Mods please move the following three posts to the XBMC Tips, Tricks, and HOW-TO (Step-by-Step Guides) forum.
Part 1
This guide covers installing and configuring XBMC, BeyondTV, EventGhost and a FireFly remote in Windows XP.
Introduction and Pre-Install
This guide will show you how to install and configure XBMC, BeyondTV and EventGhost then bring it all together using a FireFly remote. Note that this guide is written specifically for Windows XP, some of the steps may or may not work in Vista or Windows 7. Also this guide involves editing your registry and running third party software so it is “buyer beware”:
By following this guide you are responsible for any data loss or damage to the system. It is strongly suggested a backup of the system registry be done BEFORE starting the steps below so you can restore your system to its original state if there is a problem.
Steps to backup your registry:
Open the registry editor (Start > Run > Regedit )
Got to “file” then “export”
Save the file to a network location or thumb drive. Basically save it off this PC should it become unstable.
Also most of the techniques and edits below I can not take credit for, what I’ve done is taken a lot of information that was previously found loosely on the internet and tied it together into a single guide to follow. Again I can only report what worked for me; if you had to do something differently let us know how you solved it!
Note that I’ve included a bunch of links and downloads at the bottom of this guide. These are samples of my files for people to review and use as a guide when building their own HTPC setup.
Ok now that the intro and disclaimer are taken care of let’s get this HTPC setup!
XBMC
Download the latest XBMC, as of this writing it is 9.11 (Camelot), and install it on your system. Personally I’m using the MediaStream Redux skin but you are free to choose something you like. Note that we will be editing the skin xml files later so if you do pick a different skin you may have to modify the instructions slightly.
Generally speaking you are free to configure XBMC however you like, but there are a few settings you’ll want to enable before continuing. Go to “Configure the System” and select “System Settings”, then select “Input Devices”, ensure “Remote control sends keyboard presses” is on, also ensure the mouse is disabled.
Now we want to get XBMC to start when the OS boots. There are a couple of ways to do this; some involve getting Event Ghost to start the XBMC when it starts etc. Personally I prefer to let Windows do what it’s designed to, we’re going to add a startup item to the Run folder in the registry. Each of the applications specified in his registry folder are executed when windows starts.
Open regedit to bring up the Windows registry editor:
Start > Run > regedit
Once it’s open navigate the directory tree like so:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version > Run
On the right pane in an open space, right click and select
New > String Value
A new string value will appear on screen, rename it to XBMC. Once it’s renamed double click it to edit it.
Where it reads “Value Data” enter the following (including quotes).
“C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe” –fs
Note if you have XBMC installed in a different folder, change the folder path to match your XBMC installation. The “-fs” at the end indicates XBMC should be opened in full screen. Next time windows starts XBMC will automatically launch.
So we have XBMC installed, configured and starting with Windows. Next we want to configure the interface so there is a text link to launch BeyondTV from the main menu. Some folks use launcher scripts and other XBMC edits to get this to work, but you can achieve a much more seamless blend if you make a simple edit to the home.xml skin file. Remember I’m using the MediaStream Redux skin so these instructions may be a little different if you’re using a different skin.
Open the following file:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\MediaStream_Redux\720p\home.xml
Each of the main menu buttons has an entry in the xml file that looks like the following:
<item id="6">
<label>8</label>
<label2>31004</label2>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Weather)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/weather.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Weather_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoWeatherButton)</visible>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(ShowWeatherFanart) | IsEmpty(Skin.String(WeatherFanartDir))</visible>
</item>
So we want to create an additional button for the menu, luckily we only need a few lines of the example above. First you’ll need a unique id as above, this number must be unique so make sure the number you select isn’t already used by another button. Since the skin I was using topped out at 11 I went with 12:
<item id="12">
Next you’ll need a label, the skin files support multiple languages so the number between the label tags corresponds to a text node in another xml file, the home.xml then pulls in the text from that node for the button. I’m not concerned about multilingual support so we can add the copy to this node like so:
<label>WATCH TV</label>
Next we want to launch an external exe when clicked, namely we want to launch the BeyondTV viewscape, specifically the exe named “BTVD3DShell.exe”. By default the BTVD3DShell.exe is found in:
C:\Program Files\SnapStream Media\Beyond TV\ BTVD3DShell.exe
To execute this file we need to use the XBMC method “XBMC.System.Exec which calls a shell command to load the exe we specify, in this case the path above. However there is a problem loading a program path with spaces or folder names greater than 8 characters. If you try to run the path above via the shell command, XBMC produces an error that the exe can not be found even if it’s the proper path. So you have to revert back to an old DOS trick, if a folder has more than 8 characters or has a space in the name you truncate the name using “~1”. So your new line in the skin should look like:
<onclick>XBMC.System.Exec(C:\Progra~1\SnapSt~1\Beyond~1\BTVD3DShell.exe)</onclick>
Finally we want to add a new background to the TV. I wanted to use a background from the Confluence skin, so I navigated to the following folder and find this image:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\Confluence\backgrounds\videos.jpg
Make a copy of that image and rename it tv.jpg, then move tv.jpg into the following folder:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\MediaStream_Redux\backgrounds\
Now add the following line to your xml file:
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/tv.jpg</icon>
You new menu button code is complete and it should look like the following:
<item id="12">
<label>WATCH TV</label>
<onclick>XBMC.System.Exec(C:\Progra~1\SnapSt~1\Beyond~1\BTVD3DShell.exe)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/tv.jpg</icon>
</item>
Add your button code into the xml file between the closing </item> tag and before the <item id=”6”> tag.
Next let’s look at installing and configuring BeyondTV.
Part 1
This guide covers installing and configuring XBMC, BeyondTV, EventGhost and a FireFly remote in Windows XP.
Introduction and Pre-Install
This guide will show you how to install and configure XBMC, BeyondTV and EventGhost then bring it all together using a FireFly remote. Note that this guide is written specifically for Windows XP, some of the steps may or may not work in Vista or Windows 7. Also this guide involves editing your registry and running third party software so it is “buyer beware”:
By following this guide you are responsible for any data loss or damage to the system. It is strongly suggested a backup of the system registry be done BEFORE starting the steps below so you can restore your system to its original state if there is a problem.
Steps to backup your registry:
Open the registry editor (Start > Run > Regedit )
Got to “file” then “export”
Save the file to a network location or thumb drive. Basically save it off this PC should it become unstable.
Also most of the techniques and edits below I can not take credit for, what I’ve done is taken a lot of information that was previously found loosely on the internet and tied it together into a single guide to follow. Again I can only report what worked for me; if you had to do something differently let us know how you solved it!
Note that I’ve included a bunch of links and downloads at the bottom of this guide. These are samples of my files for people to review and use as a guide when building their own HTPC setup.
Ok now that the intro and disclaimer are taken care of let’s get this HTPC setup!
XBMC
Download the latest XBMC, as of this writing it is 9.11 (Camelot), and install it on your system. Personally I’m using the MediaStream Redux skin but you are free to choose something you like. Note that we will be editing the skin xml files later so if you do pick a different skin you may have to modify the instructions slightly.
Generally speaking you are free to configure XBMC however you like, but there are a few settings you’ll want to enable before continuing. Go to “Configure the System” and select “System Settings”, then select “Input Devices”, ensure “Remote control sends keyboard presses” is on, also ensure the mouse is disabled.
Now we want to get XBMC to start when the OS boots. There are a couple of ways to do this; some involve getting Event Ghost to start the XBMC when it starts etc. Personally I prefer to let Windows do what it’s designed to, we’re going to add a startup item to the Run folder in the registry. Each of the applications specified in his registry folder are executed when windows starts.
Open regedit to bring up the Windows registry editor:
Start > Run > regedit
Once it’s open navigate the directory tree like so:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version > Run
On the right pane in an open space, right click and select
New > String Value
A new string value will appear on screen, rename it to XBMC. Once it’s renamed double click it to edit it.
Where it reads “Value Data” enter the following (including quotes).
“C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe” –fs
Note if you have XBMC installed in a different folder, change the folder path to match your XBMC installation. The “-fs” at the end indicates XBMC should be opened in full screen. Next time windows starts XBMC will automatically launch.
So we have XBMC installed, configured and starting with Windows. Next we want to configure the interface so there is a text link to launch BeyondTV from the main menu. Some folks use launcher scripts and other XBMC edits to get this to work, but you can achieve a much more seamless blend if you make a simple edit to the home.xml skin file. Remember I’m using the MediaStream Redux skin so these instructions may be a little different if you’re using a different skin.
Open the following file:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\MediaStream_Redux\720p\home.xml
Each of the main menu buttons has an entry in the xml file that looks like the following:
<item id="6">
<label>8</label>
<label2>31004</label2>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Weather)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/weather.jpg</icon>
<thumb>$INFO[Skin.String(Home_Custom_Back_Weather_Folder)]</thumb>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(HomeMenuNoWeatherButton)</visible>
<visible>!Skin.HasSetting(ShowWeatherFanart) | IsEmpty(Skin.String(WeatherFanartDir))</visible>
</item>
So we want to create an additional button for the menu, luckily we only need a few lines of the example above. First you’ll need a unique id as above, this number must be unique so make sure the number you select isn’t already used by another button. Since the skin I was using topped out at 11 I went with 12:
<item id="12">
Next you’ll need a label, the skin files support multiple languages so the number between the label tags corresponds to a text node in another xml file, the home.xml then pulls in the text from that node for the button. I’m not concerned about multilingual support so we can add the copy to this node like so:
<label>WATCH TV</label>
Next we want to launch an external exe when clicked, namely we want to launch the BeyondTV viewscape, specifically the exe named “BTVD3DShell.exe”. By default the BTVD3DShell.exe is found in:
C:\Program Files\SnapStream Media\Beyond TV\ BTVD3DShell.exe
To execute this file we need to use the XBMC method “XBMC.System.Exec which calls a shell command to load the exe we specify, in this case the path above. However there is a problem loading a program path with spaces or folder names greater than 8 characters. If you try to run the path above via the shell command, XBMC produces an error that the exe can not be found even if it’s the proper path. So you have to revert back to an old DOS trick, if a folder has more than 8 characters or has a space in the name you truncate the name using “~1”. So your new line in the skin should look like:
<onclick>XBMC.System.Exec(C:\Progra~1\SnapSt~1\Beyond~1\BTVD3DShell.exe)</onclick>
Finally we want to add a new background to the TV. I wanted to use a background from the Confluence skin, so I navigated to the following folder and find this image:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\Confluence\backgrounds\videos.jpg
Make a copy of that image and rename it tv.jpg, then move tv.jpg into the following folder:
C:\Program Files\XBMC\skin\MediaStream_Redux\backgrounds\
Now add the following line to your xml file:
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/tv.jpg</icon>
You new menu button code is complete and it should look like the following:
<item id="12">
<label>WATCH TV</label>
<onclick>XBMC.System.Exec(C:\Progra~1\SnapSt~1\Beyond~1\BTVD3DShell.exe)</onclick>
<icon>special://skin/backgrounds/tv.jpg</icon>
</item>
Add your button code into the xml file between the closing </item> tag and before the <item id=”6”> tag.
Next let’s look at installing and configuring BeyondTV.
