Posterwall (HT4.0)

PosterWall (HT4.0) is part of the Zidoo platform, this movie poster management system is designed to exploit the maximum possibilities of their devices and thus see your movies in the best possible conditions.

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Zidoo offers us a system for managing our video library that combines a modern interface with many customization options while maintaining an ease of use that will appeal to the uninitiated who are new to the Zidoo ecosystem.

Here is a photoshop montage of the main page ''complete'' Posterwall (HT4.0), as you see it can be customized according to your priorities.

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Here are some videos showing different options available with PosterWall, there are many others that I let you discover by yourself.

I hope this will give a good idea about the possibilities of Posterwall (HT4.0) for new or future users of Zidoo devices.

I put a little explanatory comment for each video, I am not an expert, so please bear with me.

Thank you

Note
I don't have the video files on the video, I used photoshop.


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How do I scan my sources ?
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At the first start, on the main page, HT4.0 will propose you to add sources.
Select your directories and it will start scanning them.



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Note :

If your movies already have an NFO file created with Kodi, you can select the following option.

''preferentially parse NFO files''

(The NFO created by Kodi/ZDMC works with HT 4.0)



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If any video files were not recognized at the end of your source, click on the "Unmatched" widget and the unrecognized files will be there.

By using the POP MENU button on the remote and selecting Re-Match, you will be able to manually search by entering the movie title.

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Once your sources scanned and your unmatched made, I strongly suggest you use the option ''Export''.
By doing so your posters, wallpapers and NFO of each of your movies will be saved.



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If you followed my GIFs above, you should have the main Posterwall page by default as below



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If you click on a movie poster, the movie information page appears, the information is clear and concise, I really like it.

On the right side, you have 4 icons.

- PLAY, to start the movie

- BD, to use the navigation menu of an ISO/BMDV.

- Trailers, to see the trailers (if available)

- Favorites, to put your favorite movies aside and be easily accessible.

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Your movie collections are automatically grouped when HT4.0 scans your sources, you can then access them using the shortcut available by moving on the right of the screen or with the ''collection'' widget on the main page.



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If movies are not associated in their collection, you can add them manually.



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With this first part I hope to have helped you and answered some of your questions even though it's still brief.

For the next part, I will show you how I do to have my TV shows available with Posterwall.

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There are other ways to make HT4.0 scan your TV Show properly and the following is my way of doing it, free for you to do as you wish

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Attention

You will certainly have to rename your TV series, for example the naming I use with Kodi does not work well with HT4.0.

Depending on the language you are using, there could be some difficulties with the scan of your TV Shows.​

For those who use several multimedia boxes of different brands, this could be a problem.

For my part, I only have a Zidoo box and all my collection naming is done to work 100% with Posterwall
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How to name our TV Shows so that HT4.0 has the best results

Firstly, I use the TVDB/TMDB website to get the correct name of the tv shows.

https://thetvdb.com/




I do the same thing for the episodes and here is the result with this example:

Game.of.Thrones.S01.E01.UHD.HDR




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On my hard drive, my folder structure looks like this


My ''TV Show'' folder




The seasons are all grouped in this folder ''TV Show'', making this way HT4.0 has better results.




We continue with the example of ''Game of Thrones'', here is an overview of the first season's folder with the different files that are there once the scan is completed





I use this way with all my TV shows and I get excellent results



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But nothing works perfectly 100% all the time


But nothing works perfectly 100% in real life and if you have several episodes that are not recognized you have the possibility to use the batch scan.

With this system you will scan several episodes or seasons (depending on what you have selected) in one go.


If the name of your TV Show does not appear when searching with TVDB, I recommend you to try TMDB too.

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Here is an example with ''The Man In the High Castle Season 1'' that I voluntarily removed from HT4.0.

With this GIF, I show the complete procedure... the batch scan of the concerned season, the change of poster/background and its placement in the folder containing the 3 other seasons available in Posterwall.

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If, as mentioned above, you rename your video files correctly, everything will be quick and easy


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Once your sources are scanned go to the Posterwall options/customization page and select the options that suit you best.





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When you use the''WALL'' view and moving to the left of the screen a menu with shortcuts appears

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Depending on your preference, the ''WALL'' view of PosterWall can display 70, 44, 24 and 10 movies on the screen.

Personally I display 24 movies which seems to me a good compromise.

In addition, it has an option of sorting by alphabetical order, rating, added date, etc...

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HT4.0 offers 2 additional views that I call the ''Shift'' view and the ''List'' view.

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In the movie collections and if necessary, you can move the posters to the left or to the right with the directional cross on the remote control by selecting and clicking on the icon at the top right of the screen.

For those who like me, complain about not having the Star Wars saga in order, Zidoo offers you the possibility to do so and with ease.​

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You can change the poster and the background chosen by default with a choice proposed by HT 4.0 or by importing it using the button ''POP MENU'' of the remote.



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When you add one or more video files in your sources.

Poster Wall does an automatic scan as soon as you arrive on its main page as you can see on the top right of the screen (at the beginning of the video), it takes a few seconds.

it then displays the new video files in ''LATEST''.

If it doesn't find the movie, it will be available in "unmatched" and you will be able to manually search and choose the poster you want.




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Are you a fan of Marvel movies like me...

If that's the case, you might want to gather all your Marvel movies to create a ''Marvel Cinematic Universe films'' collection ?​

PosterWall's customization possibilities are enough to modify and adapt your movie collection to your needs, exactly the way you want!​

Here is an overview of what can be done to group collections together and change the chronological order of movies.

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First step, disassemble the collections that have been created by Posterwall during the scan of your source with the option ''Disband'' using the key ''POP Menu'' of the remote.​

In this example I choose the 2 following collections, ''The hobbit'' and ''The lord of the rings''.
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We can see the 6 movies that are no longer part of a collection.​

I choose one of the 6 movies and use the key ''POP Menu'' of the remote, I select ''Add to collection'' and ''New collection'', I invite you to watch my video for the rest of the procedure ...
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We just created a new collection, we will place the 6 movies in the correct chronological order and choose a poster corresponding to our newly created collection (see below)​

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Here is a video that shows some examples of collection and the use of the option ''Export and ''Backup'' to save my work once I am satisfied with the result.
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Happy you just added a new TV show in your source and you launch the scan... unfortunately Ht4.0 doesn't find it or is completely wrong...

In this example I add a documentary category but after the scan of my Documentary folder the season 1 of the ''Tiny world'' is not correctly recognized and I find myself with a very ugly thing called ''Dancing Diamond''...

No panic, here is my way to correct the problem and at the same time finish the creation of my category (Widget)

The GIF is a bit long because I show the scan of the folder, the correction of the errors, the addition of the widget and the change of the icon.


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Unfortunately at the end of the scan you realize that Ht4.0 has not grouped some of your movie collections for some reason.

Here is my way to fix the problem, maybe there is a faster way but I don't know it.


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You have just added one or more movies to your source, HT4.0 has scanned them automatically, but the choice of posters does not suit you and those optionally available either and eventually you want something out of the ordinary.

There is a good website for that and that could suit you.

I invite you to take a look at TPDB

https://theposterdb.com/official



Here are some examples that are to my taste and out of the ordinary but there are plenty of others, go take a look it's worth it if you want to add a touch of additional customization to your Posterwall



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For those who wonder how to have the logos at the bottom of the pages, here are 2 links that will allow you to know everything about it.​

For those who come from Kodi, you should know that you can only display a total of 5 labels on the movie information page​

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Markswift2003's thread​

http://forum.zidoo.tv/index.php?threads/media-labels-for-ht4-v4-0-49.85785/​

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McBluna's thread​

https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/guide-zidoo-home-theater-media-labels/​

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Thanks to Markswift2003 and McBluna for their work.​

 

Awesome customisation function, I really like it a lot
Do you happen to have some more icons?^^

 

Hello sledge,

I hope all is well

I haven't tried the Cancer UI customization yet, the apk doesn't want to install, I'm waiting for an answer from Zidoo about this.

When you say other icons, are you talking about widgets or other things ?

see you soon

 

Hello Olivier, yes everything is well
I hope you are doing fine, too.

I meant the application icons like
1_normal.png
1_selected.png

 

yes thank you,

I spend time on Flight Simulator 2020 (World Update 5) in the South of France (Montpellier, Nimes) where I lived before, impressive, I find all the houses and neighborhoods where I lived, it is very faithful

Not yet, I'm waiting for news about the apk ''ZIDOO_UI_1619DR'' that I can't install.

I would like to remove the blue halo and keep the existing icons but change their color

Normal : grey color
Selected : white color

In this kind



See you soon

 

Is there any automatic backup possible for this customization or do we need to backup by hand?
Would be nice to backup the adjustments with the backup file.
By the way - nice work.

Kind regards
Matty

 

Have fun flying

Excellent idea with the icons!

 

Thanks Sledge

 

Hello Matty2k,

I haven't checked but I don't think so

See you soon

 

For those who want to delete a video file while being in Posterwall, here is how I do it....

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I'm making this message because I see that some people don't know that you can delete a video file from Posterwall and it's understandable because it's not clear in the options.

And if you decide to delete also the information of the movie like NFO, poster and background, it will still remain the folder if like me you put each of your movies in a folder.

This is the way I know it, but there may be another, more efficient way to do it.

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Personally, I never use these options and I do these operations from my PC when needed

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How delete the video file

With this way of doing it the folder of the movie containing the NFO, the Poster and the Background will not be deleted.



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How to delete the video file, the NFO, the Poster and the Background.

With this way of doing it the folder of the movie containing the NFO, the Poster and the Background will not be deleted.



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You also have the option to not display a movie in Posterwall without deleting it from your sources.

This allows you to keep all your movies on your hard drive and select only those you don't want to appear in Posterwall for different reasons.




See you soon
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I present you the HT4.0 Widgets, we don't talk much about them and yet they are very useful.

If you want to have categories such as ''Cartoon'' or ''Family'' or ''Documentary'' that you have created yourself and you want to see them in the main page, Zidoo offers this possibility with its ''Widgets''.



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Here is an example

I created 2 folders ''Concert'' and ''Manga'' in one of my sources and I want to have on the main page of HT4.0.

it's easy to do, click on the widget with the "+" symbol to add a new widget by choosing a folder in one of your sources.

In my GIF below, I add the folder ''concert'' and ''Manga'' and 2 new icons appear with a logo which is not to my taste.



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No problem, by pressing the key ''Menu'' of the remote a pop up appears allowing you to change icon.

Here's how to change using the ''menu'' key of the remote



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By default Posterwall displays several Widgets, and some of them are not useful to you and to your taste your home page is overloaded...

Here's how to enable or disable Widgets with the ''MENU'' button on the remote control.



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Now you should be able to manage widgets with Posterwall.

In my next post, I'm providing some widgets I created with different themes for those who are interested.
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For those who like the wallpapers I use, here is a folder that contains all my current wallpapers.





Here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kvzemCKLSMMo_jU6XtnTc8fHX1jIaKig/view?usp=sharing


Have fun​

 

Thank you for providing the wallpapers. May I ask if these are only for HT4.0 ? Can they be used to change the default wallpaper in Media Centre ? If so how ?

Thanks