There are lots of options, MediaPortal, MythTV, BeyondTV/Media, Meedio, etc. Personally, I've tried Beyond and Meedio other than MCE. I like MCE the best, it requires more tweaking and some plugins to get some of the features (weather, DVD management), but overall I think it's the most polished and gf/wife friendly of all the PC based HTPC software once set up right. It defintely has some drawbacks I have learned to live with but the convenience of having all my media in one central system (and one remote with my Logitech Harmony) is well worth it. My main problem is I get bored and start fiddling with it and break stuff.
So I only have myself to blame for the majority of the problems we've had with out MCE system.Originally posted by: ZYFER
If you get the the latest version of Nero, it has a feature called Nero Home, it works great, and detects more tv capture cards then MCE ever would. Also is alot more customizable
Originally posted by: loup garou
There are lots of options, MediaPortal, MythTV, BeyondTV/Media, Meedio, etc. Personally, I've tried Beyond and Meedio other than MCE. I like MCE the best, it requires more tweaking and some plugins to get some of the features (weather, DVD management), but overall I think it's the most polished and gf/wife friendly of all the PC based HTPC software once set up right. It defintely has some drawbacks I have learned to live with but the convenience of having all my media in one central system (and one remote with my Logitech Harmony) is well worth it. My main problem is I get bored and start fiddling with it and break stuff.
MS is going to be pretty much the only way to go IMO when Vista comes out with the level of DRM content producers want for premium HD content. MS has already secured CableCARD support for Windows...MediaCenter in Vista is going to rock..I just hope they iron out the kinks with the Beta UI, some of it is pretty janky.
Originally posted by: armatron
Originally posted by: loup garou
There are lots of options, MediaPortal, MythTV, BeyondTV/Media, Meedio, etc. Personally, I've tried Beyond and Meedio other than MCE. I like MCE the best, it requires more tweaking and some plugins to get some of the features (weather, DVD management), but overall I think it's the most polished and gf/wife friendly of all the PC based HTPC software once set up right. It defintely has some drawbacks I have learned to live with but the convenience of having all my media in one central system (and one remote with my Logitech Harmony) is well worth it. My main problem is I get bored and start fiddling with it and break stuff.
MS is going to be pretty much the only way to go IMO when Vista comes out with the level of DRM content producers want for premium HD content. MS has already secured CableCARD support for Windows...MediaCenter in Vista is going to rock..I just hope they iron out the kinks with the Beta UI, some of it is pretty janky.
I want something that can be setup and used with no fiddling/tweaking afterwards... i dont want to have to install updates and fix driver issues once a week before i can watch tv
Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
Originally posted by: armatron
Originally posted by: loup garou
There are lots of options, MediaPortal, MythTV, BeyondTV/Media, Meedio, etc. Personally, I've tried Beyond and Meedio other than MCE. I like MCE the best, it requires more tweaking and some plugins to get some of the features (weather, DVD management), but overall I think it's the most polished and gf/wife friendly of all the PC based HTPC software once set up right. It defintely has some drawbacks I have learned to live with but the convenience of having all my media in one central system (and one remote with my Logitech Harmony) is well worth it. My main problem is I get bored and start fiddling with it and break stuff.
MS is going to be pretty much the only way to go IMO when Vista comes out with the level of DRM content producers want for premium HD content. MS has already secured CableCARD support for Windows...MediaCenter in Vista is going to rock..I just hope they iron out the kinks with the Beta UI, some of it is pretty janky.
I want something that can be setup and used with no fiddling/tweaking afterwards... i dont want to have to install updates and fix driver issues once a week before i can watch tv
I can't think of a single reason to get MCE. Proprietary software works just as well, and you can record in universal formats. MCE can't create AVIs, MPEGs, etc etc.
Buy a tivo then.Originally posted by: armatron
Originally posted by: loup garou
There are lots of options, MediaPortal, MythTV, BeyondTV/Media, Meedio, etc. Personally, I've tried Beyond and Meedio other than MCE. I like MCE the best, it requires more tweaking and some plugins to get some of the features (weather, DVD management), but overall I think it's the most polished and gf/wife friendly of all the PC based HTPC software once set up right. It defintely has some drawbacks I have learned to live with but the convenience of having all my media in one central system (and one remote with my Logitech Harmony) is well worth it. My main problem is I get bored and start fiddling with it and break stuff.
MS is going to be pretty much the only way to go IMO when Vista comes out with the level of DRM content producers want for premium HD content. MS has already secured CableCARD support for Windows...MediaCenter in Vista is going to rock..I just hope they iron out the kinks with the Beta UI, some of it is pretty janky.
I want something that can be setup and used with no fiddling/tweaking afterwards... i dont want to have to install updates and fix driver issues once a week before i can watch tv
Come on, you can't say you didn't have to tweak and troubleshoot your MCE box (if you built it yourself) a bunch before it worked optimally...either that or you aren't as anal as I am.
You really don't know anything about MCE, please stop crapping in every thread vaguely related to it. DVR-MS is just MPEG2 with a DRM wrapper and takes all of 10 seconds to strip using the appropriate graph.
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