INSTALL & SET UP KODI
Install Kodi on Windows
Your Windows PC is one of the easiest devices to install Kodi on. First, go to www.kodi.tv/download and scroll down to the ‘Current release’ section (Kodi v17.1 at the time of writing). Click the RC: Installer link beneath the Windows logo to download Kodi to your computer (see screenshot right). Double-click the downloaded file to start the installation process. You’ll see a pop-up box asking if you want to run the program – click Yes to continue. Click Next, I Agree, and you’ll be given a choice of which Kodi components you want to install. We recommend installing them all to give you the best experience. Click Next, choose an installation folder and click Next, then Install to complete the process.
Note: Windows 10 users can also install Kodi as an app. Go to www.snipca.com/ 23774 then click ‘Get the app’ to install it.
How Kodi works
Once Kodi has finished installing, tick the Run Kodi box then click Finish to open Kodi for the first time. Kodi will launch in full-screen mode. How you control Kodi is up to you. You can use your mouse, but we find it easier to use the cursor and Enter keys. You’ll see its interface lists types of content (Movies, TV Shows, Music, etc) on the left (see screenshot below).
What’s so clever about Kodi is that it creates and maintains a library of your content. Once you tell it where video and music files are stored on your PC, it will tidily catalogue everything for you. It automatically detects new files that you add to folders.
Because Kodi can distinguish between films, TV shows and any videos you’ve created it makes sense to organise these into different folders first. To do that, open File/windows Explorer then open the folder containing your video files. Create three new folders within it and call them Movies, ‘TV shows’ and ‘My videos’. Then drag your videos into the relevant folder.
Add videos to Kodi
Let’s start by adding your videos to Kodi. Click Videos (on the left), Files, ‘Add videos’, then click Browse. You’ll see a list of locations that Kodi can play video content from, including your computer’s hard drive. To add your Videos folder to Kodi, for example, click C:, then Users, your username, followed by Videos, then the Movies, ‘TV shows’ or ‘My Videos’ folder you created earlier (see screenshot right) and click OK. You’ll now see an ‘Add video source’ screen showing the path you’ve just selected. Type a name for the media source (it will be Videos by default), then click OK to add that as a source.
If the folder containing your videos fails to appear after clicking Browse (this can happen, for example, if you store your videos on a NAS drive), click ‘Add network location’. Next, type the IP address of your NAS or video server, then click OK. You’ll now be able to browse and add videos from these sources.
Once you’ve added a folder, you’ll see a new pop-up box where you can choose (from Music, TV Shows, Movies or None) the type of file you added. Select the type that matches the folder you’ve added and then select OK (see screenshot above). Click Yes to refresh all content. If you regularly add new videos to your PC it’s worth getting Kodi to check for new content every time you open it. To do that, click Settings (the cog icon on the screen you see when you first open Kodi), Media Settings, then switch the ‘Update library on startup’ slider (in the Video Library section) to on.
Play your videos
It will take Kodi a little while to scan all the content you’ve added. Once it has done this, your main menu options will be populated. Select TV Shows, for example, and you’ll see a list of all the TV shows you have saved, complete with thumbnail images. You can browse by genre, title, year and actors. Kodi will also track your viewing to let you know which shows you have and haven’t watched.
Select any thumbnail image, and the associated film or TV show will start playing. You can use the controls in the bar at the bottom of the screen to play,
pause, rewind and so on, and you can click the ‘i’ icon to show information about the video.
Manage your music collection
Kodi is also a music player, letting you access and play all your music from one handy place. As with videos, simply tell it where you keep your music collection and Kodi will index and organise the albums and songs for you.
Unlike the Videos tab, which has three sections, the Music tab only has one. To begin adding albums and tracks, click Music (on the left), Files, then ‘Add music’. To add your music folders to Kodi, click Browse to see all your local hard drives and network locations. If Kodi fails to recognise your NAS or other shared folders, select ‘Add network location’, type your device’s IP address then select OK. You’ll now be able to browse and add any network locations.
Select a drive or network location, then navigate to the folder containing your music. For example, you’ll find Windows’ default Music folder by navigating to C:/ Users/[your username]/music. Once you locate a folder you want to add, click OK, name the folder, then click OK.
Play songs in Kodi
Kodi will now scan all the locations you’ve specified for your music. Once it has done this, you’ll be able to access your albums and tracks via the main menu’s Music tab. You’ll see a thumbnail view of each album, showing you the artwork (see screenshot below left). You can browse by artist, genre, songs and albums to find the track that you want.
Select any track, and Kodi will start playing it, moving on to the next track listed once that’s finished. To get full playback controls, expand the main menu, then click the pop-out button (a square with arrows pointing diagonally outwards). Here, you can play, pause, skip and fast-forward your selection.
To create a playlist, go to the main menu, click Music, then Playlists from the list of Categories (see screenshot above – you may have to scroll to the right using your keyboard’s arrow key to see the Playlists button). Click ‘New playlist’, then browse your library and right-click a track or album you want to add, then click Add to include it on your list. Next, click Save, then name your playlist so you can easily identify it again.
View photos in Kodi
Kodi’s photo viewer is a brilliant way to show off your digital photos. As with videos and music, Kodi lets you add folders of photos to its library. As you add new photos to these folders, Kodi automatically updates your library, letting you view new images as soon as you add them to your PC’S hard drive.
To add your photos to Kodi, click Photos in the main screen, then click ‘Add pictures’. Click Browse then add the folder(s) containing your photos in the same way you did for your Video and Music folders.
To view the photos you’ve added, click Photos in the main menu, then choose the folder you want to view (you can also specify any subfolders if you want more control over the photos shown on screen). You’ll see a list of thumbnails of your photos – click one to view it full screen.
Change the thumbnail view
When you’re browsing the thumbnails within a specific photo folder, click Options (at the bottom of the screen). Here, you can change the View type (how thumbnails are displayed). Infowall is our favourite option because it displays more thumbnails than the default mode, and lets you select an image to get more information about it, including the camera/phone used and the location (if available).
Zoom into any photo
Kodi isn’t a photo editor, but it lets you perform some basic tasks. If you want to see more detail in an image, you can use the number keys (1-9) to zoom in. Pressing 0 zooms back out and makes the photo fit on screen again. Once zoomed in, use the arrow keys to move around the image.
If an image is displayed in the wrong orientation for your screen, tap Enter to rotate the image (clockwise) by 90 degrees. You can keep tapping until the image is the way you want it.
Create a slideshow
Kodi can also automatically create a slideshow of your photos. From any folder, click Options, then click ‘View slideshow’. You can also open a photo then tap the Spacebar to jump into Slideshow Mode from that image.