Does XBMC "Just work" for you? Whats your favorite front-end?

[spencers]

XBMC "just works" for me.

 

I have an Acer Revo 1600 with OpenELEC installed (one of the eden betas). Quite stable, especially after getting SAB/SB/CP off that box and onto my newly built unRAID server. Other than that, its always made me happy. Never lagged or stuttered with video.

 

The XBMC box is used for:

x264 video

ESPN3

Youtube

AirPlay

 

In the past I used XBMCfreaks LiveCDs which worked equally well out of the box. I now use OpenELEC because it boots so quickly (even though I rarely turn off my xbmc box  )

[WeeboTech]

Seems the ones I get are bent though!

You must be psychic. 

[amatt]

...I use W7 (VLC and ArcSoft players) pointed to a YAMJ jukebox. The ease of use of the W7 machines with YAMJ far outweighs the cool internet scraping done by the Open Elec plug-ins. I'll post jukebox screenshots later if interested.

 

Very interested in this setup, as I'm assuming you're using YAMJ for unRAID as a plugin. While the native scraping in Eden is much improved, it is still not as advantageous as having it already stored and scraped on the server itself.

 

No, not at this time - I'd rather choose when to update the library. The library itself is kept with the movies folder on the unRaid server, but I run YAMJ from one of the other working machines. A couple of months ago, there was an issue with YAMJ where IMDB had changed something in it's db that corrupted some of the jukebox entries - 30 or 40 of the 2200+ movies ended up in the "U's" as unknown. Also, YAYman can be used to schedule a run on from this working machine if desired.

 

I am using the 5150 scin slightly customized and a tiny script that reads post-processed YAMJ HTML to add /video_ts.ifo to .../VIDEO_TS/ when found. By doing this, (insert favorite browser here) can call ArcSoft's Media Player to play the movie when the "play" button is pressed on the page. ArcSoft IMO plays .m2ts better than the VLC player also, but Windows is told to open all other file types with VLC. The beauty of this se-up for us is that nnone of the family have to delve into individual movie folders to play anything - just press play, or "back" to go to the previous menu and choose again -  not so with openelec...

 

84 pages - choose by title, year, new, etc

[Influencer]

Well wouldn't you know it, had some time today so I decided to dig out the keyboard and try the openelec install again. Installed and everything "just works". Remote, volume knob on the antec case, audio, everything.

 

I'm still interested in testing out the XBMCbuntu build, so I'll likely install that to a seperate partition on my HDD later, so I still have dual boot. This is important as until I get everything setup, I still need the already working MediaBrowser for the WAF .

 

Only thing I need to figure out, and I believe I can fix this by simply changing the key settings on the logitech remote, is my "back" button doesn't work, but pressing "Menu" goes "back", lol. Its only one button off on the remote but its an OCD thing.

 

LCD "Kinda" works but thats not a must, and others have got it to work so I'll play with that.

 

Right now I'm trying to find another smaller thumb drive so my 8GB drive isn't wasted on a 125MB install of openelec!

[carlos28355]

i WANT to use XBMC ive installed it a couple times but it was all so over whelming...maybe ill try it again! 

[Influencer]

Well I tried XBMCbuntu, it didn't like me so much. It REFUSED to work with my remote, even though it was getting all the proper signals(checked through ir-keytables).

 

Other than that, it still didn't like my audio any.

 

OpenElec on the other hand worked perfectly out of the box. It also was more of what I was going for in that it didn't use ANY resources. The Live install still had ubuntu underneath but it still ran significantly better than windows. I might play with it more in the near future.

 

Its not the lack of trying or linux noobness, its just more work than I feel like putting into it right now,  .

[mikechy]

Last Friday evening I upgraded by existing XBMC box to the new XBMCbuntu.  I also swapped the HD out for a SSD.  I love that the system is ready to roll in about 10 seconds and it runs 3-4 times faster than it did when I had it running on top of Win 7. 

 

I did have to screw with the HDMI audio a bit to make it work and do not have the sounds working in the menus yet but have read several posts that it's just a simple update to an asound config file. 

 

Overall I'm very pleased with the new version of XBMC.

[Influencer]

I think I'm going to give it another go, my main problem is the only time I have to work on it is when I get home from work at night, and then I'm too tired to mess with command line anything, 

 

I'm really fighting, trying to find a good solution for what I want. I LOVE how it runs faster and starts up faster than Win7+Mediabrowser, but I simply like how MediaBrowser presents everything better. I might be able to get XBMC to do the same, just gotta find the theme that will do it and turn the right options on, lol.

 

Mediabrowser shows the sources on the main screen, which works great for me. I have separate menu items for HD Movies, SD Movies, TV Shows, and Kids Shows.

 

Inside the Kids Shows source are two more folders, Kids Movies and Kids TV. XBMC wants to put The Kids Movies with my movies, which doesn't work as its harder for my son to find his movies and TV shows, plus I simply would rather not see them in my lineup.

 

I know some skins let me add favorites to the home screen, which I believe will give me what I want, just not 100% sure yet, haven't found a skin that has that feature that I really care for.

 

Another thing is the Recent Movies and Recent TV shows. The way XBMC shows them(again only on some skins I believe) is kind of...weird.

 

I'm still playing around with the options, I might find something that works good for me. At the very least I'm planning on using XBMC on the other TV's, as obviously in the bedroom I wouldn't add the kids shows as a source, and for my sons room I don't add my movies to it, so the only HTPC that's a problem is the main tv, I might end up sticking to MediaBrowser there, I hardly ever cut it off anyway so start up isn't that big of a deal. I'll just strip Windows of any and every resource using feature it has, 

[SCSI]

I've used XBMCfreak releases for a long time but I then switched to openelec. XBMC just works on my Asrock ION motherboard 

[mr.sparkle]

Influencer, smart playlists will do everything you're looking for.

[mcs]

 

Inside the Kids Shows source are two more folders, Kids Movies and Kids TV. XBMC wants to put The Kids Movies with my movies, which doesn't work as its harder for my son to find his movies and TV shows, plus I simply would rather not see them in my lineup.

 

 

I’ve gotten around the parents verses kids separation in XBMC by creating a “Child” user which only has kids movies/documentaries/TV shows in its database, while the “parent” user has everything else.  My child then logs in as “Child” and only has access to what is appropriate.

[Influencer]

I don't want to create another user as that just adds another level I have to go through, as well as my son. I'll look into it, I know it sounds lazy but atleast with MediaBrowser, I can lock out the "adult" movies and tv shows with a pin, and then when I try and enter it I just enter a 4 digit pin, it appears with xbmc I have to log out as one and in as another, just seems like, pardon my language, going around my ass to get to my elbow.

[carlos28355]

ive been curious of this adult thing as well. although i do not have kids haha but having it come up in the living room tv may be uncomfortable for the other person  if you find a nice solution please post it here thanks

[Influencer]

Well the "adult" I was talking about is just adult oriented movies, my almost 5 year old son isn't really interested in watching all the Rambo movies, or just about anything else that isn't a cartoon, so I keep his library separate so he only see's his shows. But I DO understand what your saying, definitely could make others uncomfortable.

 

In xbmc I don't know if there would be a good solution for that, but in Mediabrowser you can choose to hide it and it would only be visible after entering the PIN. I'm actually surprised this feature isn't in xbmc

[mcs]

With Mediabrowser a PIN is used to view different titles.

With XBMC you create different users and switch between users to see different titles.

[DigitalDivide]

Has anyone looked at MeedioOS.  Seems pretty good, http://www.meedios.com/

[squirrellydw]

I use PLEX, installed my my Mac mini hooked up to my TV.  ATV2 JB running PLEX hooked up to our bedroom TV.  Plays everything I throw at it.

[abs0lut.zer0]

Has anyone looked at MeedioOS.  Seems pretty good, http://www.meedios.com/

 

just saw the screenies and looks good you tried it yet ?

[Influencer]

I tried MeediOS years back and then it worked but wasn't impressive, it looks like a lot has changed. I might venture to giving this a try on my next day off. Not the departure from windows I was looking for, but it'll be interesting to see how much its improved atleast.

 

I've setup XBMC and am liking it, for my main HTPC I still use MediaBrowser. Mainly because my kids know it, I've been using xbmc in the other rooms, not sure what the problem was in the past where it would never work right, but atleast I finally got it,

[abs0lut.zer0]

I've setup XBMC and am liking it, , not sure what the problem was in the past where it would never work right, but at least I finally got it,

ditto

just finished trying meedios and don't like it

 

used to used gbpvr cause it was so simple but XBMC FTW

[BetaQuasi]

Bit late to the thread, but using multiple HTPC's on the latest Openelec-based XBMC PVR build (Beta 2, eden-based) with tvheadend and a HDhomerun.  Does everything I could possibly want and does it well, and the openelec version is extremely easy to update (copy 2 files into a shared folder) and runs in memory in much the same way that unRAID does.

 

If you are having issues with XBMC, do try an Openelec build.. they "just work", providing you don't have any of the typical linux kernel hardware issues (Realtek 8111e etc.)