I'm burning divx movies to dvd for my elderly parents (who are
extemely techno-phobic). Divx is great because I can fit several movies on 1 dvd, to reduce the disc change problem (yes, problem...get the phobia part yet?) and give them many hours of viewing with a single disc.
Ok, so instead of buying a couple of divx enabled dvd stb's, I'd rather get them a couple of black xboxes, and run XBMC... I think the upgradability alone will be worth it...
What I'd like to do is get XBMC to startup on power up.
Automatically start in the Video mode, looking/viewing the files on the disc in the dvd drive.
Display the list of files on the disc and autoplay any .avi or .divx files from the disc when inserted. (or autoplay ANY supported video format on the disc really, whatever the format or extention)
Ideally, if XBMC could autoselect ALL the video files (.avi/.divx/etc) from the root of the dvd/cd disc, and just start playing them all like a playlist and do that every time the box is powered on or a new disc is put in. AWESOME!!! ?
Is this possible? (I hope I'm explaining it right... I know it sounds stupid, but I've been trying to get them to the point of navigating to video's, opening the drive, choosing the movie file, etc... I don't want to get the "tech support" calls every few hours... Automatic would just make MY life easier)
I know most of this is possible, but my situation is a bit more specific? and I'm hoping I just don't "know" XBMC like you guys do
THANKS IN ADVANCE!
well first and foremost if you set xbmc as the default dashboard it will load up automatically. Just FTP the latest build to E\dashboard and overwrite everything. then you can go to settings and somewhere in there is the option to open up on a specific window, which you can change to the my videos section. Add the dvd drive to the source, that way all they'd have to do is put the disk in and click "a" on the icon. That SHOULD bring up the file structure of the dvd, so if you burned them all as a data dvd (ie not with nero so they could play on a regular dvd player) then you should see them as a playlist that you can view. Personally I'd invest about 70 bucks and get a 250 gig hd (make sure it's IDE) and install. Contrary to popular belief it IS possible to install a larger hd without a modchip. Took me about 4 hours total but it's totally worth it. That way you can just ftp all the videos directly to the xbox.
OKAY that was long, so I hope that answered your question. Let me know how it works out, i'm thinking of doing the same thing :cool2:
Oh yeah, double post here, my bad... If you burn the dvds just like a data dvd you can put upwards of 14 movies on one dvd, just fyi.
Quote:What I'd like to do is get XBMC to startup on power up.
Run XBMC as a dashboard.
Quote:Automatically start in the Video mode, looking/viewing the files on the disc in the dvd drive.
I know you can select XBMC is start up in Video view. They would then have to select the dvd player. You could just delete everything else from video view so the only choice would be the dvd player. Other might have better suggestions which may involve editing something...
Display the list of files on the disc and autoplay any .avi or .divx files from the disc when inserted. (or autoplay ANY supported video format on the disc really, whatever the format or extention)
Quote:Ideally, if XBMC could autoselect ALL the video files (.avi/.divx/etc) from the root of the dvd/cd disc, and just start playing them all like a playlist and do that every time the box is powered on or a new disc is put in. AWESOME!!!
I know XBMC has options for autoplay but I havent used them as I dont use my xbox dvd player much. I dont think it will do exactaly what you want though.
Why would you want them to play in order? If you have multiple movies on a disc, wouldnt it be better for them to select what they want? If not, everytime they put in the disc they would be forced to watch movie 1 untill they get to movie 2.
Quote:I hope I'm explaining it right... I know it sounds stupid, but I've been trying to get them to the point of navigating to video's, opening the drive, choosing the movie file, etc... I don't want to get the "tech support" calls every few hours... Automatic would just make MY life easier.
I know what your saying. I also have a mom
Tried to set her up with a Philips DVP 642 that reads divx/xvid...she just couldnt get it so she just uses it to watch DVDs. She still thinks she has to rewind her DVD when its over
I have done this for my folks aswell and they cannot even tune in a tv station.
Once xbmc is setup up your dash just get the dvd remote and they'll be ok. My parents have been using xbmc now for 15+ months and can happily navigate the menus...
Thanks for the quick replies everyone.
XBMC as Dashboard I knew about, though I've never done it personally, I knew that was easy.
I know you can set XBMC to open to My Video's, but I never could figure out how to set it to open the DVD drive contents first....? It always want to open the VIDEOS on the HD first. So I need help on this part.
Autoplay feature of XBMC works for DVD (video_ts folder) stuff, but obviously I'd like it to start raw files from the root of a data disc... You bring up a good point though about waiting thru movie 1 to get to movie 2...? I'm thinking it might just be easier that way? Or maybe if after 1 minute elapsed, XBMC would autoplay the entire list!?
That would be cool.. that way it would give them the chance to select movie 3 or whatever, and if not, it would autoplay the entire disc... like autopilot
(I know, I'm stretching here... but we're spit balling idea's)
Sounds like I'm not the only one who wants a "parents friendly" version of XBMC.. or at least a parents options, or script or something.
Ironic, no? That companies spend *literally* millions of dollars (if not billions) making their products "child proof" and "kid friendly" when more and more in our society what we need is "Senior proof" and "Elderly friendly"?
Anyways, I think that you are stretching it a bit to do the "wait about a minute" but it does seem easy enough to me to just put the movie files on the dvd, put it in the drive, and then just click on the name of the movie they want. Otherwise they won't have a choice of which file to watch. I suggest you just get the remote and set xbmc to open on "my videos" with the only button their being "dvd" that way they power on the xbox, put the disk in and click the dvd button and voi'la; video playlist :-D
Also, may i suggest for the theme you use vision with project gotham III. That way there is no confusing sidebar always available. Less options = less chance of screwing something up = less tech support calls :-D
Yeah, I knew I was stretching it a bit with the wait 1 minute idea, however the Xbox is a computer - so in theory - it should be do-able, but I doubt XBMC is setup to implement such scripts.
(though it was be cool)
I guess there is no way to make XBMC open My Video's to the DVD contents list as default? No where in the .ini or anything?
Oh, I'm no expert, all I know is from tinkering around with it.
if someone can tell you how, then I certainly won't argue
I just know know how to do it myself
Im sure it could be done, though I dont know how easy or how to. Replacing the video at start up with DVDplayer at start up or something...
Still its just 1 icon they would have to click and you can remove all the others so they dont have a choice. If your going to get them the DVD remote I would edit the remote script to remove things you wouldnt want them to select.
If you really want to go crazy you can edit whatever skin you plan to use for them (PM III looks good with the new (bigger) fonts) and take out everything you dont want them to use (setting and such). Then you can boot xbmc with that skin for them. Perhaps someone has already done this for their parents or kids and they could help you out more? Maybe even requesting a kid proof/parent proof skin in the skins forum may help.
I forgot to add...
I know you can set sources as the defauly source so it will go stright to that source when entering video/music/prog. Not sure if this could be done with the DVD (not near my xbox) but you can give it a try
Oh. I see that XBMC does have a setting for auto-playing Video that is seperate from DVD-Video, perhaps that would auto play a divx/xvid etc from the DVD drive. (Still not near my box so I cant check it).
Of course you still wouldnt have a pause or a selection for another divx on the same disk. I would just make your partents videos on a CD and put only one video on each one so they wouldnt be confused. CDs are cheap enough