[Oddible]

I've tried to get XBMC set up a couple times now and it always ends up overkill and doesn't do the simple stuff well, like just showing a clean display of foldered video files by folder (show) and separate episodes and remember which ones I've watched. Can XBMC do this?

I literally only use XBMC for video files so I am looking for an interface that simplifies down to just this function and has a nice clean media manager interface ala Netflix for browsing shows and episodes. I currently have uTorrent downloading via RSS and Renamer copying to folders by episode and show so things are in the proper order. Any help or guidance getting a simply XBMC setup working would be greatly appreciated. If I'm using the wrong tool (xbmc) then please recommend a simple tool that might do the trick.

Thanks in advance!

[Ned Scott]

Videos -> files
For a plain and basic way to access videos by how you've saved them.

Otherwise, see adding videos to the library (wiki).

[Oddible]

You've mistakenly assumed my question was purely novice. I have my video files showing up in XBMC, but I get a list of every file in my file system, not ordered by show (folder) and not in a clean simple drill down structure like Netflix. I'm looking for a way to make my XBMC a very clean TV show browser. I want to click on TV Shows and see a list of Shows only. Then I want to click on a Show and see a list of episodes with the ones I've watched marked differently than the ones I haven't. Is there a way to do this? Ideally I don't even want to have to click on TV Shows, I want to open XBMC and just have it show my shows period, nothing else, since that's all I use it for.

[Ned Scott]

That's not normal. When I use just file view I get everything in folders, exactly as I arranged them, episodes in TV show folders, and certainly not every file on my server/computer. Nothing special needs to be done for this, either. When you go to Videos -> Files -> Add Videos, and then add a TV show folder, everything in that TV show folder should appear just as you put it. If you further scan those into the library (where you go to "TV Shows" from the main menu) then XBMC will pull cover art and summaries too, but they again should be sorted by individual TV show (as well as giving options for sorting by genre, year, and various other options).

Both file and library views will mark what is watched with a checkmark (or other symbol, depending on the skin you want to use). You can even toggle a switch to hide watched episodes or not. You can view everything either by list, icons, and other layouts. You can drill down by genre, year, actors, studios, or even make custom tags yourself (Bob's favorite shows, for example).

If XBMC wasn't able to do this then a lot of us here wouldn't be using it.

Can you post some screenshots of how it appears to you? I'm not sure why it would be showing everything all flat, along with random files, and not even in show folders.