Media PC - Best software?

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

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I have my Media PC and its running sweet as a nut.

Im using Windows Media Center and I am 95% happy with it.

But what is the best software out there?

I have tried XBMC and I keep getting whinings about libraries not working and so thats just been a pain.
Similar when I did it with Linux, I got nowhere where I was even slightly happy.

What options are there out there?
 
Plex is what i use these days, has great ios and android apps as well for streaming to phones and tablets. Converts on the fly as well if required
 
I use Plex as well.

Easy to use and set up.

As well as streaming to mobile devices the Plex app is available on Roku and smart TV's.
 
I have used XBMC/Kodi on all my systems and it seems to run perfectly. I don't think there is anything that has had a problem playing. I just generally install, change the theme, point it to my server and install the plugins like Youtube, scraper, artwork downloader etc and just leave it to find and install all my movieart.
 
Kodi is perfect.

You always seem to have crazy unique problems that no one else ever comes across :/

The only good part of wmc is the tv playback. Everything else is diabolically old.
 
bledd. said:
You always seem to have crazy unique problems that no one else ever comes across :/
Click to expand...

That aimed at me?
I would have to agree.

bledd. said:
The only good part of wmc is the tv playback. Everything else is diabolically old.
Click to expand...

The TV Recording is almost flawless. Thats the main use I have for a Media Center to be honest.

We have it setup to always record Emmerdale and Corrie, and as and when, we use it to record any games that are on, or whatever.

As for the UI, I love it, it works and it works well, even if you do consider it to be outdated, I have yet to find a TV program that does this anywhere near as well as WMC does.

My File organisation is incredibly neat and perfect. I have a disgustingly huge collection of Music and movies stored on my drives ( and yes, all legal ), and I know exactly where every single file is, without having to search for it, so, if I wanted to play any song, or album or watch any particulr episode of any particular series that I have, I know exactly where it wil be, and if its not there, then I dont have it.

So, I have no need for a program to take over my media organisation, and thats why I find WinAmp a perfect Music player, even after using it for what? 15 years? Same with VLC although I did move over to KMP, but I cam back once they introduced that irritating update window all the ruddy time.

God, I am such a pleb sometimes.
 
bledd. said:
Kodi is perfect.

You always seem to have crazy unique problems that no one else ever comes across :/

The only good part of wmc is the tv playback. Everything else is diabolically old.
Click to expand...

One of my fav features on Kodi is that you can browse and play an item from a .RAR file (Or multiple .RAR Files) with no issues at all. I have not seen that in any other media software with the exception of PS3 media server and it was REALLY slow and never really worked well.
 
Well, thanks for the input guys.

Im working through things, seeing wjay IO like / dont like etc

Freevciew TV playback is absolutely vital, as is recording, and so if it does not do that, then I am not interested. Simply drag&Drop to VLC does everything I need there.

I am playing with KODI right now, I was semi surprised to realise that it is in fact XBMC with a different name ,and maybe I have know this or maybe not, but when I tried the XBMC Disk that I just burned, it was scrollign the message along the bottom that said KODI anyway, so that was a funky mental phart I had in that, and weidly enough, KODI seems to be a lot more friendly, in that it is automatically uploading loads of add-ons and this is something that XBMC never did... Or at least not that I noticed.

Also, right at this moment, my main Media PC is recording all the rugby games, and while I dont know which TV card is the one thats once again vanished, I can see that the top line of ITV ios the one thats crystal clear and the bottom one is the one that isnt getting any signals and so I have just chucked everything onto the top card and thats cool.

I could just go in, but the way that I have to re-tune the thing means that it will take ages to do, and I dont really have the time right now, in between many things this weekend and so I wont have enough time to myself to play with that till nextweek.

Right, now, I mtoying with this and I am running dopwn to teh village to get a TV Cable extention to finally get to actually try the TV bit out at last!

LOL

---------

Right, Remove controls...

The Media PLayer has its remote, and thats peachy... Not tested it with anything else yet, but I will, however, does anyone recommend any remotes that will work with KODI? or whatever?
 
I use the Windows Media Remote settings on my Logitech remote (sends the same IR codes) and it works perfectly. Also with Kodi you can configure to use any remote if you have the patience. The remote app on android (Kore) is also pretty good.
 
Ok, coming back....

I am having mixed feelings with this KODI, and indeed with my Media Centres as a whole

I have knocked about with a few options.

I have KODI as a Linux ISO, which seems to be at v14 even though its the latest version that keeps moaning that its not. ( probably updates will sort that out ) but alsi I have the Windows EXE version and that is v15.x and for the moment, I am using that.

I have a fairly ridiculously large selection of TV Cards. Being teh cheap idiot that I am, I seem to keep buying the cheap ones that almost always turn out to be rubbish.

The only one card that I have, that has been 100% spot on 100% of the time, is an old LeadTek one that I bought many years ago, before I had Digital TV and the funny thing is, that I never used it for ages because I never had Digital TV, and I have actualy bought it purely as a mistake!

But I have NOT yet been able to view a single thing through KODI.

It does seem to have a shot at getting the stuff it needs automatically, but I have not yet bee nable to view any TV, I have not yet been able to get the right addon/s of anything?

Can anyone tell me what I need to do?

I am in the UK and I just want access to freeview TV - just like Windows Media Cneter gives me.

Ideally, I would love to be able to select a list of programs to record and for it to record them as they come along and I hope that I can do that, but for now... Lets just to the basics.

Thanks.
 
Check out DVBviewer, once configured and it takes time, it works well. Try the demo, cost about £13 but worth it. Never got Kodi to work with TV well, was too slow on changing channels.

I have it installed on both of my media centers, picks up Freeview and FreeSat with no issues.
 
I have grabbed the demo of it.

Im having a few quibbles with another TV card now, but I will give it a look at as soon as I can.
 
I used to use Media Portal and then flipped over to what is known now as Kodi. Whilst I think that Kodi is superb for my needs I have given up trying to get a TV back end working with it as successful as it was with Windows Media Centre.
I bought DVB Viewer and yet configuring it to have a working and populated EPG was nigh on impossible. It also needed to be friendly enough for others to use it, which never happened.

Now I do not bother with the TV side of things and just use an Amazon Fire TV with Kodi side loaded.

WMC ended up as being the best all round solution for us as a family when I did use it.
 
What most people do for TV through Kodi is use a TVHeadend server on another machine, then use Kodi to connect to that.

Personally I don't bother using TV on PC since 99% of TV is utter trash :p I just flick over and use my TV remote if/when something is on.
 
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