ELI5 Populating Kodi Library using external HD?

by alex_harris

Hey Guys! So I've properly setup my Mi Box in my room. And I'm currently using Kodi to play torrented Movies/TV Shows on my external HD (plugged through USB).

So far I've just been using the file manager to access the files and open them. Good thing there's an option to play next file automatically.

I have a few questions:

  1. Is there some way I can populate the Movies / TV Shows Library solely from the hard drive? I've been reading about it for a week now and I can't seem to find any information about it. Like maybe can it automatically find video files (MKV) in a specific folder, and then manually add those to a specific library?

  2. Regarding audio, so I mostly download BluRay rips for movies. Audio is usually DTS (sometimes DD5.1). For now, I'm just using my BT speaker but I plan to buy 2.1 speakers for it later on. Now, where do I plug in the cable?? On the audio out of the Mi Box or the monitor? Is there some way that I can manually set Kodi to send audio through the MiBox audio port?

EDIT1: Forgot to say, the Mi Box is offline. No internet in my room atm. I torrent stuff from my sister's condo, transfer to an external drive, and watch it on the Mi Box.

EDIT2: Solved it! Pre-scraped my media using MediaElch. Kodi Library for Movies/TV Shows are now populated. Weee. Sadly I can't seem to edit the categories per library but that's just a minor setback.

JimboLodisC

You just point it to the folder.

NedSc

Start here and follow the steps: http://kodi.wiki/view/Naming_video_files

elister

Normally you connect an external drive to Kodi, go into Video menu, then files and your flash or hard drive should automatically be listed and by listed I mean, it lists the files similarly the way windows file explorer will list your files.

If your talking about having Kodi auto organize everything (recognizes a title, then downloads the poster and brief synopsis), it will do that, but you'll probably need internet access.