Setting Up MediaPortal
We won't be running through the initial
download and setup stages of Media Portal, because quite frankly if you can't
handle that stage of setup without help, this certainly won't be the
application for you. This guide therefore assumes you have downloaded the
program from www.team-mediaportal.com and successfully installed it.
1. Before you start to use the program, you MUST run the configuration
section first. On start up it will ask you if you want Standard or Expert mode.
Until you find your feet we strongly recommend the former.
2. Head to the video folders page and add your folders, be they local
or on your network. Once you have set them all up, click on video database. By
default, MP uses IMDB to add box art, descriptions and other information. This
will take a long time so leave it until later if you don't have time to kill
3. It's now time to repeat that same procedure for your music and
picture folders. However (thankfully) this process is a lot faster than doing
it for movies. Even even thousands of audio tracks will only take a minute or
two to become integrated into MediaPortal's library. Metadata for audio simply
isn't as detailed as it is for video files.
4. Setting up your TV cards has its own discrete 'TV Server
Configuration' console. Select a displayed TV card and your country/area on the
right hand side, then you can finally click 'Scan for Channels'.
5. Once detected, it's time to configure the EPG, or Electronic Program
Guide. This is downloaded over the digital TV signal, if you have a digital card.
Click on 'DVB EPG' on the left and then enable it by clicking 'EPG grabbing
while idle'.
6. In the 'Recording settings' you can now set where your recorded
channels are to be stored, set disk quotas and how long before a scheduled show
you want the application to begin recording. Unlike WMC, TV shows are recorded
in an easily accessible .ts file format, which can easily be re-encode to other
formats
7. You are now ready to go! Your files have been imported into
MediaPortal, and the TV channels and EPG have been scanned and added. You are
now ready to launch the application and begin enjoying your media.
