Media Center Software - Recommendations?

[quantass]

I've attached my Vista laptop to my home theatre system and have it connected wirelessly to the NAS so as to play music, movies, etc. To get at the media i normally mouse around on the desktop to the NAS folder and dclick the media i want. I would like to find a better way to access this media.

I am aware of Windows Media Center as a front end to this material but i find it very slow when accessing my movies folder and cumbersome to rewind/forward. It is pretty at least. I've tried other media centers and all of them seem incomplete, ugly, and clunky all paling in comparison to Windows Media Center which is embarassing.

Any recommendations on a decent media center frontend to at least play my movies wirelessly from my NAS. I want it to be fast, intuitive to use, and easy to control. I do have one of those Windows Media Center remote controls which is nice to use but again WMC's performance when accessing my large Movies folder is horrible and so cant be used.

Thanks for any pointers.

[fooit]

Media Portal - http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

[flyz]

Yup, I use Media Portal too.

[Justin C]

Media Portal - http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

Thirded

[lead]

I am not sure you can run media portal with mce. You may have to disable it before you install mediaportal.

If your just talking music and video try xbmc. Its a nicer gui than media portal. I'd go with media portal if you were running a tv server. But would still recommend you stay with mce as its heads over easier to configure if running a tv server.

As to the delay you see when streaming from a nas. That is to be expected when ff rw etc

[huyla]

Trust me in the end you'll crawl back to windows media center.

"To get at the media i normally mouse around on the desktop to the NAS folder and dclick the media i want. I would like to find a better way to access this media."

Did you try to add media in WMC? Also your large movies folder is DVD folder or just movies clips download from internet? I just assume it's DVD folder so here's some info may interest you http://apcmag.com/how_to_play_ripped_dvds_on_vista_media_center.htm

[mwong168]

I highly recommend MediaPortal with the MyFilms and MyTVSeries plugins. I have a ton of media on my server at home that I access via wired and wireless without any problems. Here are some screen shots of my Mediaportal in action :)

http://www.vendor21.com/mp01.jpg
http://www.vendor21.com/mp02.jpg
http://www.vendor21.com/mp03.jpg

Same config but different skin

http://www.vendor21.com/mp04.jpg
http://www.vendor21.com/mp05.jpg
http://www.vendor21.com/mp06.jpg
http://www.vendor21.com/mp07.jpg

Here is a screen shot of the MyTVSeries plugin which looks very nice because it has series and episode synopsis:
http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attachments/my-tvseries-162/38528d1239547153-new-mp-tvseries-v2-2-3389-stable-release-12-apr-09-00-22-10.jpg

Keep in mind it takes a bit of time downloading various builds for these plugins and reading through many threads and posts to figure out how to get it to work exactly how you want it to. Also the movie database you see there is maintained by myself using Ant Movie Catalogue and there are scripts inside that program that get movie ratings, descriptions, reviews, etc from sites like imdb.com, allmoviereview.com, and more. But trust me once you figure it out it will be well worth it and every one that has ever been over and used my HTPC ends up asking me to build one for them and setting it up just like mine. I just put together two this past weekend for my wife's girlfriends.

The navigation in Mediaportal is very simple. All you really use are the arrow keys, <ENTER> and Esc. When watching media hit the right arrow once to advance 15 sec, again for 30 sec, again for 1 min, again for 3 min and I believe it goes up to 15 mins. Or else if you want to advance in 15 minute invervals you can hit the up arrow or back arrow to reverse. If anyone has any questions feel free to post here or send me a PM. Enjoy!

[gnunn]

I am using XBMC with the MediaStream skin and it is great, highly recommended. Judging by the screenshot above for Media Portal it looks like the MediaStream skin was ported there as well. Here are some screenshots of XBMC.

http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream/090_panelstream.png

http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream/090_widefanart.png

http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream/090_seasons.png

http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream/090_imagestream.png

[mwong168]

Nice! How do you maintain or update the movie database for XBMC? Do you have to use a seperate program like ANT or is it built into the plugin? I might try this as it looks interesting and see how it is compared to what Mediaportal does for me. I've spent countless hours trying different plugins from the team-mediaportal forums last year. I use to be on it and playing around with it all the time even at work. I was playing around so much that everyone in my office has a HTPC running Mediaportal lol. My boss has one in his office hooked up to his LCD on the wall and I load him up with stuff to watch all the time. It might be a requirement for any new employee that plans to come work with us :lol:

I like what I see so far for the XBMC.

[gnunn]

Nice! How do you maintain or update the movie database for XBMC? Do you have to use a seperate program like ANT or is it built into the plugin?

The plugins are built into XBMC so updating the library information can be done either automatically or from within XBMC itself by bringing up a context menu. I absolutely love XBMC myself, well worth checking out.

[Jon Lai]

I find MediaPortal is very buggy and crashes on me all the time. I can use it for myself but I went for GB-PVR instead because I can't have a program that always crashes and expect my parents to know how to boot it back up again.

Go with GB-PVR. It might not be fully open source, but it constantly gets updates and 3rd party plugins get developed all the time.

[fooit]

I find MediaPortal is very buggy and crashes on me all the time. I can use it for myself but I went for GB-PVR instead because I can't have a program that always crashes and expect my parents to know how to boot it back up again.

Go with GB-PVR. It might not be fully open source, but it constantly gets updates and 3rd party plugins get developed all the time.

When did you try Media Portal the last time?
It was buggy indeed, but from 1.0.0 RC2 to now official 1.0 release I haven't had a single issue with it.
I haven't tried the 1.0.1 update yet - will give it a try soon.

I know several hardcore GB-PVR users who moved over to Media Portal - if VistaMCE is the best UI then MediaPortal is the second best.
I like its flexibility - I have only options that I need. Go try that with MCE :)

[Jon Lai]

When did you try Media Portal the last time?
It was buggy indeed, but from 1.0.0 RC2 to now official 1.0 release I haven't had a single issue with it.
I haven't tried the 1.0.1 update yet - will give it a try soon.

I know several hardcore GB-PVR users who moved over to Media Portal - if VistaMCE is the best UI then MediaPortal is the second best.
I like its flexibility - I have only options that I need. Go try that with MCE :)

I tried it in February. Was it still be beta then?
It was so buggy when I tried it I downloaded 0.2.1 instead. A lot better, but it was still too buggy for my tastes. Basically, it would take forever to get out of watching a 1080p rip, and after a couple minutes I would get impatient and end task it. After that, it would fail to start up DirectX when I want to restart the software again.

I needed something that would work 99.9% of the time so my folks can use it when I'm back at university. GB-PVR doesn't have all the eyecandy, but it hasn't failed me yet *cross fingers*

If what I had tried was still beta, then I'll give the final release another shot.

[mwong168]

I find MediaPortal is very buggy and crashes on me all the time. I can use it for myself but I went for GB-PVR instead because I can't have a program that always crashes and expect my parents to know how to boot it back up again.

The only glitch I find is sometimes when I am scrolling through my movies via MyFilms plug in the screen would sort of lock up or look like it is scrolling continuously. This only happens if I am scrolling really fast and I would have to end task. I am using a very old build 0.2.3.0. This could be a problem with the plugin as I haven't updated anything in Mediaportal for almost 1 year now. I have about 9 friends using the exact same version and builds as myself and no complaints so far.

I'm real glad to see there are other alternatives besides Mediaportal, I will definately check them out once I have free time. Things have changed so much since having a baby and any time I have now I try to spend with her. Again if anyone is interested in having a setup similar to mine I could create a detailed step by step screen shot on to get you there. The only thing is you will have to create and maintain your own movie database using ANT.

[fooit]

Maybe your issues are related to hardware, codecs, OS and 1080p.
I am running Vista Home Basic + CoreAVC + MediaPortal 1.0 to 720p plasma.
And if I can I get only 720p MKVs.

I tried it in February. Was it still be beta then?
It was so buggy when I tried it I downloaded 0.2.1 instead. A lot better, but it was still too buggy for my tastes. Basically, it would take forever to get out of watching a 1080p rip, and after a couple minutes I would get impatient and end task it. After that, it would fail to start up DirectX when I want to restart the software again.

I needed something that would work 99.9% of the time so my folks can use it when I'm back at university. GB-PVR doesn't have all the eyecandy, but it hasn't failed me yet *cross fingers*

If what I had tried was still beta, then I'll give the final release another shot.

[Jon Lai]

Maybe your issues are related to hardware, codecs, OS and 1080p.
I am running Vista Home Basic + CoreAVC + MediaPortal 1.0 to 720p plasma.
And if I can I get only 720p MKVs.

It might be, but if it runs in MPC and GB-PVR, I don't see why it won't run in MP, unless it's not as good LOL

I run XP Pro on 2GB Ram using Storm and K-lite codec packs and AC3filter.

Also, another beef I had was MediaPortal couldn't read Unicode Chinese - they show up as boxes. This is a huge upset for me as my folks love watch TVB material.

[flyz]

It might be, but if it runs in MPC and GB-PVR, I don't see why it won't run in MP, unless it's not as good LOL

I run XP Pro on 2GB Ram using Storm and K-lite codec packs and AC3filter.

Also, another beef I had was MediaPortal couldn't read Unicode Chinese - they show up as boxes. This is a huge upset for me as my folks love watch TVB material.

My MediaPortal reads unicode text just fine.

[lead]

The plugins are built into XBMC so updating the library information can be done either automatically or from within XBMC itself by bringing up a context menu. I absolutely love XBMC myself, well worth checking out.

+1

xbmc's scrapers(free) have always been its greatest strength. Once the unified pvr is finalized it may become the only choice for pc based htpc.

[Jon Lai]

The plugins are built into XBMC so updating the library information can be done either automatically or from within XBMC itself by bringing up a context menu. I absolutely love XBMC myself, well worth checking out.

I agree, XMBC looks great, but the fact that there's no tuner support sux.

[mark_in_2k]

I agree, XMBC looks great, but the fact that there's no tuner support sux.My main problem with it is there's no GPU accelerated playback for HD files.

[CameraBill]

My main problem with it is there's no GPU accelerated playback for HD files.

I thought the linux version had CUDA support implemented.

[mark_in_2k]

I thought the linux version had CUDA support implemented.You're right, yes. I was talking about the Win version. CUDA is now supported for Nvidia GPU's on Linux.