Author Topic: [TIP] How to create shortcuts to your favourite folders for easy access  (Read 21721 times)

Offline Insomniac

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Please note: the 'Favourites' feature is not available on firmware v1
 - this is only available from V1.0.1 and up (Open Beta included).


The MED500X2 includes a 'Favourites' feature which is in essence a list of shortcuts to your favourite media folders.
This will make life much easier for those family members who may be challenged at finding their favourite media buried within the internal hard drive, on a hosted USB drive, or several sub-folders deep into a network share.
You may choose to use this feature as a means to organise your media into meaningful genre shortcuts, linking for example to 'Kids movies', 'Party music', 'Family photos', etc.

The Favourites list can be found on the HOME menu - the Favourites list can also be invoked by pressing the BLUE button on the remote at any time.

To add a folder to your Favourites, navigate to and highlight the desired folder; press MENU; select 'Add to Favourites'




Detailed steps:
  o Navigate to the folder you wish to add to the Favourites list;
  o Press the MENU button on the remote;
  o Navigate DOWN and press ENTER on 'Add to Favourites';
    The highlighted folder will now be available from the Favourites list on the HOME menu.
    You can continue navigating and adding more shortcuts to the list.

A customised image can be assigned to each Favourite as follows:
  o Press the BLUE button on the remote;
  o Navigate to and highlight the favourite you wish to customise;
  o Press MENU on the remote;
  o Navigate DOWN and press ENTER on 'Genre';
    A list of default images will appear on screen which are available for application to your Favourites links
 o Navigate through the available images and press ENTER to select the icon of your choice.

Note: You can also add your own custom images to this list of available icons by placing them within a folder named 'Genre' on the root of your internal HDD, USB or SD CARD.
Images should be sized to 117 x 172 pixels or a scale factor with the same aspect ratio and type should be .png.



« Last Edit: July 24, 2011, 11:36:09 PM by Maasbommel »
Questions? Please check the Mede8er Beginners Guide.

For technical assistance, please take note of the Technical support guidelines.

Ensure too that you are using the latest firmware when requesting support.

Offline Simeon

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I'm in the UK and have just received my X2. The screen I have looks nothing like the screen displayed above. And when I press the Menu button I have no Add to Favourites button at all.

I don't have a local HDD installed as I use a NAS, is this what is making the difference or is this some other feature that will be enabled later.

I also cannot display a video wall..... thinking I should have gone with the Dune.

Offline jer1956

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Some people keep asking what the Favourites system can do compared to the Videowall. This tip should help, even though it needs a future firmware release.

   

Offline Insomniac

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This tip was a little pre-emptive - my apologies.
The Favourites feature will be available soon - it was held back from the first official release due to certain bugs that were picked up.
I will adjust my original post to clear this up.
Questions? Please check the Mede8er Beginners Guide.

For technical assistance, please take note of the Technical support guidelines.

Ensure too that you are using the latest firmware when requesting support.

oskar101

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This is almost "THE" feature why I bought this device and really without it this device is pretty much useless for my 6 year old and wife.
Btw is also one of the most usefull feature on my old xbox1 with XBMC which I was hoping to replace with this mede8er 500 x2 as this device does support hd content.

Offline jer1956

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This is almost "THE" feature why I bought this device and really without it this device is pretty much useless for my 6 year old and wife.
Btw is also one of the most usefull feature on my old xbox1 with XBMC which I was hoping to replace with this mede8er 500 x2 as this device does support hd content.

"THE"? Do you mean the New system, or the Old Videowall?

oskar101

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With "THE" feature I meant the ability on any given media player (but obviously in this case the MED500X2) to create shortcuts to specific folders on a NAS.

So instead of having to select the media, then select the NAS device, then logging in, then selecting the main folder, then the subfolder, then s specific topic subfolder, being able to make a short cut to the last folder and making that visible on the main page or just one click away from the main page.

Although I can fully understand there are many people that still would want to put video, pictures, music on the MED500X2 itself there are also people that are using or are moving to a NAS based environment (cloud like) and don't want anything stored locally other then the databases the device itself needs to built to work as efficiently as possible.
I rely on the the mediaplayer to play media, create databases it needs to function optimally and my NAS to store the actual data the mediaplayer uses.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2011, 05:46:43 PM by oskar101 »

Offline jer1956

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Having being testing UPNP functions (from the PC perspective), the separtion of library by device can get frustrating. With each UPNP server having it's own library you  have to know where anything is. With Samba everything can be merged into a single library without you caring where they are. 

oskar101

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Having being testing UPNP functions (from the PC perspective), the separtion of library by device can get frustrating. With each UPNP server having it's own library you  have to know where anything is. With Samba everything can be merged into a single library without you caring where they are.  

I assume you mean having data across multiple devices is a challenge, and the library on each library is just a consequence ?

For me that was it, managign data across multiple devices was wearing me down, so I want all my data on one location (with a good personal backup process for one central location).

Each device that uses that data should then have its own "device and fucntion specific library" on that local device itself, so keeping specific functionality away and separate from the central data storage.

Ah and one reason why I prefer using SMB instead of UPNP.

Offline jer1956

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I assume you mean having data across multiple devices is a challenge, and the library on each library is just a consequence ?


I seem to be testing lots of things and that was something I happending to notice changing from  using the Med Nas to a beta UPNP server. You can add the NAS into the main WMP 12 library. A Upnp server has it's own WMP 12 library.

Offline jer1956

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I have been told that Favouties will be linked to the XML seach system once that's fully implemented. So although you are initally faced with "all" your Favourites when you first bring up the screen, you will be able to filter it by XML tags, be it Genre, Tv Series etc.

It should be noted you don't have to Shortcut individual Episodes, and then search for Episodes 1, then go back to search  for 2 etc. You can shortcut a folder containing a whole series, and once selected your then using the Medialibrary entry. So you can play Episode 1, press return and your still in Medialibrary and can easily select Episode 2. So you decide where in your directory structure you want start the Medialibrary with each shortcut. If it's a folder, your using Medialibrary as normal. If it's a single item, you return to  favourites.


Some might think this won't look as good as the videowall, but it should mean you find what you want more quickly.  
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 04:15:07 PM by jer1956 »

Offline 949BFN

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Note: You can also add your own custom images to this list of available icons by placing them within a folder named 'videowall' on the root of your internal HDD, USB or SD CARD.
Images should be sized to 117 x 172 pixels or a scale factor with the same aspect ratio.

Is this feature supposed to work yet? I simply can't get this to work in the X2. (I have experience with the 500 and custom genre icons, also on the 400.) I created the "videowall" (all in smalls) folder on the root of the X2's hdd. Resized the images I use on the 500 to exactly 117 x 172, but the custom icons do not shop up when trying to assign them to the shortcut in Favourites.
Any ideas?
Mede8er 400, 500 & 500X2

Offline Kevinj

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Is this feature supposed to work yet? I simply can't get this to work in the X2. (I have experience with the 500 and custom genre icons, also on the 400.) I created the "videowall" (all in smalls) folder on the root of the X2's hdd. Resized the images I use on the 500 to exactly 117 x 172, but the custom icons do not shop up when trying to assign them to the shortcut in Favourites.
Any ideas?

It works, but you have to make a folder on the root and call it "genre" instead of videowall. Just copy the images to the "genre" folder and your mede8er will pick them up.

Offline 949BFN

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Tx Kevin. Maybe Insomniac's "how to" explanation should be edited to correct this?
Thanks once again.
Mede8er 400, 500 & 500X2

Offline 949BFN

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Something else that does not appear from the "how to" - the genre / icon file has to be in png format.
Mede8er 400, 500 & 500X2