What's the best Windows Media Center alternative?

[Bird222]

What say you?

 

[takeru]

https://kodi.tv/

https://plex.tv/

 

[Elixer]

What say you?

Best for what? Recording, watching, something else?

 

[ajderro]

My windows media was/is bad news....replaced it with vlc very pleased...

 

[sbpromania]

At home I'm using Windows Media Player as a DLNA server to watch movies on TV directly from my PC.

However I was curious about Plex and installed it. I like the fact that is very easy to configure and use. So if you would like to watch movies directly from your PC on your tv, the I would recommend using Plex.

 

[Bird222]

Best for what? Recording, watching, something else?

Just watching. I'm not trying to do anything fancy.

 

[Elixer]

Just watching. I'm not trying to do anything fancy.

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), MPC-HC (https://mpc-hc.org/downloads/) both free, both play 99.9999% of the stuff you want. They don't play any protected content though, you still need media center for that.

 

[nerp]

By Media Center alternative, I take it you mean HDTV DVR functionality, right? If so, there is no alternative that really can do it properly. There are fancy solutions to watch media files, but nothing really can behave as a centralized place to watch and record actual live HDTV from a cable company with zero issues.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I like Plex. There are other awesome things out there too.

 

[Fallen Kell]

By Media Center alternative, I take it you mean HDTV DVR functionality, right? If so, there is no alternative that really can do it properly. There are fancy solutions to watch media files, but nothing really can behave as a centralized place to watch and record actual live HDTV from a cable company with zero issues.

Closest thing would be SageTV, but the UI needs an update. That said, they are working on that now again since Google finally let them release the code as open source after buying SageTV a couple years ago and then not doing anything with it. It also has some hardware support issues, especially for things like cablecard recorders which have DRM requirements locking them to Media Center (SageTV has a workaround/wrapper which works with the media center API's to still process and record the video, but it still gets the windows DRM tying the video to that computer).

For non-cablecard recorders, SageTV works fairly well.

 

[nerp]

I'm basically running Windows 7 MCE until we finally cut the cord, which will happen at some point. I think the market for this stuff is dead, which explains why MS killed MCE. Sad but it's the reality.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Just watching. I'm not trying to do anything fancy.

Kodi

 

[poofyhairguy]

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), MPC-HC (https://mpc-hc.org/downloads/) both free, both play 99.9999% of the stuff you want. They don't play any protected content though, you still need media center for that.

VLC is a desktop application. You pretty much need a mouse and keyboard to use it.

Kodi has the same core as VLC but is made to use on a TV with a remote.

Kodi is king of the HTPC experience if you configure it right.

 

[Iron Woode]

Media Portal is good and works with MS remote.

 

[funks]

I use my HTPC with Windows 8.1 and held off upgrading. Backed it up and running Windows 10 for now - HDHomeRun VIEW is pretty nice and usable for watching basic TV but they need to get this stuff working with HBO and etc along with DVR functionality. Game of Thrones coming up.

Probably gonna restore Windows 8.1 from backup just for WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER, just wanted to make sure I got the free WIN10 upgrade secured.

Note, I got a HDHOMERUN PRIME (Cable Card). Sage TV sounds nice but that stuff needs to work with the protected channels. I'd gladly pay a subscription of 30$ per year if somebody gets this working correctly (still much cheaper than getting ripped off by XFinity for their boxes).