Overview

aMPed includes a Backdrops system that allows you to choose your preferred style of Default backdrops: Single Image, Multiple Images or None; as well as Home Screen backdrops.

Select Your Backdrops Style

1. Open aMPedConfig using the shortcut on your desktop
2. Go to the Backdrops tab
   
3. Under Layout, select your Default backdrop style:
   1. Single Image
   2. Multiple Images which cycle (default)
   3. None

These backdrops display in almost all windows, wherever fanart is not enabled, not supported or not available. This includes windows where Big Covers display. See below for details on how to customize/change the default backdrop images.

1. Pictures/Videos Thumbs

Use Thumb as backdrop (default is off) - display auto generated thumbnail images as backdrops in Pictures, Video Shares (Thumbs Layout) TV Series and Video Playlists, and Recorded TV.

Note: If you have enabled Pictures fanart in the Fanart Handler plugin aMPed will display the higher resolution images instead.

1. My Home or My Plugins backdrops

Select Single Image, cycling Multiple images, or Fanart handler backdrops.  You can even browse to a folder containing your own custom backdrops for single or multi-image backdrops. Or you can copy your custom backdrops to the ...\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs\Skin FanArt\UserDef\pictures folder and choose Fanart  > Pictures.  See below for details on how to choose Home  Screen Backdrops

Note: Toselect or change backdrops for Basic Home layouts, see Basic Home Editor.

Home Screen Backdrops

As of version 3.3. there are no longer separate backdrops for each theme.  Instead aMPed offers several backdrop collections:  aMPed, Canada, Floral, Landscape, Travel, which you can use on any Home screen in any Theme.

Of course, you can also choose any of the Default backdrop folders if you prefer:  Games, Music, News, Pictures, Plugins, TV, Video, Weather

1. My Home or My Plugins windows - click the related button on the Backdrops tab in aMPedConfig
2. Basic Home
   1. For the  main menu backdrops, click the 'Home' button under Edit Backdrops
   2. For revaMPed sub menus - select the item which has a sub menu and press the 'Current' button. If items do not have sub menus, the 'Current' button will be inactive, or grayed out
   3. For further details see the tutorials on editing revaMPed or Vintage Basic Home layouts.
3. The dialog to Choose a Backdrop is the same for My Home, My Plugins or Basic Home layouts:

You may choose from three types of Backdrops:

• fanart - displays random fanart images from [userdata]\thumbs\Skin FanArt\folders (either scraped or userdef folders) via the Fanart Handler plugin
• multiple images - cycling backdrops from \amped\media\animations folders -
• single images - static backdrops from \amped\media\animations folders

Once you select your backdrop type, choose a category from the drop down box. For Single or Multiple image backdrops, you can also use the Browse option to select any other image or folder on your hard drive.

Note: If you are select a folder for multiple images, be careful how many images the folder contains as they get loaded in memory in MediaPortal. The limit depends on the size of the images, your system memory and many other factors. Many users have used folders with over 100 images without issues.