot.

You need crossover network cable for direct laptop to XBOX connection.

Where can I download the skins? Xbins? Is a crossover cable the only means to add my xbox to my network and stream? Thanks