Media Center or XBMC

[OGOC]

Personally, I use both WMC and XBMC. WMC is what I use for live TV (Ceton InfiniTV 4 card) and XBMC for everything else. I have an icon in WMC that automatically loads XBMC for me and then reloads WMC when I quit out of XBMC.

Same here.

WMC does have a couple pretty good movie listing add-ons. MyMovies I think is one. They're simpler than XBMC, but some people might like that. I forget why I didn't like it. I think it was something with the scrolling being choppy or slow or something. The main thing I liked is highlighting for instance a TV series folder and another box shows all the episodes inside. I haven't seen any skin in XBMC be able to do that in that way.

XBMC has multiple ways to sort files that can be pretty daunting, but if someone doesn't need or want overly fancy stuff, they could just dump all their files into one or more basic directories and just scroll through them similar to a typical file manager.

 

[tential]

Have you guys tried the new PVRs for XBMC? I don't have a Ceton Quadtuner yet (that's what I want next), so I haven't but maybe you might want to try them. I hear they have come quite a long ways now.

 

[Aikouka]

Have you guys tried the new PVRs for XBMC? I don't have a Ceton Quadtuner yet (that's what I want next), so I haven't but maybe you might want to try them. I hear they have come quite a long ways now.

I have a Ceton InfiniTV4, and I did try out XBMC's PVR capability. To be fair, I didn't give it ton of time. The only PVR setup that works with CableCard (according to XBMC's wiki) is NexPVR, and I believe I had issues getting the EPG to populate correctly with NexPVR. WMC was simply a far less painful process even though WMC has its own annoying issues.

 

[tential]

"Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad-tuner Card for Watching Digital Cable TV on the PC, PCI-Express x1 Interface"

Just two different ways of saying the same thing. The Ceton InfiTV4 one forum just addresses them as Ceton Quad Tuners so that's what I call them. I guess I'll hold off on that purchase then. I wanted to get one but I only want to if it's really easy to use in XBMC. Not really a necessity since I have a VPN now and a lot of empty storage.

 

[Aikouka]

I finally got around to setting up my other HTPC to use my MySQL-based database, and it's definitely nice to have them linked. I always had issues in the past with separate versions causing them to use different databases, which is what made using different devices (i.e. Windows and an AppleTV) rather awkward. Of course, I make it all sound hard to do... all I did was copy the advancedsettings.xml from one PC to the other.

Also, I looked into the whole adding another menu option thing. I already did that to restore the FILES option prior to reading the post, and I'm not sure if it really gets exactly what I'd like. What I want to do is essentially emulate the Movies and TV Shows section, but I think that's impossible because XBMC only has three categories: Movies, TV Shows, Music Videos. I don't know if it's possible to use Music Videos (because who actually cares about those ) for anime and rename it.

 

[tential]

No you can make your own section. I don't have just Movies, TVShows. I have Movies, TvShows, HDMovies, SD Movies. Using smart playlists or the other option, you can have a section that only shows your anime very easily. Just follow the steps I set out before and it should work easily.

 

[Charlie98]

The OP's requirements are very much like my own... and the overriding factor was my wife had to be able to use a simple remote to navigate all of it. My solution is WMC with Media Browser, it works very, very well. We navigate through it with a $15 Rosewill W7 media remote.

There was an add-on that allowed you to go into XBMC from the WMC menu, so you can always add that as an option. I had it for a while, didn't use it (because WMC/MB seemed to have The Goods) and uninstalled it. XBMC is almost too much for what I need. Like the OP, all I have is an old analog Denon receiver... nothing super-duper.

I like Win7 so I stuck with that when I built my HTPC, it already comes with WMC so that was bonus. I wouldn't worry too much about MS discontinuing support on W7, either they will or they won't and, by then, Something Else will be out and you can upgrade to that instead of W8.

 

[Chrishuff1]

Meedios FTW!

http://www.meedios.com/EN/index.php

 

[m0lasses]

I like Media Browser myself. But, like others have said, load them all up, try 'em out and pick the one you like best.

 

[tential]

I like Media Browser myself. But, like others have said, load them all up, try 'em out and pick the one you like best.

Yup, also try new ones after awhile. I personally hated EVERY single solution 3-4 years ago. Now, I see how they've improved and they look much more viable. I only use XBMC because it's the first one that was free that I tried. Personally though, I think it's the best.

Plex is P2P, no matter how many free features it has, there will always be a paid element.
XBMC's best part for me is the forum in which I can feel like I know what is going on in development as well as put my own input which is responded to by actually developers. That keeps me coming back and recommending it to others.
@Aikouka
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=150934
This guide should help you as well in trying to split your anime if you can't do it with what I said. It really should be easy, I got it to work very easily for me =/

 

[Aikouka]

@Aikouka
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=150934
This guide should help you as well in trying to split your anime if you can't do it with what I said. It really should be easy, I got it to work very easily for me =/

Yeah, I've seen the smart playlist method before, but I've just never tried it out. The one thing that I haven't found is whether playlists can be shared among XBMC installs that connect to a SQL server. As long as you use network-based sources, you can easily share that over a network, which cuts down on the fun of adding sources to all of your machines.

 

[TheCrackLing]

I have a Ceton InfiniTV4, and I did try out XBMC's PVR capability. To be fair, I didn't give it ton of time. The only PVR setup that works with CableCard (according to XBMC's wiki) is NexPVR, and I believe I had issues getting the EPG to populate correctly with NexPVR. WMC was simply a far less painful process even though WMC has its own annoying issues.

MythTV works just fine with CableCards and XBMC.

Either way, if all your channels aren't "Copy Freely", then you have no option outside of WMC+Extenders for CableCard TV.