Admin 347 Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 Media Browser Classic Setup and Configuration Installation EHS Viewing your Collection The Configuration Screens in MBC The Configurator This guide assumes you have already setup Media Browser 3 Server as detailed in the Server Setup and Configuration Guide. Note: While MBC has a lot of similarities to MB 2.x it is different enough in its configuration that it is not practical to attempt to migrate any of your old MB2 configuration. If you haven't already downloaded the MB Classic Installer, you can download it here. Once you've downloaded it, double-click to begin the installation process. When the installer starts, it will check for and download the latest version. The first time you install MBC, you will see the "Migrating Library" message. It can take a few minutes for this process to complete. Once installation is complete, it will launch Windows Media Center right into Media Browser Classic. The first thing you will see is the log-in screen. Click on your user tile. You can configure MBC to automatically log in your preferred profile, which we will cover later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin 347 Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 (edited) Below is the EHS (Enhanced Home Screen) of the Default theme that comes with MBC. Your Collections, as set up in the Server, are displayed across the bottom. Above that are your recently added items for the selected Collection. You can change this display using the icons at the top. Display last added items Display last items watched Display latest unwatched items At the bottom of the screen, you'll see which opens the configuration, which we will cover later. First, let's look at the various screens in MB Classic. Edited October 4, 2013 by CWNashvegas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin 347 Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 (edited) Viewing your Media Collection From the EHS, selecting a Collection containing TV Series will take you a a screen like this one. At the top of many views, you will see the following items. View - select this to change how the items on this screen are displayed. (Sort) Name - Indicates that the items are currently sorted by Name. Select this to change sorting. (Grouping) None - Indicates that no groupings are currently applied. Select to group items by Genre, Year and more. Search - Opens the Search Panel. An icon on the poster indicates the number of unwatched items in the series. Select a TV Series to view its Seasons. On the Season screen, You can see which seasons you've completely watched, or how many unwatched episodes are in each. By selecting (with remote or keyboard) or hovering (mouse) an item, you can press "*" (asterisk / shift+8) on your keyboard or remote to open the Item Menu: With this menu, you can play all items (if you've selected a season or other multi-item folder) with or without shuffling, mark the item as played, or add to your favorites. The Item Menu is available in many MB Classic views, with varying options depending on the selected item. Let's close the Item Menu and return to the Seasons screen. Select a season to view its episodes list. The Episode screen, shown here in "Detail" view (accessed with the "View" button) displays a scrolling list of episodes, and a description and thumbnail for each. Also shown are runtime and year of broadcast. Select an episode to view more details. On this screen, you can play the item, or navigate to the next (>) or previous () item. The General tab displays the episode description, rating, and many other details. The section on the bottom right contains information about the video file itself - file type, codecs used, and so on. Select the Actors tab to view cast members: Selecting an actor shown here will take you to a screen showing any other library items that they are in, as seen below. If you go back to the EHS and select a Collection containing movies, you will see a screen like this one: The Movie detail screen is very similar to the Episode detail screen we looked at above. Edited October 4, 2013 by CWNashvegas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin 347 Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 (edited) The Configuration Screens Let's go back to the EHS and click on the to open the Configuration menu. The screens we are exploring are the first three listed. Nearly all of the items on them have information explaining their purpose that will show when you select (remote / keyboard) or hover over (mouse) the item, so we will only cover those that need a bit more detail. The first is the System screen. General Logging - enables MBC to generate logs, which are useful for troubleshooting Screen Saver - enables the default Media Browser screensaver Updates Enables MB Classic to automatically check for updates, and allows you to set the update level for both MB Classic and Plugins. Release - downloads updates only at the release level Beta - downloads updates that are being Beta tested Dev - not recommended for most users. Dev releases are generally only for testing purposes, and may break MB Classic. Next is the View Options screen. Here you will find a variety of items that you can enable or disable to customize your browsing experience, including the option to show (or not) missing and unaired TV episodes / seasons provided by the MB Server. Last is the Theme Options screen. On this screen, you can change to another theme that you've installed, and fine-tune several display options. Next, we're going to explain the Media Browser Classic Configurator. Edited June 21, 2014 by CWNashvegas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin 347 Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 (edited) While most options and settings can be controlled from within MBC, some can only be accessed with the Media Browser Classic Configurator. You can start the Configurator from the Windows Start menu. The first thing you will see is the splash screen: The Configurator's first tab is the System tab: Here you can manually set your server information, and choose to automatically login with a specific user profile. You an control updates and logging from here, as described in the previous post. Next is the Plugins tab: This is where you will see all of the MBC plugins and themes you have installed. Since we don't have any yet, click on "More Plug-ins" to open the Plug-ins browser. Here you can see which plug-ins and themes are available. You can filter it to only show those that are free.To install a plug-in or theme, select it from the list and click the "Install" button. Here, I am installing the Subdued theme. When you are finished, click "Done" to return to the Configurator. The plug-ins or themes you installed now show in the list. If there are any configuration options to be accessed from here, the button on the bottom right will be clickable. In this case, Subdued doesn't have any options here - it is configured from within MB Classic. Now let's go to the "extenders + iso" tab: Here, you can select settings for using a Media Center Extender, such as an Xbox 360, and add the path of your ISO mounter, such as Virtual Clone Drive, for playback of ISO files. This is a per-machine setting. Next is the "external players" tab. On this tab you can add and configure external players to be used instead of the WMC internal video player. When you add an external player such as MPC-HC, a link will appear on the screen that you can click to have MBC automatically configure it with the proper settings. Finally, let's look at the "help" tab. On this tab, you will find links to helpful information. Edited October 4, 2013 by CWNashvegas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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