HowTo Use XineNet Desktop

Information on this page may be out of date or apply to old equipment. Use with caution.

XineNet Desktop should be installed on edit1, edit2, gfxpc and OffPC, along with a few laptops. It's designed to be very easy to use.

1. When it starts up, look in the bottom right, it should say "Connected to ystvvidsrv".
2. If it doesn't, go to File > Settings, change Host to ystvvtsrv (and the port to 9815).
3. Hit OK and restart the program.

• If it still won't connect, that PC probably has network issues.
• On OBs these settings will be different.

The main controls are File > Open Playlist, Play, and Stop. You can work out the rest.

Remember, after starting XineNet and opening the playlist, play the whole thing once. It will update the Duration for each video as they play, so the countdown will be accurate next time the list is played.

Creating Playlists

This is the more important part of this How To. Creating playlists requires some manual editing of XML files, but fear not, it's really easy. Hopefully you have a sample playlist kicking around somewhere, if so right click it and select Edit with Notepad++ (or Edit if Notepad++ isn't installed).

Otherwise, open Notepad++ and paste this in:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<playlist>
<item>
	<filename>Your_VT_Name.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
</playlist>

Then save it as an XML file (after the filename put .xml then quotes around the whole thing as "filename.xml").

To make videos available, stick them somewhere in videos (on ystvvtsrv, using WinSCP). Ensure you don't include spaces in the file name, use underscores ("_") instead.

Adding VTs

For each file you want to add to the playlist, you need to add this between the two <playlist> tags, in the correct order:

<item>
<filename>Your_VT_Name.mp4</filename>
<length>5</length>
</item>

If your video is in a folder in videos, you need to include this, for example:

<item>
<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/01_titles.mp4</filename>
<length>5</length>
</item>

Length should be set to something very short; if your VT is less than 5 seconds, set it lower. Don't worry about setting it to the exact length of the VT - we'll fix this later.

A playlist file must always start:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<playlist>

and end:

</playlist>

Example

YSTV Spotlight S1E1 Playlist file, for reference:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<playlist>
<item>
	<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/01_titles.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
<item>
	<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/02_walking_and_coming_up_vt.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
<item>
	<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/03_rag_vt.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
<item>
	<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/04_dazvt.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
<item>
	<filename>Spotlight/S1E1/05_end_credits_finished_vt.mp4</filename>
	<length>5</length>
</item>
</playlist>