What it is:
Serenity is a minimalistic skin designed for the Media Center program XBMC Media Center. The idea behind Serenity is that a skin can be both powerful and subtle. In that mindset, we created a display that maximizes customizability while still keeping the screen as uncomplicated and as clean as possible.

What makes it unique:
Serenity was designed from the ground up to allow you, the end user, to decide how XBMC is going to work. It's a skin for YOU, based on YOUR requests. Unlike other designers who would prefer to complain about every request made, I prefer an "orgy of feature requests". The more the merrier. So go nuts...

Features include: Season-specific fanart for Television shows - Every season can have it's own fanart image.

EPISODE-specific fanart for TV shows - Really wanna go nuts? Well, in a few days, you'll be able to auto-create a full-screen thumbnail image for every single TV episode in your collection, which will be display-able when browsing tv episodes.

Extra Media Images - Another unique feature of Serenity is that allows you to download DVD Covers, Inserts, and disc images. This feature is intelligent, using a special flagging system to determine if the movie has media images. (This feature is availible through Fekker's MIP, available in the download section) Each display is image-specific, configuring itself to best utilize which images are available.

Launcher/Emulator Integration - Serenity provides the tightest integration possible with the Launcher plugin, meaning that your emulators will look and feel as natural as possible, and not like just another addon. This includes emulator-specific fanart images.

Customizeable plugins - You can select which plugins (if any) will be displayed on the home screen.

Limitless fanart - You can decide whether you want to have fanart for all sections, some sections, or no sections at all. Serenity includes 50, count em, 50 high-definition backdrops which display standard when no fanart is designated for a specific section.

Custom Fanart Fade Times - You can choose how long the fanart images are shown before the next is displayed, anywhere from 3-10 seconds per image.

Optional pictures/programs button - Select which button you want displayed on the home menu. The other will be displayed under the settings gear.

Multiple info displays - Choose between large info, small info, and small info + displays. This puts you in control of how much of your screen (if any) is taken up by media info panels.

Single/double system info line - You can choose whether to display the date, the time, the date and time, date time and weather, etc; and whether or not this info should be displayed on one or two lines.

Ghost Playlist (Music Only) - Ever been listening to a playlist while looking in another section and found yourself wanting to change the song? All you need to do is select the menubar and press up, and a mini-playlist is displayed.

Conditional Weather (Optional) - Can be enabled in the fanart customization section under weather. If selected, XBMC will select a weather fanart image based on the current weather conditions. If disabled, the program will just look for any weather fanart image.

TV Studio Flagging (optional) - Using the same system as the Extra Media Images flagging, MIP can tag your .nfo files so that a customized network logo is displayed for that particular TV show or episode. Supported networks include:

If there is a network that is not in this list, please, contact me and I will add it.

Custom Film Studio Logos - Like TV Networks, Serenity contains customized logos for a wide selection of major movie studios. Supported studios are as follows:


Custom Genre Posters - Yes, Serenity also has a wide selection of hand-made genre images for all your movie browsing pleasure.

Support for Banner and Poster thumbs for TV shows - You no longer have to limit your collection to what a skin is capable of. Serenity has options for Wide Banner images and Poster images.

Show-specific color themes (coming soon) - Serenity takes advantage of a little-used feature offered by XBMC...contextual colorthemes. Each show stored on TVDB.com has a set of complimentary color themes based on a selected fanart image. When enabled, Serenity will adapt itself to these themes to create a unique view for every TV show.

Unique Music Library - Instead of taking the usual top-down approach to XBMC's music database, Serenity takes a more lateral approach...letting you jump between Genre, Artist, Album, and Songview with a single keystroke.

Media Management Program for Serenity/XBMC, MIP - Media Info Plus has many features that were added specifically for Serenity. This means that when used in conjunction with Serenity, you will have access to features not found in any other skin for XBMC Media Center.

HD/SD Media Flagging support - MIP also allows for custom flags to be written for Serenity that will display whether a video file is 520p/i, 720p/i, 1080p/i, or regular SD. It will also show the number of audio channels, video container used, and what language of subtitles are available.

And I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting...