Media streamer/HTPC, which should I get for what I want?

sas.wlv · 14 Dec 2010 at 13:03

Still happy with my popcorn hour box tbh, streams great from my WHS, has an internal hdd and usb connection.

I don't use any of the online options so not sure whats available on it right now.

Only downside for me is that I wish the UI was a bit better.

uv · 14 Dec 2010 at 13:23

I've never used anything other than XBMC, as I've never needed to tbh. It's a great piece of software.

XBMC to view and organise media
SickBeard to sort out NFOs and watch for new releases
Zumocast to watch/listen to my media remotely
Hippo Remote on my iphone

easyrider · 14 Dec 2010 at 13:54

XBMC or a PLayon HD mini

FabienO · 14 Dec 2010 at 14:26

Love my Patriot Media Box <3

Film -> External HDD -> Media Box -> Entertainment. Easy. mkv, subtitles, tons.

kidloco · 14 Dec 2010 at 15:52

Tried quite a few options up to now.

ION based mini pc - didnt get on with it at all. just didnt have the power to play or do anything properly
Apple TV (1st gen) - Still have this, great piece of kit. fantastic to use I just wish it did 1080p. Even better when fully unlocked and tweaked by still will only to 720p at a push.
Using blu ray player as a media player - worked with some file formats. but UI was horrid and getting a stable DNLA server was a bit of a pain to get working 100%
Boxee Box - Had this a month now. its getting better with every update of the firmware. It now plays pretty much everything I throw at it. The only thing its struggling with is 40-50gig blu ray ISOs. But I think this is due to my network as they play fine when attached to a USB drive.

Must say though, some of those media portal skins look fantastic. I will prob get round to building a fully feldged media PC next year. Its just accepting all the maintanance of having yet another full PC in the house. They do take a bit of looking after so that they work smoothly.

Street · 14 Dec 2010 at 20:05

saitrix said:
I tried media portal last night and from standard it didn't seem the best but I will try those addons mentioned. Plus it wouldn't play my avc's with subs, will look into it further

The easiest way to do it is to download the following programs..

MediaPortal 1.1.2

SAF Codec Pack

StreamedMP

Install MediaPortal, then run the StreamedMP download. The SteamedMP installer will install MovingPictures, MP-TVSeries and FanArtHandler. Then run the SAF codec installer and go to the following website..

Configuring SAF in MP

Set it up as shown there and it should all be good to go with subs and everything! The slow part is downloading all the info from the web for films and TV series!

Edit: Make sure you have uninstalled anything like FFDShow, MPC before you install SAF, it will install all of that for you and set things up in the right way!

saitrix · 14 Dec 2010 at 22:22

Thanks, thats perfect, will give that a go! Got streamedMP installed, and wow such an improvement. Once I have things how I like I can see me really liking the software, it seems easier than XBMC.

alx · 15 Dec 2010 at 09:50

Street said:
The easiest way to do it is to download the following programs..

MediaPortal 1.1.2

SAF Codec Pack

StreamedMP

Install MediaPortal, then run the StreamedMP download. The SteamedMP installer will install MovingPictures, MP-TVSeries and FanArtHandler. Then run the SAF codec installer and go to the following website..

Configuring SAF in MP

Set it up as shown there and it should all be good to go with subs and everything! The slow part is downloading all the info from the web for films and TV series!

Edit: Make sure you have uninstalled anything like FFDShow, MPC before you install SAF, it will install all of that for you and set things up in the right way!

Thanks for this

kidloco · 15 Dec 2010 at 14:39

Street said:
The easiest way to do it is to download the following programs..

MediaPortal 1.1.2

SAF Codec Pack

StreamedMP

Install MediaPortal, then run the StreamedMP download. The SteamedMP installer will install MovingPictures, MP-TVSeries and FanArtHandler. Then run the SAF codec installer and go to the following website..

Configuring SAF in MP

Set it up as shown there and it should all be good to go with subs and everything! The slow part is downloading all the info from the web for films and TV series!

Edit: Make sure you have uninstalled anything like FFDShow, MPC before you install SAF, it will install all of that for you and set things up in the right way!

Cheers for this mate. When I get a bit of free time im going to try putting this on my laptop as it has HDMI out.

I get the feeling this is going to end up costing me £££ on a new media PC

kidloco · 15 Dec 2010 at 15:27

Street said:
The easiest way to do it is to download the following programs..

MediaPortal 1.1.2

SAF Codec Pack

StreamedMP

Install MediaPortal, then run the StreamedMP download. The SteamedMP installer will install MovingPictures, MP-TVSeries and FanArtHandler. Then run the SAF codec installer and go to the following website..

Configuring SAF in MP

Set it up as shown there and it should all be good to go with subs and everything! The slow part is downloading all the info from the web for films and TV series!

Edit: Make sure you have uninstalled anything like FFDShow, MPC before you install SAF, it will install all of that for you and set things up in the right way!

Well tried this. Installed everythign as it says etc. Configured MediaPortal, selected my folders (shared folder on main PC), I scaned them and it found all the art etc.

But when I run mediaportal and goto movies, or TV. nothing is in there??

Jackal · 15 Dec 2010 at 16:27

kidloco said:
Well tried this. Installed everythign as it says etc. Configured MediaPortal, selected my folders (shared folder on main PC), I scaned them and it found all the art etc.

But when I run mediaportal and goto movies, or TV. nothing is in there??

Are they all in videos by any chance?

If so you need to add them via the plugins themselves, which is in configuration towards the bottom

kidloco · 15 Dec 2010 at 16:34

Jackal said:
Are they all in videos by any chance?

If so you need to add them via the plugins themselves, which is in configuration towards the bottom

Not sure what you mean mate. Here is what I have done.

Videos>Video Folders - added my shared folder on main PC
Videos>Video Database - Scanned my database for all art etc

WHen I click on the plugins section of the mediportal config, I can see the 'Videos' in there. But all I can do is Disable, In Home, In Plugins. I cant select config.

saitrix · 15 Dec 2010 at 17:33

Mediaportal Configuration > Plugins, In there click on Moving Pictures and then click on config. You then add your films in there. Do the same with the MP-TV plugin. Took me a while to find it! Will try the codecs tonight, I noticed from the link they link to another one just for anime which is what I am struggling to play.

Street · 15 Dec 2010 at 18:40

saitrix said:
Mediaportal Configuration > Plugins, In there click on Moving Pictures and then click on config. You then add your films in there. Do the same with the MP-TV plugin. Took me a while to find it! Will try the codecs tonight, I noticed from the link they link to another one just for anime which is what I am struggling to play.

Ah yeh, sorry, forgot to mention to use the MPTV Series and MovingPictures plugins instead of the standard TV and Videos!

I had loads of problems with codecs and players until I found the SAF pack on the MP forums, since then I've had no problems playing anything!

deus3x · 15 Dec 2010 at 19:32

Street said:
The easiest way to do it is to download the following programs..

MediaPortal 1.1.2

SAF Codec Pack

StreamedMP

Install MediaPortal, then run the StreamedMP download. The SteamedMP installer will install MovingPictures, MP-TVSeries and FanArtHandler. Then run the SAF codec installer and go to the following website..

Configuring SAF in MP

Set it up as shown there and it should all be good to go with subs and everything! The slow part is downloading all the info from the web for films and TV series!

Edit: Make sure you have uninstalled anything like FFDShow, MPC before you install SAF, it will install all of that for you and set things up in the right way!

Thnkas for this,

I have done the above and can get my move rips playing fine. However I have my blu ray's backed up into ISO files. When i add this folder with ISO's it doesnt see them?

Any advice?

Thanks

EDIT: I have added acceptace to see ISO files but still wont play. ID also like to add the moving pictures plugin is totally awesome. Detected all my AVI rips and did covers no problem. AMAZING...

Just want to play my blu ray iso files now.

saitrix · 15 Dec 2010 at 21:33

Perfect that codec pack works brilliantly, even for anime with subtitles, offloaded to the gpu no problems. Only issue I have right now is some of the videos use a separate files for the intro and then swap to the actual program mid playback automatically. Right now it doesn't seem to be doing that, so will have to look into that more. But I must say I nearly have MediaPortal setup how I like on my main pc, definitely seems like the direction I will be going.

Street · 16 Dec 2010 at 00:07

deus3x said:
Thnkas for this,

I have done the above and can get my move rips playing fine. However I have my blu ray's backed up into ISO files. When i add this folder with ISO's it doesnt see them?

Any advice?

Thanks

EDIT: I have added acceptace to see ISO files but still wont play. ID also like to add the moving pictures plugin is totally awesome. Detected all my AVI rips and did covers no problem. AMAZING...

Just want to play my blu ray iso files now.

Does MovingPictures pick up the movie info for the ISO rips? I've had a quick search on the MP forums and it seems you have to have Daemon Tools installed as well for MP to mount the image files with. Might need to mess around with an external player such as PowerDVD linked to MP as well for it to play. Not to sure though as I've never done it myself! I've always taken the main M2TS stream out of the bluray rip and added it that way.. Might be worth asking over on the MP forums, they've always helped out when I've had any problems!

kidloco · 16 Dec 2010 at 00:48

Having this issue also. I got the media to show thanks to Saitrix

but every time I tried to play a ISO image I got an error say 'couldnt mount media'.

This would be a showstopper for me. I have around 700 movies. 500+ of which are DVD ISOs.

Other than that the UI looks great. If I could suss the ISO issue I would be seriously tempted to drop the Boxee Box and stump up the cash for a proper media PC

kidloco · 16 Dec 2010 at 01:53

Damn, I got it working!

I was using virtual clone drive and every setting I tried just wasnt working.

Gave DAEMON tools LITE a go. set the drive letter to something obscure (S) and pointed mediaportal settings (in advanced mode under the general part) to it. Drive 0. Sure enough it works like a charm now.

Problem is this might end up costing me money!,

kidloco · 16 Dec 2010 at 01:59

Just out of interest what kind of spec am I looking at for a decent build. Ive tried a ION media PC before and it was horid.

I have all my movies on a 4tb external drive caddy so just a small SSD for basic boot drive is needed. Not sure on what CPU or GFX card I would need though. Would need the best 1080p output I can get really.