HELP! I seem to have bought something I cannot fathom out at all.
I have used a media-streaming device called a Med8er for years now for all my NAS streams in which I have saved my many thousands of video clicps. (I have 16 NAS units in my lAN), Med8er kindiy uncomplicatedly streams any file from any NAS to my TV. It ‘joined’ my Windows Workgroup LAN and I could log onto any NAS using an IP address, usename and password. This was absolutely perfect for me. Not at all complicated and easy to set up. That’s all I ever wanted.
But the med8er has failed so I was looking for a replacement, Unfortuntaelty Med8er no longer exist and I see mentions that VERO V is the best thing since sliced bread so I bought one. Help! I cannot understand a thing about it with all these millions of options I cannot get any of my NAS’s to connect. In fact I don’t see any player on there. What is this KODI thing? It seems to refer to it a lot but nowhere can i see how to install it.
The ‘manual’ that came with the unit is laughable. Just a simple two page sheet virtually showing you how to switch the begger on.
It seems that everything needs to be complicated before simplicity nowadays. So if any one can guide a near-Octarion to to set it up I would be most grateful.
Welcome to the forum! If you have 16 NASes I’m going to assume you have some IT nowse so that helps.
From what you say it looks like you are used to sharing your collection with SMB (I thought Windows Workgroup died years ago but never mind).
Kodi is the media player that OSMC uses to catalogue and play your video/audio collection. You can get an overview of the concepts involved by browsing the wiki at https://kodi.wiki/view/Main_Page. The default ‘skin’ for Kodi is called Estuary which is used for the wiki pages. If you get lost using the OSMC skin, switch to Estuary with Settings->Interface->Skin.
You need to connect Vero to your network (ethernet or WiFi). If you haven’t done that in the opening walkthrough then use Settings->My OSMC->Network (the icon on the right).
To connect to your NASes, have a look through this - it’s a bit dense but just concentrate on the bits that describe file sharing with SMB. Each NAS will have to be added as a ‘source’ then you tell Kodi what’s on that Share (Movies/TV shows/Music/Videos). You are prompted to add sources if you haven’t added any to the ‘Library’.
I hope that’s enough to get you started but you know where we are.
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Hi Graham.
Thanks very much for the info. On reading a bit of it I think I am well out of my depth on this issue. 
I just want a simple SMB setup to play my old video files. It seems this box is far too advanced for that and I may be wasting it’s energy :-). I think I will try and obtain an old Med8er unit off ebay. I think that is the most sensible option unless you can suggest something else.
Cheers,
Barry
That’s … disappointing. I’ve been having a look at what the Mede8er boxes did and I can’t see why you would find them easier than Vero. Yes, Vero does a ton more, (more video formats, UHD, etc) but that’s expected after more than a decade!
Just connecting to your NASes should be no more complicated than what you are used to. And from what I’ve read, you should already have your files organised in a way Kodi likes as Mede8er seems picky about that (one folder per film and film naming conventions).
Maybe someone with a bunch of SMB shares could walk you through it? (I don’t use SMB).
As I had never heard of Med8er before I spent a couple minutes on the web looking to see what exactly these players are. Looking at screenshots it seems to me that they are actually a very similar device to the Vero as they seem to be a Linux box running Kodi. The only difference is they seem to be modifying Kodi to provide a more bespoke appearance. It seems to me that if you switch the skin to Estuary, or installed the confluence skin if you were using a skin that had a horizontal layout, then the interface would look a lot more familiar.
As for connecting your NAS units the simplest option would probably be to force your device to use SMBv1. This normally isn’t recommended for general security reasons, but I suspect that is what you were probably using with the old player. To do this go to the settings screen, then services, SMB client, then change both min and max protocol version to v1. I don’t remember if you have to restart after doing this. Once that is done you should be able to browse for your source and have it show up.
As for giving up and buying an old player, is this really a great option? If the company has gone belly up then you are stuck with something that never gets improvements, security updates, new features, or anything. Being years old I’d think that it is likely a lot slower as well.
Out of curiosity is this 16 single drive units as you just buy a new one each time you fill up the last, or are you rocking a massive library size?
Hi I will digest these and reply later as i’m a bit tied up right now. To answer your last piont they are dual drive NAS’s, a mix of Arkara and Netgear Readynases.
Another thought: if you buy another Mede8er you will have to go through the pain of pointing it to all those NAS drives, anyway, Doing that on Vero really shouldn’t be any different, especially if you take @darwindesign’s tip so you can browse to your shares.
I’m a bit pushed at the moment so please bear with me, I can only tackle things very slowly. I am doing it a bit at a time. I first tried to activate this SMB 1.0 business as I have to do that in my Windows settings every time windows (in it’s esteemed glory) resets it to SMB 2.0 each time it does an update (and sometimes even without one!) However I cannot see anything at all in the settings for this. Cannot even see the SMB settings. I have the estuary Skin installed and get to Services via the Settings main menu, This gives me the five sub-menus of ‘General’, ‘Control’,‘UPnP/DLNA’, ‘Airplay’ and ‘Weather’. None of these will show anything about SMB.
You need to wind up the Settings level (bottom left) to at least Advanced.
Are Med8er still going? I know we have a few ‘refugees’ from them as I am not sure about the long term support commitments from them…
Thanks for the advice. I discovered the setting options, So much to find out about VERO V! I am trying (with difficulty) to perservere with VERO V and am trying (again with difficulty) to get my NAS’s registered with it. But am falling down nicely. But what I have done is I selected Settings > Media > LIbrary > Videos _> add videos > Add video source.
I then entered my IP address for one of my NAS drives which is 192.168.1.78/admin. To my suprise it appeared in the list of video sources. So I clicked on that and I found the folder listing as per the NAS drive, However every time I clicked on a folder it showed NIL files. So what can I do to show (and play) these files. I do appreciate your help on this and can honestly say a good written user manual would be most useful.
I first tried to activate this SMB 1.0 business as I have to do that in my Windows settings every time windows (in it’s esteemed glory) resets it to SMB 2.0 each time it does an update (and sometimes even without one!) However I cannot see anything at all in the settings for this. Cannot even see the SMB settings.
You can turn off the SMB 1.0/CIFS Automatic Removal here -
(ControlPanel>Turn Windows features on or off)
‘Files’ won’t show if you have told Kodi the folder contains videos but the files don’t have a recognised video extension. I’m not sure how it works if you have one folder per film as Mede8er seems to like, but I’m pretty sure Kodi deals with that. I’m guessing you need to re-scan the parent folder so that the video files are found in the folder tree. But I don’t keep my videos in that way.
Yes, our generation is used to that but it would be a very thick book and a lot to maintain. Better that we’ve met you and can provide tailored advice.
I’m winning! I found a way to get the files showing and playing. I add the video source as video films in the FILE settings and add that the files are of movies and it listed (and played) them all. I can then do the same for each NAS drive (will take ages!) then have the lot done. I can then find a way to view them easily without all this settings palaver, I think this will manage me for now I’ll keep you informed of my progress (or lack of it). Many thanks once again.
Cheers,
Barry
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Yes, I know that, in Windows. I meant to control it in the VERO. I have found it OK now though thanks.
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From the perspective of someone coming from a simplified dedicated player I can see how they could look at a Vero and think the experience should be the same. It can be relatively simple, or it can be quite complex depending on what your doing with it. If you had some files on USB storage you could plug it in and navigate to Videos and browse and play in a matter of seconds. Setting up a library takes a little more effort, as does network shares. You have options to tweak to make it look and act however you wish though so at the end of the journey you can get a very nice tailored experience.
Some context may help your confusion of what exactly you have purchased and how you can go about finding resources. There was a media player called XBMC that was written for the original XBox game console. This software got ported over to run on other hardware and has been continuously maintained and updated for decades as open source software. A number of years back the software was renamed to Kodi. As the makers of the software don’t sell hardware, people who want to run Kodi need something to run it on. OSMC started as an operating system to turn a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated platform to running Kodi. It later developed its own hardware so people who wanted to run Kodi had a one stop plug it in a go option running an operating system and hardware specifically tailored to this task, while also giving full access to operating system below so it was suitable for people and needs of all stripes.
So what does this have to do with a manual? Well, the “manual” for Kodi is their wiki that grahamh linked in a post above. Kodi’s wiki has getting started guides to walk you through adding sources, scraping, file naming conventions, and much more. That wiki is the digital equivalant of a paper manual, and is usually the first stop someone should look when they have some task they want to perform. There is also a OSMC wiki that can be found by clicking support>wiki at the top of this site. That wiki covers mostly OSMC and Vero specific topics. There is also lots of videos and guides to be found across the internet just by searching for “kodi” and whatever it is you want to know. Even though your using a Vero running OSMC, the software it is running is Kodi and it works mostly the same on all platforms.
I’d keep in mind though that you don’t need to know hardly any of the information on this site or either of the wiki’s to have a fully working setup. It can be intimidating looking at so many settings and options but remember every setting is set to a default option that is intended to work for most users. They are there for people who want to customize their experience, but the average user doesn’t need to ever look in most of the settings screen if they don’t want to.
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Yes I do agree with you. I’m just an old dodderer who prefers a written manual I can sit down and read without all this zooming about with a mouse etc.
Incidentally I have ONE NAS up and running, tailored with everything I wanted like the med8er with the text listings rather than the folder logos, saved as a ‘favourite’ and renamed as per the old NAS ident. This is working brilliantly. Trouble is I have tried and tried to do the same with any othert NAS and for the life of me I cannot do it! I cannot get to the page where a username and password is entered for my NAS drive. Any help on this? Or maybe I will try the Wiki.
I will find it somehow though — in time.
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Like you came from a media player and thought what’s this Kodi thing thought it was just for IPTV.
Go into Settings> File Manager>Add Source>Browse>Windows Network (SMB) to add each NAS share with password user etc.
I’ve changed from SMB to NFS which doesn’t require user password as it’s easier and quicker.
You can link all your locations on your NAS’s together to just have one either in Windows or in Kodi/auto mount.
Perceivere it’s well worth it, better support than any media player brand. Also Kodi as above is just the software that OSMC uses, so Kodi questions are answered in detail on the Kodi site where you’ll find all the guides you need along with the OSMC wiki.
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Ha Ha. Yes you are right. Thanks for the tips. I’ll try those tomorrow.
Cheers,
Barry
Sorry, but that is not correct. Kodi’s file manager sources are completely separate than library sources and are not available for scraping. You can play files from there, but it is not normally where someone would do this from.
You can go to either settings>media>library>video or from the home page videos>files (which you choose makes zero difference) and then click “add videos” and then click “browse” on the window that pops up. click on the option for “Windows network SMB” and see if the NAS your trying to add shows up. If it does when you click on it the first time it should ask you for credentials unless you have guest sharing enabled in your NAS in which case it should just navigate right in. Your going to navigate to the folder you want to be your top level location. Do note that Kodi must have its media types (movies, TV series, audio, pictures) in seperate locations and they must not be nested. So if you have for example \\NAS\media\movies and \\NAS\media\series the share needs to be pointed to movies or series and not to “media” or “NAS” in this example. If for some reason this described browsing method doesn’t work then instead of going to “Windows network SMB” click on “Add network location” in that same window instead. In this screen you will manually either enter the device name or IP address (but only if your running a fixed IP) and your credentials. Do not add any additional paths in this screen, you are only adding your NAS as a whole. Once you click okay you should see in this screen where you were previously in the new location for this NAS. You should be able to then browse to add your source using steps you took previously. Kodi saves network credentials so you should have to do this at most once for each NAS.
This actually sounds pretty painful to do 16 times. If your willing to get a bit more complicated you might consider going into the My OSMC add-on and installing SMB server from the app section there. You could then from your PC open file explorer and in the address bar type in \\192.168.x.x\osmc\.kodi\userdata (replacing 192.168.x.x with the current ip address of your vero) which should take you to the location where you can open a file called “passwords.xml” with a text editor of your choosing (notepad++ would be ideal). Take note of the structure of how the data is formatted with the opening and closing tags. You can copy the entire section from the first source from <path> to </path> and past it just below over and over and then change the details to suit each of your network locations. Save the file and it should just work to browse every location.
If your referring to how you can have multiple sources for different file paths or just add a single source for a given media type and add multiple file paths to it so Kodi visually combines them together as if they were all a single location, then I’d strongly advise against the latter in this situation. Although regular use browsing video libraries shouldn’t be affected either way, if you go to browse in file mode with a multipath source it will have a delay until it retrieves data from all connected sources. In this case this means spinning up 16 different boxes and 32 hard drives just to get a single directory listing. I’m sure this would be one painful delay.
