Overview

MediaPortal 2 can detect your media items and import them into its own data base. The importer will automatically recognize media items by their file and folder names. It is recommended to prepare media items well to ensure that everything is perfectly recognized.

Manual correction of imports

If the automatic import was not successful, e.g. because there was more than one hit, you can use the "reimport" function from the media item's context menu. A new search is then triggered and you can then chose from the different options to assign the correct media information afterwords. As this is not part of the preparation  details are decribed later in Media Screen.

Symbolic Links

Symbolic links allow to gather media from different locations and display them in one place.

If this feature is not working in MP2, it is likely that your Windows system is not adequately configured yet to enable "remote to remote symlinks".  A standard Windows 10 installation defaults to "Not allowed" and you will need to activate this first:

• Open an administrative command window or use PowerShell (easily accessible by right-clicking on the Windows Start button and selecting "Windows PowerShell (Administrator)"
• In the newly opened window type  fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation R2R:1 

Then hit enter and your symbolic links should work as expected.

Artworks

The following is a guide only and charts common usage^.

Artwork is skin dependant and skinners are free to use artwork how and where they choose. Some skins may conform with the following, others may not.

Poster

Posters replicates the movie posters often seen in cinema complexes, or the front cover of home video releases, and contain a clearly visible logo or name of the video.

Banner

In the video library, banners are wide and short images that contain recognizable characters or props from the video and typically includes a clearly visible logo or the name of the movie, movie set or tv show.

In the music library it contains the artist or band members and typically includes a clearly visible logo or the name of the artist/band

Fanart

They are used as full screen displays.

Fanart has no text on the image. (fanart with text is known as landscape. See below)

Note: For the Music library, the file names recognised by Kodi and loaded as local fanart can be configured by entries in the advancedsettings.xml

Actor

The Actor artwork is a portrait of an actor for display in the cast information pages.

The files are named as <FirstName>_<LastName>.jpg and are saved in the dedicated .actors folder in the movie folder and tv show folder.

Clearart

Clearart have a transparent background with recognizable characters or props from the video along with a logo or name and its transparent background allows it to be overlaid images or video with minimal impact.

Clearlogo

Logos typically use the distinctive font associated with the video and is uncluttered by other images. The transparent background allows it to be overlaid images or video with minimal impact.

Discart

Discart replicates the picture on the physical Blu-ray or other disc. Although the disc artwork is round, the image itself is square and the disc image is placed in the center on a transparent background.

Keyart

Keyart is a poster without text or a logo. This is useful as a separate item in a skinner's toolbox as it can be paired with a clearlogo or large text title elsewhere on the window, and without text it is less distracting in the background or half-obscured, similar to fanart.

Thumbnail

Thumb is the most basic art type. The properties differ depending on the area being used. Skins often show this type of art both full size, and also as a small icon alongside each item in a list.

NFO Files

Structure

1. The file is saved as Unicode Transformation Format-8 (UTF-8). The first line of the file will contain the following...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> 

2. The second line and the last line of the file contains the appropriate opening and closing tags for the class of media. Avaliable classes are...

<movie></movie>, <tvshow></tvshow>, <episodedetails></episodedetails>, <artist></artist>, <album></album> and <musicvideo></musicvideo>

3. Between the opening and closing category tags are the tags for the metadata. Each tag must have an opening tag and a closing tag. eg...

<title>Blade Runner 2049</title>

4. Available tags are listed in the appropriate Metadata NFO page.

5. Once created, the file is named as follows:

Details

 <ratings>
   <rating name="" max="10" default="">
      <value></value>
      <votes></votes>
   </rating>
 </ratings>

<fanart>
    <thumb preview=""></thumb>
</fanart>

<episodeguide>
  <url cache=""></url>
</episodeguide>

<actor>
  <name></name>
  <role></role>
  <order></order>
  <thumb></thumb>
</actor>

<resume>
  <position></position>
  <total></total>
</resume>