Battle of the 10-foot UIs

[RyanM]

So what's the current consensus on HTPC user-interfaces? What's everyone using these days? I've not found any good links to comparisons between them, and I haven't played with any of them for at least a year and a half, so I'm a bit out of date on what's kicking the most butt these days.

Any personal experiences or links to sites with some breakdowns would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[sivart]

I've used media portal and Vista MCE. I like the interface better on media portal, but couldn't get it to work with my TV tuner. Vista MCE is okay, but nothing to write home about. With a few add-ons it becomes better.

 

[pennylane]

Do any of these let you use your media player of choice? (for example, foobar for audio, a video player that supports ffdshow, etc.)?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i'll try out xbmc this weekend. windows media center is the best interface i've seen, too bad i don't care for the guts. imedian is just terribad, and relies on wmp for playback.

 

[RedCOMET]

I am currently using XBMC for Windows. I use the Aeon skin hooked up to my projector and its freaking fantastic. I have a small collection of user made fan art for backgrounds that were made for HD tvs. pretty sweet... stuff.

now i'm just figureing out how to control the damn thing witht my universal remote and my laptop.

 

[RyanM]

For laptop control, I'd recommend something like Logmein for easy, free remote access.

For remote control, is it a Logitech Harmony? If you get a standard Windows MCE IR receiver the Harmony remotes can interface with that.

 

[Ballatician]

http://lifehacker.com/5103464/...ia-center-applications

 

[RyanM]

Awesome. I had been looking for a recent comparison, but could not for the life of me dig any up. Thanks man!

 

[dwell]

Boxee is coming along good. It's based on XBMC and runs on OS X, Linux, and Windows. Aggregates everything: Hulu, Netflix, ABC, CBS, YouTube, etc...

 

[RedCOMET]

Originally posted by: Chris
Boxee is coming along good. It's based on XBMC and runs on OS X, Linux, and Windows. Aggregates everything: Hulu, Netflix, ABC, CBS, YouTube, etc...

I'll have to check out Boxee later on this week. I just hope it can look as good as the XBMC with the Aeon skin. I do watch a lot of Hulu, FOX, etc on line.

Thanks for the article.

I'll also look into getting that MCE IR reciever.

 

[Slick5150]

Boxee is pretty fantastic, especially considering they are still only in Alpha phase.. It has Netflix streaminig support, Hulu, Youtube, all working quite well.

The Windows version is still in closed beta I believe, but you can get on the list to test it out.

 

[Ballatician]

NP, I plan to use the same article for my HTPC build later on this year.

 

[jacc1234]

I have been building mediaportal systems for the past year and although a bit tricky at first, its a great piece of software. It has become my only connection to my tv. I have no cable box or dvd player, just my HTPC running mediaportal. It takes a bit of work on the back end to keep everything running but the front end is easy enough that my girlfriend or house guests can use it. The only reason systems like this cant go mainstream yet is the constant work that needs to happen behind the scenes to keep them running. I have a mostly automated system and even still databases need to be purged, filenames need to be change, the interface needs to be reset. Basically that are all far from perfect but to me the work is worth it.