Issue with WMC.. May have to move to XBMC.. And negatives?

413x

413x

413x

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Windows media centre will not keep my channel order and keeps reshuffling the channels to some order that they would be on a freeview box (i assum )

Having tried everything I can think of I think I have to change applications for my media front end app

So what I'm asking is can XBMC do all the following.

Custom themes.. Ie I can chose wallpapers etc
Custom channel order
Live tv.. Guide/watch and record/scheduled recording, pause live tv
Internet radio
Media browser.. Will it accept this application for displaying meta data from blu ray and dvd rips, displaying cover art and synopsis etc
Music player from mp3s again with metadata (WMC wasn't good with this)
3d blu ray playback from isos (i have a plugin for WMC that uses tmt 5)

I think that is all
 
I've recently changed from WMC to XBMC.

Custom themes.. Ie I can chose wallpapers etc
Yes, there are lots of themes, and you can choose wallpapers for different sections, as well as using fanart etc

Custom channel order
Live tv.. Guide/watch and record/scheduled recording, pause live tv
LiveTV is only just coming into the main development stream, you will be wanting Frodo (version 12) Beta 1 for any LiveTV stuff

Internet radio
Loads of Add-Ons for loads of different internet radio

Media browser.. Will it accept this application for displaying meta data from blu ray and dvd rips, displaying cover art and synopsis etc
It does this natively, once you install one of the many different scraper AddOns

Music player from mp3s again with metadata (WMC wasn't good with this)
Does this much better than WMC, again, does it natively (once you add a scraper)

3d blu ray playback from isos (i have a plugin for WMC that uses tmt 5)
Not sure on this one - but I remember seeing something in the Frodo notes about Blu-Ray playback


I now have XBMC running on 2 machines in the house, and have a shared MySQL database on my WHS box, so that both machines (and any I subsequently add) will all share the same library and Watched States etc. Also, I can be watching a video on one PC, stop it, and go to the next PC and resume playback from the same point! (Useful when watching a film but want to head to bed)
 
I won't address everything as Confused has done a good job, but I've got a small addition.

Live TV works well but pausing wasn't possible last time I tried.

In the betas I believe they've added blu-ray playback, but without menus. If you're ripping these blu-rays yourself it might just be easier if you use something like Makemkv as it'll take roughly the same amount of time as making an iso, be smaller and playable in a wider array of players (XBMC being one of them).
 
Oh ok, hmm that may be a problem then, I think I'd rather have the channel order be out than not be able to pause the tv (something I use quite a lot) I really wanted to avoid having to use two applications.

I thought live tv with pause etc was one of the major benifits of a Htpcthat all software would aaccommodate?

I rip usually to mkv but it doesn't work with full 3d if you don't have an ISO (for reasons I don't fully understand)

So WMC. Better for tv
Equal for films by sounds of it
XBMC. Beer for music/radio

Htpc Definitely spends most of its time with tv
 
Considering your requirements for over-the-air TV, I'm surprised no-one's suggested MediaPortal - I switched from WMC a few months ago and haven't looked back.

It's a bit fiddly to set up, but if you follow the guide here you shouldn't go far wrong. :)
 
I've heard good things about media portal, especially the live TV side of things, although was put off by the setup issues I read about (this was a few years back so no doubt improved now) so I use XBMC (have 2 setups in the house).

Definitely go for the linux distro of it if you can - I run one of each but the window version is slower to load (even on an ssd) and doesn't seem as stable. Main reason I keep wthe windows version is for blu ray playback.

I think xbmc has been incorporated into the linux core now too so as others have said, hopefully should see fairly rapid improvements in live tv integration. ;)
 
Looks interesting, will be on a Windows pc for sure (gaming pc too)

Does it have many dark themes? I insist on decent themes if possible with animation
 
Had a deeply annoying evening/night trying to get to grips with XBMC.

Why can't it handle multi item movie folders in a straightforward manner like WMC/Mediabrowser? :confused: The general XBMC dev attidue seems that they don't think it's an issue, which is a shame as I'd probably migrate if they did.

As for Media Portal that just makes my head hurt every time I try to use it. :D
 
Lunatic Dreyfus said:
Had a deeply annoying evening/night trying to get to grips with XBMC.

Why can't it handle multi item movie folders in a straightforward manner like WMC/Mediabrowser? :confused: The general XBMC dev attidue seems that they don't think it's an issue, which is a shame as I'd probably migrate if they did.

As for Media Portal that just makes my head hurt every time I try to use it. :D
Click to expand...

I just tried it and thought the same thing, I have my films across 3 network drives.

I use JRiver Media Centre and it's excellent, worth every penny.
 
Yea explanation needed. I have movies and TV shows across 5 or 6 sources. If its a case of you needing how to learn to use Libraries then... that's your answer :P

As for Live TV, I am still using 7MC as XBMC just isn't there, yet. I am not sure they will ever be able to pause live TV having read the forums but someone will come up with something I am sure.
 
Isn't the pausing dependent on the back-end though?

At any rate MediaPortal is your only realistic alternative at the moment. At the current pace of development it will be be quite a long time before XBMC PVR is good enough to replace my MP installation, which is a shame because in many other respects (though not all) XBMC is superior. Some standard PVR features, like an interface to set up recording schedules aren't even planned for inclusion in the XBMC PVR yet!

If you go down the MediaPortal route I'd suggest also looking at Argus TV (formerly ForTheRecord) as it provides more sophisticated scheduling and a web interface. Also get a codec pack like SAF and a good skin like Avalon.

MP can be a bit complicated to setup but it's not necessarily worse then WMP with a load of plugins and is much more flexible. The biggest downside is the slightly clunky interface.
 
I'm trying out XBMC PVR atm as maintaining a working and consistent EPG for freesat was becoming a pain.
I've using TVHeadend as the backend and the associated plugin for XBMC. It's a million times easier to configure than Myth and you can use the web interface to do series recordings, or you can record individual programs via the EPG in XBMC, also having it record into mkv is quite handy for portability (and I can access it via the Pi I have in another room too). It might not be quite 100% of what MCE was but given how much better XBMC is at handling other media it's definitely good enough.
 
Lunatic Dreyfus said:
Why can't it handle multi item movie folders in a straightforward manner like WMC/Mediabrowser? :confused: The general XBMC dev attidue seems that they don't think it's an issue, which is a shame as I'd probably migrate if they did.
Click to expand...

Make sure you've got a Movie or TV scraper installed from the "Add-Ons" (I use the Univeral Scraper in each section), and when you add each of your sources, tell it that it contains Movies or TV, select the scraper, and it'll then all show up in your one library.

XBMC is very library-centric, as opposed to MediaBrowser which was file/folder based... but, you still need to have your file/folder structure in a sensible way to allow it to scrape correctly. This means a single movie in a single folder named for the movie, and TV programs in a folder for the program, and then ensure the filename contains something to allow it to figure out what episode it is.


Unless, you mean where you've got multiple files for one movie? In which case, check the Wiki, from memory you need the files named .cd1.ext, .cd2.ext etc, and it'll flow all the parts into a seamless playback :)
 
I'm definitely going to have to look for the drawbacks of media portal. ShameiI know I'm going to loose functionality somewhere

Shame there isn't an all in one decent option. I'd pay!
 
wonder_lander said:
For WMC I use DVBLogic to deliver 2 x Sky tuners and 2 x Freesat tuners under WMC.

Using DVBLogic means I'm in complete control of my channel numbering! :D
Click to expand...

Does this replace the WMC default tv guide?
I'm using guide tool atm and it will not stick. For the life of me I cannot find what is reordering the channels!
 
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