Media centre set up suggestions

Slinkie · 13 Apr 2012 at 08:24

Hi all,

Tomorrow I will be receiving everything I need to turn my gaming pc into a media centre (I don't really play games any more so want to put this hardware to good use).

The media centre will have a dual freeview tuner card, a blu ray drive and lots of storage as well as internet access. I will be installing windows 7 on the pc.

What software should I use for my media centre? Is the windows 7 media centre the best or should I look for something else?

I will be ripping my blu rays and dvds to the pc to play within the media centre and keeping my current blu ray player to run alongside the media centre (I understand that getting blu rays to play in media centre is a bit tricky!)

What other software should I look at? How can I take advantage of the internet on the media centre (ie iplayer and 4od etc).

Any other suggestions on setting up a media centre is appreciated!

Thanks

Domi · 13 Apr 2012 at 14:36

XBMC is the best software

Slinkie · 14 Apr 2012 at 06:42

Can you watch and record freeview in XBMC? I couldn't see anything on the site that said you could.

arad85 · 14 Apr 2012 at 08:15

Not easily.

chaparral · 14 Apr 2012 at 11:20

Domi said:
XBMC is the best software

Does XBMC support blu-ray playback ??

DragonQ · 14 Apr 2012 at 11:40

MediaPortal is the easiest all-in-one solution if you want TV, IMO. There's an experimental build that includes BD playback also, which can be found here. There's also loads of plugins and I'd recommend using the StreamedMP skin, plus OnlineVideos for iPlayer/4oD/ITV Player/Demand 5 support.

Slinkie · 14 Apr 2012 at 12:07

Thanks, I'll have a look at media portal. I'm not Looking for blu ray playback but to play ripped blu rays. I am keeping my stand alone blu ray player too

Slinkie · 15 Apr 2012 at 16:12

Hi,

I have mediaportal and streamedmp. Does anyone know any good sites for modifying the software (backgrounds, menus etc)

Domi · 15 Apr 2012 at 17:23

been away so this is how I did it initially.

XBMC on windows 7 and used a plug in to also use media centre and swap between that and XBMC.

The reason for this being media centre was just easier for recording tv and it is notable you would need a 3rd party blu ray player to watch blu rays from media centre.

However for me I only ever watch ripped Blu rays in MKV format via XBMC and no longer use physical discs in fact my media PC has no moving parts, no fans or discs.

For me I have a very large media collection in avi, ISO and MKV formats and XBMC plays everything while also giving excellant library options with covers and stuff.

LizardKing · 15 Apr 2012 at 17:27

MediaPortal + StreamedMP
I found XBMC good but the interface just to fidely.

Cant comment on blueray usage though.

Slinkie said:
Hi,

I have mediaportal and streamedmp. Does anyone know any good sites for modifying the software (backgrounds, menus etc)

Edit - just seen this

You can use the Streamed MP menu editor to set backgrounds etc, mine are just set to random Fanart as background. Some people have done some great pieces!