Media PC - Best software?
- Thread starter FatRakoon
- Start date
I've had an HTPC for PVR and media duties for over ten years now (started with MCE2004).
My current box in the living room is running Windows 7 with Media Centre for PVR duties and Plex for media and works extremely well. Whilst there are other solutions out there for TV PVR, no one has ever managed to make anything as seamless and simple to use as WMC and its removal from Windows 10 annoyed me greatly.
My HTPC will be staying on Windows 7 for as long as possible. Theoretically this could be forever but I suspect that Microsoft may stop the guide update service at some point in the future (they've already had issues with it in the last month which lead many to suspect it was all over but apparently not quite yet). At this juncture it'll be a case of using some third-party system to populate the guide or switching to another system altogether.
I also watch TV on my main PC, also using Windows 7 with Media Centre. This is more of a problem as I want to upgrade to Windows 10. To that end I've spent quite a while looking at the various alternatives such as DVB Viewer and DVB Link.
What I've settled on is Argus TV as the back-end with Kodi as the front-end. This is working very well indeed and is pretty simple to set up compared to some of the other solutions. Getting the guide and channel logos in was no hassle and, whilst I have to set the Freeview channel numbers manually in Argus, Kodi does pull everything through correctly once set up right. The Kodi add-in works well for viewing, recording and time-shifting.
I'm using a Blackgold BGT3620 dual DVB-T2 in both my HTPC and main box.
My current box in the living room is running Windows 7 with Media Centre for PVR duties and Plex for media and works extremely well. Whilst there are other solutions out there for TV PVR, no one has ever managed to make anything as seamless and simple to use as WMC and its removal from Windows 10 annoyed me greatly.
My HTPC will be staying on Windows 7 for as long as possible. Theoretically this could be forever but I suspect that Microsoft may stop the guide update service at some point in the future (they've already had issues with it in the last month which lead many to suspect it was all over but apparently not quite yet). At this juncture it'll be a case of using some third-party system to populate the guide or switching to another system altogether.
I also watch TV on my main PC, also using Windows 7 with Media Centre. This is more of a problem as I want to upgrade to Windows 10. To that end I've spent quite a while looking at the various alternatives such as DVB Viewer and DVB Link.
What I've settled on is Argus TV as the back-end with Kodi as the front-end. This is working very well indeed and is pretty simple to set up compared to some of the other solutions. Getting the guide and channel logos in was no hassle and, whilst I have to set the Freeview channel numbers manually in Argus, Kodi does pull everything through correctly once set up right. The Kodi add-in works well for viewing, recording and time-shifting.
I'm using a Blackgold BGT3620 dual DVB-T2 in both my HTPC and main box.
I do agree that most of the junk on TV is trash these days, however, what we have, is the family likes Emmerdale and Corrie, the missus likes her Holby City and a couple of others, but she never gets the chance to watch them.
Now, we do have full access to ITV and BBC Players on the internet, but we have yet to be able to watch a program in its entireity without the stupid spinning disc popping its ugly head up... We are on Sky but they are utterly useless and I cannot wait for my contract to end so I can be rid of them forever!
And yes, we do have Sky as I said and so, we could and I do record using that too, but, the family being my family, are just as thick as I am, and they wont use it to watch the programs that I have already recorded.
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Now, as to the very many Media centre apps that are out there, Again, Media Portal is another one that I have used... I liked it. I have failed completely to get KODI to show any live TV at all, although I can probably get it to make me a cup of tea, and scratch my jewels, the one thing I do want it to do, I have failed.
Windows Media Centre, I have to say, is by far, the best Media player that covers TV Recording... I admit that its not for playback, but then, I can just Drag N Drop to VLC anything else I want to watch, so, I think that I will just give up and not bother to upgrade my Media PC... I will just sort out those bits that give me the Windows 10 icon and get rid of that so I get left alone.
BlackGold BGT 3620? Ok, I will look that one up.
I have a whole load of cards and the only one thats flawless for me, is my old Leadtek DVT1000S. If I find another one of these, then I will be happy to just use that, but I will look out for that BlackGold one too!
Thanks all.
Now, we do have full access to ITV and BBC Players on the internet, but we have yet to be able to watch a program in its entireity without the stupid spinning disc popping its ugly head up... We are on Sky but they are utterly useless and I cannot wait for my contract to end so I can be rid of them forever!
And yes, we do have Sky as I said and so, we could and I do record using that too, but, the family being my family, are just as thick as I am, and they wont use it to watch the programs that I have already recorded.
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Now, as to the very many Media centre apps that are out there, Again, Media Portal is another one that I have used... I liked it. I have failed completely to get KODI to show any live TV at all, although I can probably get it to make me a cup of tea, and scratch my jewels, the one thing I do want it to do, I have failed.
Windows Media Centre, I have to say, is by far, the best Media player that covers TV Recording... I admit that its not for playback, but then, I can just Drag N Drop to VLC anything else I want to watch, so, I think that I will just give up and not bother to upgrade my Media PC... I will just sort out those bits that give me the Windows 10 icon and get rid of that so I get left alone.
BlackGold BGT 3620? Ok, I will look that one up.
I have a whole load of cards and the only one thats flawless for me, is my old Leadtek DVT1000S. If I find another one of these, then I will be happy to just use that, but I will look out for that BlackGold one too!
Thanks all.
Seriously, grab Argus TV and have a play, it works very well.
I've got three of the BGT3620 tuners now and they've been rock solid. Not sure if that particular model is sold any more and they're not cheap but they work extremely well and have managed to be solid with weaker signals where other tuners I've used have failed and started breaking up.
I've got three of the BGT3620 tuners now and they've been rock solid. Not sure if that particular model is sold any more and they're not cheap but they work extremely well and have managed to be solid with weaker signals where other tuners I've used have failed and started breaking up.
Well, my brand new BGT 3620 came yesterday.
Well annoyed with myself.. I thought it was one of the wifes perfumes that she keeps buying on ebay.
The box came and it was still sealed and brand new and I paid £75 for it. Was that a fair price?
Anyway, its miniscule... I had to use tweezers to install it ( LOL )
Ok, anyway, I think things are good.
I did a re-search for new channels, and it found 200. I have usually got a high of 176 so thats better already... not saying that I care for the extra channels, but there you go.
I have seen a couple of programs that I wanted to record have not come out as there was no signal on that channel ( ARGH... This is what my others were doing at times ) and so, what I have done, is cleared the recording schedule and re-done it from scratch, and so we will see how that goes.
The picture I am impressed with... Its crystal clear and while the best of my other cards are great, and are clear as a bell, when you go up a notch, you do notice it, not just placebo, but its definitely a better picture.
Admittedly, for Emmerdale or Coronation street, its hardly going to rock our world is it, but with the rugby, we can see the ball and the players a fair bit better.
Time will give it a real trial, but so far, I am very very happy with it.
I am also very vvery happy with Windows Media Center.
I have a fairly silly collection of various Media player options that I am giving a trial of, and some are simply not at all t my liking but others I see potential. The snag is, that none of them even come close to being anywhere near as simple to use as WMC is.
I have still failed completely to get KODI to do anything even close to display a TV picture, ArgusTV seems to want me to log in to a server, and I have done nothing else with that, DVBViewer I can get a picture on, and I might like it, if I got further into it, so, who knows?
I have even been twiddling with the software that has come with some of the cards and they are even giving me better results than KODI is and they are rubbish. I even bought a couple of USB TV things and they have been fun to play with, they give a good display when I use a proper cable that connects to the proper aerial, but they have displayed nothing when I have used a small aerial, and I even splashed out on a bundle of those for my exploits with my laptop.
Hell, I even have a few mini pci tv cards for laptops and they are all utterly useless because I need to open the laptop up to get an aerial into it.
Ah well...
Maybe I will put them onto the MM but I feal another ban for flooding the MM with too much stuff LOL
Well annoyed with myself.. I thought it was one of the wifes perfumes that she keeps buying on ebay.
The box came and it was still sealed and brand new and I paid £75 for it. Was that a fair price?
Anyway, its miniscule... I had to use tweezers to install it ( LOL )
Ok, anyway, I think things are good.
I did a re-search for new channels, and it found 200. I have usually got a high of 176 so thats better already... not saying that I care for the extra channels, but there you go.
I have seen a couple of programs that I wanted to record have not come out as there was no signal on that channel ( ARGH... This is what my others were doing at times ) and so, what I have done, is cleared the recording schedule and re-done it from scratch, and so we will see how that goes.
The picture I am impressed with... Its crystal clear and while the best of my other cards are great, and are clear as a bell, when you go up a notch, you do notice it, not just placebo, but its definitely a better picture.
Admittedly, for Emmerdale or Coronation street, its hardly going to rock our world is it, but with the rugby, we can see the ball and the players a fair bit better.
Time will give it a real trial, but so far, I am very very happy with it.
I am also very vvery happy with Windows Media Center.
I have a fairly silly collection of various Media player options that I am giving a trial of, and some are simply not at all t my liking but others I see potential. The snag is, that none of them even come close to being anywhere near as simple to use as WMC is.
I have still failed completely to get KODI to do anything even close to display a TV picture, ArgusTV seems to want me to log in to a server, and I have done nothing else with that, DVBViewer I can get a picture on, and I might like it, if I got further into it, so, who knows?
I have even been twiddling with the software that has come with some of the cards and they are even giving me better results than KODI is and they are rubbish. I even bought a couple of USB TV things and they have been fun to play with, they give a good display when I use a proper cable that connects to the proper aerial, but they have displayed nothing when I have used a small aerial, and I even splashed out on a bundle of those for my exploits with my laptop.
Hell, I even have a few mini pci tv cards for laptops and they are all utterly useless because I need to open the laptop up to get an aerial into it.
Ah well...
Maybe I will put them onto the MM but I feal another ban for flooding the MM with too much stuff LOL
I recently went from WMC with Media Browser on Win 7 to Kodi on Win 10.
I had resisted the move as what I had worked fine, however for me Win 10 and Kodi is an upgrade, works much better. no issues at all and faster.
Perhaps because my Library was sorted for WMC I have had no issues, but I have over 750 films, all beautifully indexed with fan art etc.
Took me 30 mins of playing to sort Kodi out as I wanted it, but now working I will just leave it alone for the next 5 years I hope, as I did with my previous solution.
I had resisted the move as what I had worked fine, however for me Win 10 and Kodi is an upgrade, works much better. no issues at all and faster.
Perhaps because my Library was sorted for WMC I have had no issues, but I have over 750 films, all beautifully indexed with fan art etc.
Took me 30 mins of playing to sort Kodi out as I wanted it, but now working I will just leave it alone for the next 5 years I hope, as I did with my previous solution.
I have used Windows 7 Media Center with for several years as a dedicated PVR. I currently use it with a Freeview HD quad tuner and the Recorded TV HD add-on which greatly improves the GUI for recorded TV, movies and other sources.
The hardware it runs on is rather old and so I just built a brand new HTPC and installed a fresh copy of Windows 8.1 Pro. I then tried to add the Media Center Pack and found that the purchase feature just gave an error. I then spent 1 hour 25 mins with MS support who eventually confirmed that Media Center is no longer being offered, despite the Windows website saying otherwise.
So now I am in a dilema. Do I revert back to Windows 7, or try the "community" version of Media Center on either Windows 8 or 10? I know there are better media managers out there, but everything I read still says Media Center is the best PVR.
The hardware it runs on is rather old and so I just built a brand new HTPC and installed a fresh copy of Windows 8.1 Pro. I then tried to add the Media Center Pack and found that the purchase feature just gave an error. I then spent 1 hour 25 mins with MS support who eventually confirmed that Media Center is no longer being offered, despite the Windows website saying otherwise.
So now I am in a dilema. Do I revert back to Windows 7, or try the "community" version of Media Center on either Windows 8 or 10? I know there are better media managers out there, but everything I read still says Media Center is the best PVR.
Soldato
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It is by a country mile. There are extremely good pieces of PVR software (I use DVB Viewer) but things like quickly skipping back and forward are always more clunky than WMC, so instead I use the DVB Viewer recording service (a separate download included in the license) and play the live shows using PotPlayer, which is lightning quick at skipping, and you're only a couple of seconds behind.
In a typical turn of events, yesterday morning, yet another TV Card turned up, this oen a PCTVI Pinnacle Dual card turned up, I need to keep track on what the heck I have bought and whether some things are still on their way LOL, but this too was brand new, and sealed, and I have chucked it into another PC and I am playing with it right now.
Drivers went right in without issue, and WMC has found it, knows there is 2 tuners and has found loads of channels, 167 as before, but the Blackthingy found 200 IIRC, but thats by the by...
A quick restart to make sure of things and a quick flick through the channels showed it to be a lovely crisp picture, and I watched some stuff for about 15 minutes give or take and I never saw any glitching, so looks good so far.
I will plonk it into the I5 MediaCentre and treat that setup to a new graphics card, and I have the old Xonar here with me, so I will plonk that in too, and that should make a nice high quality MedaCentre that I will shove next door and get them to hammer the heck out of it to see how good it is.
Meanwhile the BGT3620 card I bought the other day has proven itself to be a great buy, and I am very happy with that.
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As for the other Media player options, so far, nothing has floated my boat in any way, and as for KODI, I am just gone way beyond being annoyed with myself on this. I am just as annoyed with Argus and MediaPortal etc, because I was just fed up with the Logging in to a server etc and it was just doing my head in. KODI on the other hand, I seemed to be able to get some weird channels like Boomerang and Metal TV and a handful of others, and at best, I could play some channels back but for about 2 or 3 seconds before it paused, and thats about all I could get from it.
No BBC or ITV and in the end, I just gave up... Maybe too soon I suppose, but I am on heavy medication and I am either high as a kite or screaming in agony and so I struggle to cope with having to concentrate on things.
WMC has the perfect way of recording the freeview TV. It is NOT that much cop for my movie collection or the TV series collections however, there is simply far too many of them for that, and so simply using the good old Darg n Drop onto VLC is by far the best and quickest way to deal with those and so I think that for now, thats pretty much it really.
I am considering the simple idea of having WMC just running in the background recording the TV as and when, because as I said before, 99% of its use, is really recording Emmerdale, Corrie, Holby etc, the stuff that can be viewed on the iplayers anyway, but then to use a different app to watch the TV Series, and Movies from my Media HDs as well as the recorded TV from WMC, and that will probably be the only option if I am to have it the way I want it.
Ah maybe its just too much to ask?
Maybe Im just a prat?
Drivers went right in without issue, and WMC has found it, knows there is 2 tuners and has found loads of channels, 167 as before, but the Blackthingy found 200 IIRC, but thats by the by...
A quick restart to make sure of things and a quick flick through the channels showed it to be a lovely crisp picture, and I watched some stuff for about 15 minutes give or take and I never saw any glitching, so looks good so far.
I will plonk it into the I5 MediaCentre and treat that setup to a new graphics card, and I have the old Xonar here with me, so I will plonk that in too, and that should make a nice high quality MedaCentre that I will shove next door and get them to hammer the heck out of it to see how good it is.
Meanwhile the BGT3620 card I bought the other day has proven itself to be a great buy, and I am very happy with that.
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As for the other Media player options, so far, nothing has floated my boat in any way, and as for KODI, I am just gone way beyond being annoyed with myself on this. I am just as annoyed with Argus and MediaPortal etc, because I was just fed up with the Logging in to a server etc and it was just doing my head in. KODI on the other hand, I seemed to be able to get some weird channels like Boomerang and Metal TV and a handful of others, and at best, I could play some channels back but for about 2 or 3 seconds before it paused, and thats about all I could get from it.
No BBC or ITV and in the end, I just gave up... Maybe too soon I suppose, but I am on heavy medication and I am either high as a kite or screaming in agony and so I struggle to cope with having to concentrate on things.
WMC has the perfect way of recording the freeview TV. It is NOT that much cop for my movie collection or the TV series collections however, there is simply far too many of them for that, and so simply using the good old Darg n Drop onto VLC is by far the best and quickest way to deal with those and so I think that for now, thats pretty much it really.
I am considering the simple idea of having WMC just running in the background recording the TV as and when, because as I said before, 99% of its use, is really recording Emmerdale, Corrie, Holby etc, the stuff that can be viewed on the iplayers anyway, but then to use a different app to watch the TV Series, and Movies from my Media HDs as well as the recorded TV from WMC, and that will probably be the only option if I am to have it the way I want it.
Ah maybe its just too much to ask?
Maybe Im just a prat?
Another vote for TVheadend here. I've been using it for ~6 years now. My headless TVheadend machine is very low spec. 2x Freeview USB tuners, 2GB of memory + Atom 230 on Ubuntu 14.04LTS. Never had any serious problems and its always performed perfectly.
For playback I have Kodi on my main machine. With Plex running in the background serving media + TVheadend around my network to my Samsung TV, Chromecast, Android phone + tablet.
I absolutely love being able to sync TV recordings to my smartphone using Plex. Just sit back on the bus and relax watching Match of the Day or whatever
For playback I have Kodi on my main machine. With Plex running in the background serving media + TVheadend around my network to my Samsung TV, Chromecast, Android phone + tablet.
I absolutely love being able to sync TV recordings to my smartphone using Plex. Just sit back on the bus and relax watching Match of the Day or whatever
I managed to buy a second hand Media Center key so my Windows 8 build can continue, despite Microsoft's best attempts to pee me off.
With Media Center I use the Recorded TV HD add-on. It hasn't seen any development for a while but it still works great. It gives you a much richer UI for recorded TV and movies as it automatically pulls in artwork from online community run databases. It gives you a series view, separate movies if you wish and you can even setup separate watch lists for different people. The best bit though is that it seamlessly blends OTA TV you record with media from other sources, without any tedious admin.
With this add-on, plus guide enhancements with My Channel Logos and a completely customisable re-skin with the Modern8 theme; Media Center is still looking good and working well.
With Media Center I use the Recorded TV HD add-on. It hasn't seen any development for a while but it still works great. It gives you a much richer UI for recorded TV and movies as it automatically pulls in artwork from online community run databases. It gives you a series view, separate movies if you wish and you can even setup separate watch lists for different people. The best bit though is that it seamlessly blends OTA TV you record with media from other sources, without any tedious admin.
With this add-on, plus guide enhancements with My Channel Logos and a completely customisable re-skin with the Modern8 theme; Media Center is still looking good and working well.
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Ah, The missus has told me that Emmerdale and Corrie have not been recording for the past few days... I had a peek and sure enough, some of the channels have gone awol again.
Being a dual tuner card, the channels show up twice and with ITV for example, the one that was at the top, was no longer being found, while the one below it, was ???
Not being able to find the tuner, meant that it did not record that channel?
I have set it up now, so that it records any and all on any channels and at any time and it keeps as many as possible to see whether that helps?
But if even the BGT card does the exact same as everything else does, then the ONLY way that I think I can go forward, is to have another one of these leadlet cards to try that, or maybe, it could even be the Motherboard perhaps? I will have to give a full and serious think about my next move.
The wife is almost going nuts with me... I have collected all my TV cards and they are here with me now, and I have 17 of them.. 17 and I have still not got a perfect setup?
Oh, and I have also played with USB ones too!
Being a dual tuner card, the channels show up twice and with ITV for example, the one that was at the top, was no longer being found, while the one below it, was ???
Not being able to find the tuner, meant that it did not record that channel?
I have set it up now, so that it records any and all on any channels and at any time and it keeps as many as possible to see whether that helps?
But if even the BGT card does the exact same as everything else does, then the ONLY way that I think I can go forward, is to have another one of these leadlet cards to try that, or maybe, it could even be the Motherboard perhaps? I will have to give a full and serious think about my next move.
The wife is almost going nuts with me... I have collected all my TV cards and they are here with me now, and I have 17 of them.. 17 and I have still not got a perfect setup?
Oh, and I have also played with USB ones too!
So the tuner failed/disappeared?
I tried the WMC/Windows 10 hack described earlier and it does actually work if you're desperate for WMC in Windows 10.
I've decided not to go that route however as I think WMC's days are numbered anyway. Whilst it may work now, a future Windows 10 update could kill it again and there's no knowing how much longer the guide service will be maintained.
ArgusTV & Kodi are working very well for me right now. One very nice thing about Argus compared to WMC is it's "one tuner per transponder" so you can watch/record as many channels as you like on one transponder and it'll only use one tuner.
I tried the WMC/Windows 10 hack described earlier and it does actually work if you're desperate for WMC in Windows 10.
I've decided not to go that route however as I think WMC's days are numbered anyway. Whilst it may work now, a future Windows 10 update could kill it again and there's no knowing how much longer the guide service will be maintained.
ArgusTV & Kodi are working very well for me right now. One very nice thing about Argus compared to WMC is it's "one tuner per transponder" so you can watch/record as many channels as you like on one transponder and it'll only use one tuner.
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Even with a dual tuner the channel should only appear once. I have a quad tuner and certainly don't have four of everything.
Some of the channels must be phantom channels from partial signals or previous tuners.
If you go into Tasks > TV > Guide > Edit Channels you can untick any phantom channels and this will stop Media Center from trying to use it for recordings.
It is also worth hitting Edit Sources on the Channels you are retaining. Here you can see what tuners and frequencies are being used. Again you can sometimes find that Media Center is trying to use a weak/wrong signal instead of a perfectly good one. In this screen you can untick any bad sources or reprioritise the list so that strong signals are used first.
We did just experience a bad outage of guide data, but Microsoft seemed to have fixed it now. In theory guide data should last until the end of Windows 8 support; 2023. Probably more of a factor is that MS also provide guide data for the XBone and so that requirement should help maintain the service. Even if the guide service was stopped it is possible to inject listings from other sources.
Things like Kodi and Emby are great media managers but they never match up to Media Center for PVR. Often the client/server model they use means a loss of functionality. Slow/clumsy skip and seek. Active recordings are stopped if played back. Guide data is 7-day OTA or requires a pay subscription. Etc.
The closest I have seen for a straight replacement is MediaPortal. It also has the multi-channel (mux) recording feature which is one of the shortfalls of Media Center.