HTPC software beginning to end

[Supertaff]

Wowza is all I can say, just quickly tried the latest build of XBMC and I'm stunned by the quality of it, looks like it blows My Movies out of the water.

I need to do some more playing with it, but first impressions are good.

Never used an XBOX so had never heard of this product before.

I just wish the 4870X2 would arrive soon, so that I can order my new build and use the current build for my HTPC.

My main problem with it so far though is that I store all of my ripped DVD's opn a NAS box with a drive letter allocated to Z:/ . I t looks like though thaqt XMBC uses that for some reason as part of it's config as when I browse to Z, it dones't show me the correct contents of the folder. It could be something simple that I've not found yet, but if anyone knows about this mapping and can advise me how to change the XMBC mapping I'd be grateful

Cheers

Taff

 

[Mr Footlong]

Easy Peasy. Go in to settings, network, SMB Client, enter your network user name/password if you have one and your local lan workgroup/domain name.

Now, when in Video for example, add source, click browse, click add network location, change your preferred protocol if necessary, either browse to your NAS or enter the name/ip manually, then you should be able to browse and select the share that you want to add. If not then add it manually to the shared folder field.

That share will now appear in the listings for you to select. Select it, click OK and you can then give it a name. Ok that and you will now have your share directly avaliable in the Videos menu.

 

[Sagalout]

My main problem with it so far though is that I store all of my ripped DVD's opn a NAS box with a drive letter allocated to Z:/ . I t looks like though thaqt XMBC uses that for some reason as part of it's config as when I browse to Z, it dones't show me the correct contents of the folder. It could be something simple that I've not found yet, but if anyone knows about this mapping and can advise me how to change the XMBC mapping I'd be grateful

Hmm, strange as I have a similar setup, with movies on NAS drive mapped as w:/ and it sees that fine. Have you gone into the movies menu then added your z:/ drive as a source?

Bad points so far:

Is it just me or is the MCE remote support a tad patchy? play, stop etc wouldn't work on the MCE remote or the Harmony One. I will have to go and play with the keymap file at some point methinks

H.264 playback was noticeably stuttery in comparison to via Media Player Classic/Media centre normal. I haven't played with the vsync/acceleration options yet but not sure if they will make a difference at this point.

Not sure about the MCE remotes as I just use my Logitech diNivo, but I'd imaging its just a keymapping issue

My x264 movies play flawlessly, using an AMD X2 4600 chip. I haven't tried 1080P stuff though, and its worth noting that it only uses CPU for decoding, and cant use any video hardware.

 

[Sagalout]

Easy Peasy. Go in to settings, network, SMB Client, enter your network user name/password if you have one and your local lan workgroup/domain name.

Now, when in Video for example, add source, click browse, click add network location, change your preferred protocol if necessary, either browse to your NAS or enter the name/ip manually, then you should be able to browse and select the share that you want to add. If not then add it manually to the shared folder field.

That share will now appear in the listings for you to select. Select it, click OK and you can then give it a name. Ok that and you will now have your share directly avaliable in the Videos menu.

Ah yeah, I forgot about using the IP address - thats why mine works Been using this for a few months now so memory is a bit sketchy!

 

[Mr Footlong]

I am probably being fussy, but I did comparisons against a couple of 1080p films that I know play with 100% fluidity via MPC/MCE (Spider-Man 3 and Stargate - Director's cut) and you could see the evenly-timed micropause once or twice a second when playing through XBMC.

One thing I do have on is speedstep, but I have seen this before and don't believe that it has anything to do with that as it is perfect via the other software. I may try with it off, but with £500/quarter leccy bills I am trying to do what I can to save power!

 

[sswats]

Wow a lot of help (and arguments) there.
Thanks guys.

I was a huge fan of XBMC and if it played HD files then I wouldn't even consider a HTPC. will definitely give this a go on the PC to see if it is a worthwhile successor.

Never been a fan of Media portal, always preferred Meedio. even if it was less customisable. But never tried either on a dedicated HTPC. so will give both a try.

As for the codecs. a lot of choices there.
I have had problems with ffdshow I now know how to solve them, but on my most recent install i just found k-lite to work instantly. So we'll see. i'll look into it a bit more.

Thanks again.

 

[Kanifee]

I also loved XBMC on the xbox, allways swore by it being the number one media software on the planet in its xbox days so im really glad to see it on the pc.
Installed it last night and first impressions are good, the GUI loads the cpu heavy though, E2160 @2.6GHZ runs at 50% load though this drops to 1% ish with any sort of video playback, havnt noticed any stuttering with h264 playback, infact id say it seems like its crisper and smoother than WMP though this could be a placebo effect?
If you video is stuttering, could it be that it requires a similier fix to what VMC needed for full screen playback, cutting the app to only using 1 or 2 cores? Give it a try must be a worth a go atleast!

Bad points i have found so far, messing with some of the video settings caused the program to hang abruptly and needed a CTRL+ESC exit, tryed to load up the XTV apple tv skin for XBMC and just got a black screen with white writing, no cursor or pictures or highlights on the menu words, had to delete the skin to get back to a usable interface. Little things i think you will agree and most fixable with some tweaking!

 

[Mr Footlong]

I was a huge fan of XBMC and if it played HD files then I wouldn't even consider a HTPC.

Agreed, it is the only reason that we have Media centres at home as well. When you have an xbox modded for cool, silent operation, a fast 7200rpm laptop HD in there, SPDIF hardwired in, full remote power on/off and XBMC there is very, very, very little reason to use anything else for media duties

 

[Mr Footlong]

Installed it last night and first impressions are good, the GUI loads the cpu heavy though, E2160 @2.6GHZ runs at 50% load though this drops to 1% ish with any sort of video playback, havnt noticed any stuttering with h264 playback, infact id say it seems like its crisper and smoother than WMP though this could be a placebo effect?

I too noticed that the cpu usage dropped when actually playing media but thought I was waffling on enough as it is! The quality did look very good and I was trying to distinguish between it and mpc, bar the microstutters of course. I will try it on the 2 other xp machines hare and see how it goes. What graphics card are you running? I currently only have Nvidia in the house, 7300GS, 7300GT, 7900GTX, 8800GT and a 8800GTX. it will be interesting if I get them all to reproduce the stuttering.

 

[Kanifee]

Only card i have in the house is also from the Green camp, 8800GT on an XP machine at the moment for SIM City4 purposes.
Just got the Skins to work, wasn't sure how to go about SVN skins but i figured out they needed BUILD.bat run to compile it or something. XTV is pretty slick but clearity is my fave, needs tweaked and set up a little more than most skins but it has a nice feel to it. Really looking forward to EX from team blackbolt but that has to be like 4 years in the making or something!

 

[entireweb]

Oh my GOD! I had no idea XBMC for Windows had come on so much. This is so absolutely perfect, all my prayers answered. Thanks for bringing this to my attention Sagalout!

All my prayers answered. LOL.

I,ve been trying it since day 1, first on the xbox and now on XP. Unfortunately you will find that its as buggy as hell. I havent tried the latest release, from a couple of days ago, but the previous where definately "beta" to say the least IMO.

Mediaportal is at present much more stable than XBMC for windows. I wish this wasnt the case, as Mediaportal is much harder to set up than XBMC. But the deal is Mediaportal works, XBMC, at present doesnt.

 

[Sagalout]

Must depend on your system and also how much you configure it. I've been running it for a few months and haven't had any problems at all. The only video files that its had problems with (literally only 2 or 3) have been unplayable in Media Portal as well.

I spent ages configuring MP but have since uninstalled it and use XBMC exclusively.

Best part is its so much more wife-friendly than anything else out there - my mrs literally wouldnt touch MP

 

[Mr Footlong]

I have to say that I do agree with Entireweb to an extent. It is showing great promise but I have managed to crash it a couple of times on different machines and it actually managed to reboot my work machine this morning while experimenting with screen resolutions/windowed mode etc..

I can't wait for them to polish it and iron out the wrinkles. Once they have, this may well be THE media centre to have on the PC. Sagalout, darling couldn't agree more about the wife-friendly part, but luckily mine is pretty good and just learns to work whatever I give her.

 

[Sagalout]

while experimenting with screen resolutions/windowed mode etc..

I think this is why I dont have problems - I dont have time to fiddle about with it! I just installed, set up my shares and screen resolution and haven't touched it since! It gets used daily and I don't recall it crashing once since it was set up. Having said that I'm actually using a build from May. Its rock stable on my machine and does everything thing I want it to so never bothered with a later build.

 

[Seft]

My set-up

Mediaportal with Monochrome Skin and My TV Series and My Films plugins
Haali Splitter
CoreAVC
Nvidia Purevideo DVD decoder
FFDshow for scaling

I do a lot of HD playback in MKV containers and it works just fine.

 

[entireweb]

I have to say that I do agree with Entireweb to an extent.

Thankyou

Ok here is the deal

Media Portal allows you to actually select the codecs you want to use for decoding audio, x.264, DVD playback, etc. For instance I have the cyberlink h264 codec for mkv, the xvid for avi. In this case you can choose the optimal codec for your requirements and machine capabilities.

XMBC doesnt. It uses ffmpeg. Unfortunately ffmpeg just doesnt cut the mustard when playing back 1080p .mkvs (h264) (eg blu ray "backups"). They stutter like hell and there is audio / video sync problems especially from smb samba shares. However the cyberlink decoder and the coreavc decoder do play back smoothly.

Now for sure if you use XBMC for playback of your old 350mb avi downloads locally onto a 19" monitor, it works, but the world has moved on. My buddies and I are streaming 8gb 1080p h264 rips over gigabit ethernet from tb,s of nas servers to 1080p projectors and full hd plasmas TVs. Only mediaportal can do this well.

 

[Mr Footlong]

I need to try a couple of 720p things that I have, so far I have only been trying 1080p material and getting the small judders. I resorted to installing IR server suite last night just to quickly get around the MCE remote mapping issues. I don't believe that the debug code to show ir commands is working yet in this port but when it does I will bin IR suite and program the keymap etc accordingly. Hopefully by then they will have sorted it out and will have native MCE remote support as it is a no brainer really.

I do have a XBOX-pc adaptor that I could use an IR dongle with, but it isn't worth the hassle. I have now swapped over to XBMC for all normal material and will just play HD stuff from the XP gui until they smooth out the 1080p H.264 playback .

Entireweb, we are kindred spirits . Housemate and I have our entire DVD/HD collection housed on our server and have streamed all our media from that for years. 5tb seemed like a lot of space whan I last upgraded the server but we have less that 1/4 of that free now lol.

 

[Sagalout]

Now for sure if you use XBMC for playback of your old 350mb avi downloads locally onto a 19" monitor, it works, but the world has moved on. My buddies and I are streaming 8gb 1080p h264 rips over gigabit ethernet from tb,s of nas servers to 1080p projectors and full hd plasmas TVs. Only mediaportal can do this well.

Wow, maybe not intentional, but thats incredibly condescending.

My setup is:

Downstairs:

HTPC driving Panasonic PZ80 42" Plasma

Upstairs:

Dedicated Cinema Room with Optomo HD65 Projector (albeit only 720p)

Both rooms are using XBMC without stutter, streaming media off a shared NAS drive. My library consists of about 50% DVD (mostly .iso format), 30% X264 (growing) and 20% xvid/divx (mostly TV stuff)

As I say, different systems obviously handle it differently. I installed MP following a long thread on AV forums which setup CORE AVC for X264 and external Kplayer etc, and generally it was fine, but getting it to play .iso files reliably and with a remote control was a nightmare. It also crashed quite a lot.

With the setups above I wouldn't use XMBC if the visual quality wasn't excellent. Also, as mentioned, I'm far too busy with other things to spend day after day tweaking the system for optimal performance. I'm more into watching the movies than worrying about the technology, and XBMC allows me to do that, and doesn't involve me being tech support for my wife and kids!

Maybe I've just struck lucky with my build and setup, but XBMC works absolutely flawlessly for me.

 

[Mr Footlong]

I love Optoma kit. My old RD65 was the best telly I have owned so far. The SXRD is a beast, but I miss the picture quality from the Optoma. I should have really gone for a proper projector after the RD65 . I will let you know if things are any better for me playing 720p material .

 

[Beansprout]

Will XBMC play DVD / Bluray disks and also sort out the HD audio? eg, if I was to pair a HTPC with a bluray drive, Radeon HD 4850 (which can pass video & audio over HDMI) and XBMC, would that do everything I needed to play HD files / discs? This world is so confusing!