which proggie for HTPC?

[sacretagent]

Hi all,

 

now with my storage all on unraid is it time to change the htpc

i need a htpc that is easy to handle for wife and kids who are Thai and which have a limited vocabulary

i need it to have more than one video list

and for the rest i would like it to be able to play music too

 

I tried XBMC so far but the library option sucks

i can not have a list For

English movies

English Movies with Thai and English sound

Thai Movies with Thai and English sound

Thai Movies Thai only

They also have still no support for UTF so thai is displayed as little squares (i hacked it a bit so it does display Thai now but every update i have to do it all over again )

and to browse a 3000 + movie collection is it also not the handiest interface .. it would be very handy if you could do a ctrl f or something like that to find a movie back instead to have to scroll a 1000 movies before you get to the letter M or so

 

 

I also had a go at windows Media Center but that sucks even more ... especially with "Scene" releases where movie titles are sometimes just first letters of a title and media centre reads file names and not folder names

 

So i searched google and found these proggies

 

Mediaportal -> http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

Moovida -> http://www.moovida.com

Freevoo -> http://freevo.sourceforge.net/index.php

NPVR -> http://www.gbpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage

 

and a whole bunch more on this blog

http://eirikso.com/2005/10/25/the-media-center-software-list/

 

now i know a lot of you guys here have a HTPC so i was hoping to get some advice on which program to use

that can give me a library mode view as xbmc has but for all my different video folders

it would make my life a lot easier as now with XBMC i need to be home for the wife and kids to be able to watch something

 

 

 

 

[BRiT]

And Smart Playlists didn't work for you in XBMC? I haven't used them, but that's how others created additional lists directly off the Main Menu. I don't know if in XBMC Dharma it allows you to filter based on audio or subtitle tracks.

[sacretagent]

And Smart Playlists didn't work for you in XBMC? I haven't used them, but that's how others created additional lists directly off the Main Menu. I don't know if in XBMC Dharma it allows you to filter based on audio or subtitle tracks.

HI BRiT,

 

Smart Play lists are not based on folders

i have all my movies sorted in folders according language (i have a dutch and French list too as i am originally Belgian   )

so what i would need is in xbmc to have a submenu under video library

with the categories according my languages ...

and as far as i tried this is not possible with smart Play Lists

 

I stand corrected ... there seems to be a way to get the path as a rule in smart Play lists ... but it aint working for the moment

i made a post in their forum to see what i do wrong

 

I just downloaded mediaportal to see how this works ..... (is installing mysql 5 ) and seems to be also usable for more clients on a network ...

hopefully i can sort my video's in the library  

[kizer]

Personally I do do mean personally. I would use XBMC and use something like ember media manager to grab your fan art and plots and what not. Then while setting it up use the genres options and use something like Thai and English so when you view all of the Thai genres it would only show Thai movies and when you select the English genres it only shows the English movies.

[Loch]

Agree with Kizer, although it looks like Ember Media Manager may be dead. Their website account has been suspended and no activity for months. There are several other options, though. I have been playing with XMM2 which seems quite nice once you figure it out.

 

I used Sage for quite a while. I just didn't care for Mediaportal. XBMC seems very nice and you can't beat free.

[cj0r]

Loch, I think you need to give MediaPortal another shot. I am a firm believer in it now and I left it for a period of time. The amount of versatility and customization not to mention a very very SOLID set of plugins make it an almost unbeatable platform. Install MediaPortal, with the StreamedMP skin (xbmc mediastream port essentially) then download the SAF 5 custom filter package (handles all your codec needs without cluttering your system) and you're essentially done. You can set it up to launch other programs too if you need them. For instance mine is ready to seamlessly launch Arcsoft TotalMedia (for native bluray playback because they haven't been ripped yet), HuluDesktop (self explanatory) and Klyo Browser (10ft web browser) as I need them. I'm going to get it ready for ROM emulators too soon but haven't had the time. I have 0 need for a mouse/keyboard to be hooked up, it's all controlled through my Harmony remote.

 

The only thing that I don't like about MePo is that currently it can't compete with the performance of other skin engines offered by other platforms. XBMC's interface for instance is so silky smooth during usage. I think the benefits of MePo far out weight this though especially if you setup your HTPC for TV watching too (something that XBMC doesn't offer from my understanding... at least yet).

[Loch]

Thanks Drealit. I have a friend that really likes MePo. I installed it and just couldn't get into it. I may need to play around with it more (if the wife lets me). XBMC just has some super skins and the visuals seems heads and shoulders above the rest right now.

 

I really liked SageTV and have been using it for years, but once my cable company encrypted everything except the local channels (and they seem to move them around every few months), I have just about given up personally recording/"tivo-ing" and just watch it live or watch it a few hours later after it downloads. That really was SageTV's strong point. Although much better behind the seems, version 7 just didn't cut it for me with the visuals. So I jumped to MePo and now XBMC.

[sacretagent]

I want to Thanks BRiT for letting me have another look at special playlists

i hacked the skin a bit according this post and now i have all buttons on the home view

 

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=89678

 

now just figuring out a way to search more easy ...

and a remote

[BRiT]

I'm glad that you figured out how to make it work. I have an item on my todo list that requires this exact solution. Now I know it can be done, it'll be moved to the top of the list, well right after upgrade to XBMC Dharma final.

[lionelhutz]

In MC7 with MediaBrowser I can just hit the numbers on my remote to spell the name I'm searching for. Hitting the letters on the keyboard does the same thing. Doesn't XBMC do this?

 

Peter

[Stokkes]

You can configure xbmc to use SMS-style navigation through lists. So you press 2 twice for "b", etc.

[dgaschk]

XBMC has a pop-up keyboard that you can navigate with the arrow keys on a remote. I don't know how to enable it for searches.

[cj0r]

MediaPortal has a t9 style search function for remotes (for movingpictures at least) .

[fitbrit]

I love my J. River Media Center. It works very well with unRAID and I can share a library of my media with every PC and Mac in the house - and there are quite a few. The tagging and organisation features are great as well as multiple zone handling.

[limetech]

If you value your time and sanity forget HTPC, look at the Popcorn Hour C-200.  Together with YAMJ it can't get much easier & everything just plays, even Bluray rips.  Never tried to look at foreign subtitles though...

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&mainItemId=12

 

No affiliation, just has saved me hours and hours and hours of time better spent refining unRAID 

[kaiguy]

I was looking at Popcorn Hour a couple months back, and it's nice to get a first-hand recommendation.  I think I'm going to take a strong look at the Popcorn Hour A-210 for my bedroom TV, as I don't think I need all the features of the C-200. 

 

For my living room TV, I personally use Plex on a Mac Mini.  It just works and provides a beautiful presentation of media.  Plus I love the way I can stream to my iPhone 4 via the Plex app over 3G or wifi, or watch my media on my laptop away from home with a little Hamachi-assisted voodoo.  The major drawback is the Mac Mini is not cheap by any means, but it does look sweet in my entertainment center.

[speedkills]

One more vote for Plex.  Not the cheapest option but currently the best option.  Mac Mini's are very power efficient for their capability and even if someday Plex isn't the top dog a Mac Mini will still run XBMC, Boxee or most anything else well.

 

That said I have a buddy on a tight budget who could not afford to go the Plex route so he picked up an atom/ion box to run XBMC.  Not quite as nice as Plex and more work to configure and keep up to date but it better than anything else you can pick up for under $200.

[speedkills]

Just a heads up for anyone running Plex and Sickbeard, there is a great Plex plugin for Sickbeard that allows you to use your recently viewed files list to archive and delete your shows.  Out of the box Plex has a very annoying limitation that it will not allow you to delete files you have watched, and Sickbeard has an annoying feature that marks shows you have deleted as "missed" instead of watched, ignored, archived or something else that would let you know you don't need to download this, you (or your kids, whatever) have already watched this and are not planning on watching it again.

 

The plugin just works, it allows you to add shows from the Plex interface in case you hear or read about a new show (my girlfriend is always adding new stuff herself she reads about in Entertainment Weekly) and when you are done you can delete and mark archived in Sickbeard all in one fell swoop, as well as view your coming soon lists and even search for episodes you may have missed for some reason.  Pretty nice to be able to do all of that from your iPhone or remote.