Media Centre Alternative.

oliseo

oliseo

oliseo

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Hi,

I've done a forum search and the most recent thread about a media centre alternative was back in December 2011, and the recommendation was to keep using media centre.

Given that Windows 8 will not have a media centre in the average joe version, can anyone recommend a decent modern media centre alternative.

I've also done a Google search, but not sure about the advice I'm getting. So I'm asking the audience.

Regards
 
CaptainCrash said:
A guy at AVForums has written an excellent walkthrough for setting up MediaPortal, which can be confusing and complicated if you haven't encountered it before - http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-entertainment-pcs/1602323-mediaportal-setup-guide.html

Highly recommended. :)
Click to expand...

Awesome, I will have a look at that.

I must say that I spent two hours last night working out how to get the metadata for the films like you see on the screen shots.

It's found in the configuration applications. I needed to update the IMDB grabber scripts as it wasn't getting the meta data correctly. Also had to rename a few of my video filenames as well.

It was worth it. Some of my rips have been converted to 800mb files (from a long time ago) and so long as you name the file correctly MediaPortal will correctly grab the meta data!

I was pleasantly surprised once I go the grasp of it how well it works! Coverflow with all the details is absolutely brilliant.

Today I am hoping to get the TV tuner working. If I can pull this off, that I will be a happy bunny!

Thank you for the link, I shall have a good read later.

As it stands, I'm very impressed with it.
 
If you have a TV card and want to record then either:
Mediaportal as the glitzy alternative to Mediacentre (though some including me find it cumbersome and sometimes not 100% stable)
or
NextPVR for a simpler very reliable option.

If you don't have a TV card and just want to play downloaded files or internet media then definitely XBMC.
 
Best skin for MP is Maya (for me any way) clean and simple, no fancy fanart or grpahics (once you disable them))
 
Wow, setting up the TV service was a right pain! Things didn't start off too well because I didn't actually have my DVB-T dongle connected! Oh the shame of that!

I had to read several wiki pages, and learn more than I ever wanted to know about transponders, frequencies and what not. It wasn't working, and I couldn't get it to scan. Then it could scan the channels, but wouldn't show them. Good job I'm stubborn.

Finally got it working by completely messing around with it. I must say the picture quality is a great deal better than WMC. I mean, by a great deal.

But what a task! I'm moving on to my DVD rips now.

MediaPortal is fantastic, but for a layman like my aunt or uncle. There is absolutely no chance.
 
Oooh, I've just found a list of channel logos!

Now just to get the EPG working and I love this application.

Particularly the fact I can stream the TV to any other device on the network! Really liking that.
 
XBMC does have PVR support if you find how to did it, i use this guide to get mediaportal working with XBMC.

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