WIP The Dumbass Guide to PseudoTV Live!
#1
Rainbow 
Hi, I'm a long time user of XBMC and of PseudoTV Live. I'm creating this guide to try and help out others use this great addon for Kodi if this makes you think of the blind leading the blind, don't worry that's pretty much 100% accurate! I honestly don't know how everything works or what everything does, but that's okay because as a Dumbass I'm used to people telling me I'm wrong often and in detail! As soon as I make a mistake people will be climbing out of the walls to let me know just how badly I screwed it up! So don't feel you need to hold back, let me have it! Then I'll fix it! Rofl

The Dumbass Guide to PseudoTV Live! v.000001f

by: Mister Dumbass.

Part One: Get your sheet together.

Step One: Get Kodi
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It doesn't matter which version you need, you need Kodi to use PseudoTVLive! (PTVL). If this has already blown your mind you're in the wrong place. I can't help you. This is kindergarten. You need to download Kodi and install it for your platform dawg!

Step Two: You're going to have to collect the Lunatixz repository for PseudoTV Live! and the required dependencies.
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Go ahead and get the Lunatixz repository and save it to a safe location. Then get the rest of the linked files. These should all be zip files you can save in a directory on your disk. Make it easy to get to because you're going to want to be able to get in there over and over again. Sheet, look at all the linked files you need! At minimum seven files! You're going to want this accessible! Maybe save it at the root of your home folder or at the root of C:\ if you're one of those Windows fanbois. Make it easy on yourself!

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You''re going to run into broken links eventually. Don't worry about it, listen to my dumbass explain to you how you can work around the situation! First off, don't panic! You have your towel right? Oh wait...wrong guide!

Aight, highlight that link:
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Yeah, you like that, don't you? Now right click the link you highlighted and google the name, like this:

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Whoa! first result is the bromix repo! Awesome prank, brah! Am I moving too fast for you? Here, try this. How's that? Don't ever say I never did nothing for you buddy!

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See where it says "Download ZIP" in the lower right corner? Guess what my dumbass wants you to do next? Can you feel the anticipation? Awwwww yessssshhhhh! Download that puppy!

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Oh and nicely enough, the bromix repo is a two for one shot, when we get to installing the video plugins later, you'll see that the bromix repo includes both the needed Youtube Plugin and the Vimeo plugin! Noice, huh?

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Now do it again, for every missing dependency that PseudoTV Live requires to function.

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See, there's the other one. Hmmm... looks like another github link. What are you waiting for? Dooooo iiiiitttttt!

When you get all your stuff together in one folder it should probably look like this:

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Congratulations! You got your sheet together! you put it in the backpack! You're ready for Part Two! See ya in the next post! I like exclamation marks! They make me feel pretty! Nod
#2
Part Two: Installing PseudoTV Live! and dependencies

You should go ahead and install Kodi on whatever you're planning to use it on. If you're using some sort of weird waffle iron to watch your movies you're probably going to have to get help installing it elsewhere. If you're planning to install it on a dead badger, my hat's off to you but I'd really love to know how you plan on viewing... ahem!

Go ahead and start your Kodi up. It should come up in the default Confluence skin unless you changed it already. You're going to head to the right, to the System button.

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Go ahead and enter the System, which will take you the a list of items to configure. For now you just want to head to the Addons section.

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On the next screen you'll see a variety of ways you can get your addons installed. Most of the time you're just going to use the default Kodi repository, which is the safest and most secure method of obtaining plugins not known to infringe on copyright. This time though we need to add a few things.

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We want to install those zip files we got in part one. You remember the zip files we put together? All in one place? Hmmm...? You saved them somewhere easy to get to I hope, because we're going to be installing a lot of stuff!

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See these? Install those puppies! Oh and personally I always install the actual addons first and the repositories last with the Lunatixz repository being the last of those. You can do what you want, that's just how I roll dawg! Once you get done installing all the zip files, head over to the button that says Install from Repository.

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Awww yessssshhhhh! Look at that dawg! Look at those beautiful repositories installed!

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Now what we need to do is head into the link for AddonScriptorDE's repository first and make our way down to the videos section...

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And make our way down to the Vevo TV video addon. Go ahead and install it. You can grab some of the other video addons that look good to you later, right now we're just focused on getting the basic PseudoTV Live! stuff up and working, okay? Gah! You would install the Onion, wouldn't you? Yeah, the nation's most accurate and useful news source I get it. I get it. But can we get on with it now?

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Now go to the bromix repository, head to the video addons and get your Vimeo and YouTube addons installed. Remember the two for one from part one? That's right we just went meta! It's how I roll dawg!

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Oh yeah, don't forget to install PseudoTV Live itself, that was kind of the whole point after all... You will find that in the program addons section. Oh and have some patience while the PseudoTV Live install takes place. There were a bunch more dependencies needed for the program to work, thankfully though those can be installed automatically. Noice, huh?

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There! That's Part Two of this guide all wrapped up. Huh. Feels like I'm forgetting something somehow. Oh well, I'm sure it's not important or we'll see it in Part Three! Devil
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Part Three: The basic freebies

Okay, you did all that. Awesome! Now what we need to do is go ahead and try to open the program. The first time you hit the button, you'll get a change log. As you use the PTVL more and more you'll want to keep a close eye on the change log to see what's been changed. Yeah, I know. Who knew what that meant? Rolleyes

Go ahead and hit escape on the keyboard or the arrow button on your remote to get out of there. Now hit the program's button again. PseudoTV Live! will ask you if you want to autotune some channels. It should look like this:

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You''re going to want to hit the no button and close Kodi and reopen it. Trust me. No, seriously. Close that thing man! Then come right back and try opening the PTVL program again....

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Whoa! Mega bummer dude. Maybe we should have copied some media into Kodi after all?

What's that? You in the back? Yeah, the guy with the asshat. No the other guy with an asshat--yes you! You say 'you don't care about copying your local media into Kodi you just want the free channels from the internet...'

Okay, but that's going to take some work. Are you ready for it?

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Hoary sheet! WTFBBQ! What are all these options! I'm not good computer, how did I get here? Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like? You've got to be kidding me. I've been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that?

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LOL, just kidding. Head to the right until you see the Autotune button on the top.

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Once you've highlighted the Autotune header at the top, bring the arrow down to click the button underneath it, selecting Enable Autotuning and go ahead and delete the channel configuration you don't actually have at the moment. That will allow you to see what you can select for autotuning of live streams from the internet.

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Oh dayummmm... My bad, my dumbass totally forgot that we didn't install the USTVNow video addon! That's what we forgot to do in part two!

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Okay, head back to Lunatixz's repository and install the video addon. That should make the option available to the configuration tool....

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Bogus! Why can't this sheet be easy? I just want a cool program for totes no money man! Why do I have to do all this configuration bullcrap? :Confusedigh::

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Okay, create an email address (because you're going to need it again, so don't forget it make something nice you can reuse) and head over to ustvnow.com, go to the sign up section and make sure you are on the free option. Fill out the form, use the email address you created and head to the inbox to authorize the free account.

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Now go ahead and fill everything out in the USTVNow video addon configuration so you can use it in PseudoTV Live! for your basic seven channel package. All your usual over the air channels will be represented here--so CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, The CW and Fox. Oh and something called 'My Nine' which I don't think I've seen before I started using USTVNow.

Continued in the next post because there are too many images in this monkey-fighting post for this monday-to-friday part! Big Grin
#4
Continued from previous post....

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There! Now we can enable USTVNow in PTVL. That makes it all worth it, right? Right? Now we can watch our basic network channels.

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Huh? Why don't I have any of the youtube streams available? Why can't I enable any of the RSS feeds? Mommmmmmm!

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Oh. Someone forgot to enable the community List. What kind of dumbass would forget a thing like...oh. Well ex-squeeeeeze meeeeeee.

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Remember how I told you to be ready to reuse that email address from the USTVNow site? This is why. You need to have an email address to be able to get the community lists enabled in the program. You don't need to be a donor, just have an email address. That may change down the road. Dunno. For now though an email address is enough, so go ahead and fill out the information requested. Once you do, bring the arrow to the bottom and hit OK, to save the email address in settings then exit Kodi and restart it and come back to the PTVL configuration page and the Autotune options.

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Now you should have the ability to add Youtube based channels to your PseudoTV Live! configuration, do so and hit OK again to save the settings and exit the configuration pages. Now start the PseudoTV Live! prgram again. Your channels will begin to build and you will have a bunch of free channels.

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Just by doing this I was able to get 137 channels! Awesome! Your mileage may vary.

The biggest difference between a free user and a donor is that a free user does not get guide data or some of the exclusive channels and bumpers or other exclusive content Lunatixz is working on, so their EPG looks like this:

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This is only for the USTVNow channels. The EPG is able to get the info just fine for free users using the YouTube and RSS feed channels. See:

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Personally I think it's worth donating to Lunatixz if for no other reason than to say thank you for working so hard to bring us this program and for extending the functionality as much as he has. As someone who remebers both PseudoTV and TV Time I appreciate the scope of what Lunatixz is doing here and continue to be impressed with his dedication to providing us with such a wonderful program that extends Kodi into something amazing.

Now if you've followed this guide you should have plenty of channels to play with! Have fun! Hopefully this has helped you to use PTVL if you were unable to before. If you get a Youtube configuration popup, just follow the directions or wait until part four gets posted.

Disclaimer: All errors were clearly intentional. Not responsible for unwanted pregnancies. Do not pour hydrochloric acid on your genitals. Avoid Dihydrogen Monoxide near computing devices. Badgers unneeded. Sailor Pluto sleeps naked, pictures available by request. Thread may contain images. Images do not contain nuts. Nuts taste good with beer. Mmmmm....beer.....
#5
Trolldate: 1444356134

These are the voyages of the SS Socratic Method, in its continuing mission to guide newbs through the endless configurations of PseudoTV Live! making as many errors as possible....to explain as badly as needed to get the point across!

Configuration Options
General
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Opening the configuration options for PTVL should bring up a box like above. This is the General options section, which contains the following sections:

Configure Channels:
Open Channel Configuration
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This is heap big magic and for right now outside of the scope of this guide because it's where much of the magic happens. This section is so powerful it needs an entire guide of its own, but you're going to have to find some other dumbass to write it. You can create your own channels here, name them as you like and fill them with all sorts of interesting rules to define what plays where when and how.

General Options:
Enable Autostart
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This option is somewhat self-explanatory. Some people prefer to live in PTVL at all times, this option set allows PTVL to start automatically once Kodi has been opened. The sub-option allows you to configure a delay, in case you discover that your preferred theme for Kodi takes a few minutes to completely initialize or your hardware needs more time to find and load the library completely. You can set the delay anywhere from 0 to 20 seconds.

Auto-off Timer (minutes)
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This option allows you to set a time limit on how long PTVL can run before turning itself off. You can set this anywhere from 30 to 240 (a total of four hours) after which time the program will exit itself and do whatever you have set in the next option.

Auto-off Mode

When you exit the PseudoTV Live program automatically you have several choices of options here:
  • Exit PTVL
  • CEC TVStandby
  • EG Trigger
  • Shutdown PC
  • Sleep PC
  • Quit Kodi

Whichever one of these options you choose here will be the action that PTVL executes once your Auto-off Timer limit has been reached.


Enable Idle ScreenSaver
Huh Not sure why anyone would want to enable this or what it would do.

Force Channel reset on next start
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Like your settings but want to force an update of your channels? This will allow you to retain your autotune settings while causing all the feeds to be reloaded the next time you start PTVL. Particularly useful if you've updated the program recently.

Time between channel resets

You can configure these resets to happen automatically at intervals of:
  • Automatic
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Never
  • Every Time

This can be useful if your live streams are no longer populating as they should be or if you find your EPG to be wildly out of sync with reality.

Default channel times at startup
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Your choice of what channel begins playing first upon starting PTVL. You have a choice of the following:
  • Real Time
  • Random
  • Resume

Real time makes the program try to stay ontop of its internal EPG scheduling, Random tosses on whatever channel and or show PTVL decides to throw at you and Resume assumes you would like to pick back up right where you left off the last time you opened PTVL.

Background Updating

By default this is enabled as 'ON'. Your other options are to optimize for minimal use or to disable it altogether. When enabled you can start watching channels immediately and the program will continue building your channels while you watch the currently playing stream but you will only have available the number of channels already built. If you turn this off you will have to wait for all channels to build before being allowed to start channel surfing but once the stream begins playing all possible channels will have been created and ready to go.

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While it is some times good for troubleshooting purposes it can take a while for your channels to build if you disable background updating.

Enable Settop Box Mode
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Nobody knows what this does. Rolleyes

Media Limit Per Channel

This configures how many shows you will allow in each channel. Bare in mind the higher this number goes the longer it may take for PseudoTV Live to build your channels. Lower end hardware should probably go with a lower number. Your options are:
  • 25
  • 50
  • 100
  • 250
  • 500
  • 1000
  • 5000
  • Unlimited

Show Notifications

This option allows you to see what is going on in the background while channels are being made. It will let you know what channel is being made at the moment, give you a heads up if the feed has been blocked in your region, etc.

Enable Automatic Channel Backup

Keeps a back up of your channels. What it does with those backups is unknown.
#6
Configuration Options
Tweaks
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The first three options under tweaks are what I call the locale or regional settings. These are likely something that you've ignored the first time you looked at the program under the hood. This is a mistake! While the Language and Region are likely to be correctly set automatically, if you don't check your configuration you may be missing out on the performance available to you!

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Device Type

This used to be called Operating System and contained a listing of the various devices that PTVL is known to work on. This has since been changed to a more consistent title of Device Type focusing on processor and hardware.
  • Intel Core
  • Intel Budget
  • Raspberry Pi
  • PowerPC
  • iOS
  • ATV
  • Android
  • AMD FX
  • AMD Budget

(2015-10-18, 02:17)Lunatixz Wrote: Intel Core = core processor ie duo,quad and iseries

AMD FX = FX series only

Budget = Everything else... Same goes for AMD



Preferred Language

You can choose between fourteen different languages. I don't know if this is autodetected or if the program assumes English by default.

Preferred Region

The program allows for 252 different regions. Way more regions than I'm willing to list. Take my word for it there are a lot!


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Enable Quickflip


Quickflip enabled bypasses (potentially) slower streams generated from plugin and internet streaming channels. If you have channels created by local content, this means you can flip through that quicker because PTVL will ignore the internet streams in favor of (possibly) faster local videos to allow a faster channel surfing experience because there will be less buffering required.

Enable Direct Channel Input

When this is enabled you no longer have to input your channel number + select; you can simply press your preferred channel number and be directed there.

Channel Change Delay (seconds)

How long to wait for the processes involved in shifting to the next channel. You will still have to wait for the channel to actually load so your mileage may vary. Object in rearview mirror may be closer than they appear. A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal

SmartSeek Strm Over

Sets the percentage of a show to be completed before PTVL will automatically start playing from the beginning. As Lunatixz has said, no point in waiting for it to only play for 10mins.

Start Over Option after

Sets the percentage of a show to have finished playing before you are offered an option to start from the beginning of the show.

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Startup Channel

Want to always start on the same channel you were watching when you exited? This lets you set that channel. Or you can set PTVL to always show the same channel on startup. If you choose the Preferred Channel option, a submenu appears allowing you to set the channel number of your preferred channel.

Disable Watch Flagging

Tells Kodi not to mark as watched anything played while in PTVL. A good idea when it works to make sure your played videos list doesn't get all out of order.

Find Missing GuideData

Finds and adds channel logos, fanart for shows playing and other nice touches. Turn this on but expect it to take a while to get everything the first few times you use the app.

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Hide very short videos

This allows you to hide all those bumpers or commercials and movie trailers from the EPG guide. Otherwise you'll see everything listed in the EPG in small slices.

- Duration of “short” videos (seconds)

Use this to set the duration of the short videos you wish to hide, as the title says this is in seconds, not minutes. This is counted from 15 seconds to 8 minutes total time.

Mute between channel change

Set whether or not you wish the audio to continue playing while shifting to the new channel.
#7
Visuals
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One of the better features of Kodi is that it allows you to customize your interface. So does PseudoTV Live! There are all sorts of ways to change and shape the visual options of the program, so strap in and pimp yo' PTVL!

Use (S01E01), Instead of (01x01)


This is entirely a user preference thing. Some people prefer the scene standard and want ye olde classic S01E01 markings and some of us have moved on from the dark ages when Abraham Lincoln fought Hitler during the Korean War and ...errr... changed to something else. That something else is 1x01, which gives the same information in a sleeker and more compact and manner. Which one do I personally prefer? Ehhh the first one! Couldn't you tell? Blush

Logo Options:
Channel Logo Folder

By default this is already set to an internal location within the userdata folder, but you are free to set this wherever you'd like. The default path is:

Code:
special://userdata/script.pseudotv.live/logos

Find Missing Logos


This option enables the next four settings. If you cannot find some of the options listed after this one it is because you do not have Find Missing Logos enabled. They do not display otherwise.

Remember the Channel Logo Folder? PseudoTV Live! will search that directory for any matching logos to go along with your channels. If it cannot find any then having this enabled means that PTVL will download those logos to the directory and make use of it.

- Allow Multi-Region Fallbacks

If you live in Romania and have the Anime Plus channel--that channel has been renamed Animax. THe SyFy channel used to be known as the Sci-Fi channel. This setting makes PTVL a little smarter about what logos to use for your channels when it starts hunting for a logo.

- Allow Any-Image Fallbacks

No one knows what this does. Possibly related to user added images?

- Override Existing Logos

Maybe allows PTVL to download new logos over an older pre-existing one?

- Select LogoDB Type

Chooses what kind of logo images to use. You have a choice of the following four options:
  • Color Wide
  • White Square
  • Color Square
  • White Wide

EPG Options:
Clock Mode


What kind of time do you use? Do you prefer military time or divided into twelve hour segments for your clock? It's the difference between 11:15 pm and 23:15.

EPG Color by
This option allows you to change between the types of bars used to display the programming.
  • Rating
  • Chtype
  • Genre

- Include Movie Genres

If you choose to use Genre for your EPG Color by, then this will be offered as an additional choice to color your movies according to what type of genre they are.

Menu uses Channel
Do you prefer text or do you prefer a logo?
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Show Detailed Info i.e.. “[TV-14]”

This is in part a user preference thing and in part a practical consideration. Not every show scrapes with a rating and there been issues, so I suppose it depends on how dedicated you are to keeping everything organized. Some of us aren't anal enough to go through hundreds of television shows and manually look them up and add ratings to them just so everything looks pretty in their system skin.... Big Grin

Overlay Options:
Select Overly Number Color

What color are the channels on your TV when you change stations? PTVL is intended to be a complete cablebox replacement, so to complete the illusion you want your channel colors to line up with the same display the TV uses, right?

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  • Holo
  • White
  • Light Gray
  • Gray
  • Green
  • Cyan

Show info when changing channels

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Donating is the difference between this and this.
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This is the info box that comes up and tells you the name of the show, the season and episode numbers, a short summary of what the episode is about which is hopefully spoiler free. If you are not a donor you will find this empty for USTVNow channels. If you like you can choose not to see the information box at all; of course this means you won't get it on channels with local content or youtube stations....

- Info window duration (seconds)

How long do you want to see the information above? You can choose between 3-25 seconds. By default it is set to display for 5 seconds.

Always show channel bug
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The "channel bug" is that little icon of the channel or the network the show being displayed is from. Whether you want this is highly determined upon the source of your media. If the media does not have its own channel bug then it's a nice feature. If your media was recorded off a local network and already has its own channel bug built into the video then it can look a bit ridiculous...

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Unfortunately at this time the option is all or nothing....

- Use Unaltered Channel bug

Not sure what this does exactly.

Show Coming Up Next Box

You have multiple options:
  • Disabled
  • Classic
  • Popup
  • Overlay

The default is Popup, which makes a small image display in the right corner of the next show's fanart. This can be further customized if the Classic option is chosen, allowing a submenu to appear.

- Coming Up Artwork Type

Here you can choose between five different artwork types, which is useful if you only have Posters or if you have many shows for which there are no Landscape artwork types available.
  • Fanart
  • Poster
  • Clearart
  • Logo
  • Landscape
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#14
Thanks for this tutorial. Very helpful

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The Dumbass Guide to PseudoTV Live!4