1) The template format you use should be dependant on your screen format - 4:3 or 16:9; Thereafter the design is pretty much up to you - what fields do you want where. I used a standard TVixie template. You can use any of those provided and decide for yourself what you like best and what suits the format of your display. I will admit though that
Movie GUI Builder is easier to use and you can manipulate the results (i.e. edit the details). I prefer under-stated, simple designs.
2) There is a
'quick-guide' on the TVixie site - the trick is to have one movie per folder and search per folder - the movie will not be found if you search using the movie file itself. Including the year in the folder name increases the chance of a successful scrape - use IMDB to search for the name of the movie and include that date.
3) Once you have your movie info jpeg, save it to the movie folder, e.g. as 'about.jpg':
moviename (CCYY) [folder]
->moviename.avi [movie]
->about.jpg [movie synopsis]
Then, on browsing the folders, you will see the movie 'about.jpg' displayed on the right - pressing the ||> button on the remote displays this at full screen without having to go into the folder.
Good luck!