Looking for good mediacenter software

[snq]

Ok, so I'm building this little mediacenter PC and I need some mediacenter software.
It doesn't need to have any TV/recording functions, as long as it can play movies and mp3 (also over LAN) and has a decent interface I'm happy. Also I should not have to wait for 5 mins after powering up the machine before I can start doing anything.
Oh, and it should also have some kind of support for ATI Remote Wonder.

I'm thinking of either TinyXP (because of the superfast boot) with some 3rd party mediacenter software, or XP MCE.
I've never tried or even seen XP MCE, is it any good?

Right now I'm using Xbox MediaCenter in the livingroom, which I think is damn good. Problem is this new machine will be in the bedroom and I don't want to have to buy another xbox. I've tried this MyHTPC thing that was supposed to be a windows version of XBMC, but I didn't like it very much.

So.. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to want this, what are you guys using, and on what kind of hardware?

The machine I'm using is a P4 2.8 GHz, 768MB, 400GB HD, and an MX440 gfx card. I'm not sure if the gfx card will be good enough but it's the only one I had laying around that would fit in the case (low profile case).

Well, all suggestions are welcome, as well as screenshots

[Shawn]

XP MCE is good because it's pretty stable and user-friendly but as you would expect it has zero room for any mods or changes and will only work with limited hardware (e.g. your Remote Wonder would be useless).

I personally moved from XP MCE to GB-PVR... it's a little buggy at times but generally runs very well and it has dozens of plugins which can do anything from weather to RSS feeds. Plus it's free and has a good enough interface with themes and such. I've tried a few PVR programs and this is by far the best despite a few shortcomings.

[snq]

Thanks, I'll check it out!

[Shawn]

No problem... I used to use it a lot back in the day but now I just get my TV shows off torrents so there's not much need to watch live TV or record a show. But I still use it from time to time...

[WheatKing]

There's also media portal(windows) and Mythtv via knoppmyth (Knoppix ~ linux)

also sageTV..

i'm a mythtv guy myself.. but.. to each their own.. personally i hate windows codec hell.. "apt-get install mplayer" takes care of everything.. plays everything.. it's simple.. which is weird for linux apps..

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by WheatKing

There's also media portal(windows) and Mythtv via knoppmyth (Knoppix ~ linux)

also sageTV..

i'm a mythtv guy myself.. but.. to each their own.. personally i hate windows codec hell.. "apt-get install mplayer" takes care of everything.. plays everything.. it's simple.. which is weird for linux apps..

sagetv
sagetv
sagetv


!!!!!!

www.sagetv.com

v 6 is just now in beta. f-ing sweet. i have been running it with OTA HD since v. 4.1 and love it.

[sandor_]

p.s.

community development/mods is what SageTV is all about. just spend a good 2 hours reading their forums to get an idea....

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/

[hokiethang]

I use windows media center 2005, and I do like it. They have done a very good job with it, and as far as I'm concerned, it does everything I need it to. It does have a price premium (as in it's the only one that's not free) but i've found it to be one of the easiest to get working initially. I also have a windows media center remote and compatible hardware. I actually have my xbox connecting to it as a remote windows media center extender.

[Shawn]

How much is SageTV? GB-PVR is free.

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by Shawn

How much is SageTV? GB-PVR is free.

SageTV is $80 i believe, but pretty much unlimited upgrades (v 0.1 users are finally having to pay $30 for the v 6.0 upgrade)

Sage is a piece of software i would gladly pay for. v6 will have/does have inline transcoding to any format built in, QT, WMV, etc etc support built in. its based on a server/client relationship, so you can have multiple setups working off of one box (ie, i have a sever with 2 ATSC capture cards and 2 TB of drive space in my office. my tv in my bedroom and living room work off of nearly silent client PCs and simply grab the data from the server) Its soon to be not only Linux and Windoze based, but also Mac. They also have a slingbox-type software for world-wide viewing of your content....

[Buba]

dvbviewer.com... I love it...

[flyingfridge]

Another vote for hokie's setup. I'm doing the same thing and its brilliant, coupled with transcode 360 (you won't need that) it's easily the best media center setup i've used (other than vista, but it doesn't work with T360 yet)

If you want something free, I suggest giving Vista RC1 a go. Excellent interface and everything really.

[snq]

Thanks for all your suggestions

I tried a bunch of different things yesterday.

I started out with GB-PVR which seemed to work nice, but it refuses to seek in all of my videos, which is quite annoying. Also there was some weird stuff with the text going on, like stuff wouldn't fit so half of the date would be outside the view and some menu items overlapped.

Then I tried SageTV.. Which was nice as well, but the interface was quite ugly imo. Also it kept bugging me about selecting a capture device, which I don't have and don't plan on getting either. Not something I want to pay $80 for, it's too focused on the PVR bit I think and I don't need that.

So I continued with MediaPortal, and I actually quite liked it! It works fine with my Remote Wonder, tons of settings, and I can remove the stuff I don't want from the menus to keep things simple. The only annoying thing I found was that it automatically added my DVD drives to the folder lists no matter how many times I removed them they'd be back after I restarted it. But as it's opensource and I actually am a programmer myself I'm sure I can get rid of that

I'm probably going to give MCE 2005 a try as well but as it looks right now I'll be using MediaPortal.


Another related question then, what do you guys think of the gfx card? It only has a VGA and S-Video port, no DVI. Right now I think it looks fine because I have a 5 year old 29'' CRT TV. But I'm probably going to buy a 40'' or bigger plasma and obviously I want the best picture I can get. Anything I should keep in mind when I'm going to buy the TV and perhaps a new gfx card?

[sandor_]

if you go digital output (DLP, LCD, Plasma) you will want a DVI (or theoretically HDMI 1.3) output. There is a very noticeable difference on my 46" DLP btwn VGA and DVI.

[hokiethang]

Originally Posted by sandor_

if you go digital output (DLP, LCD, Plasma) you will want a DVI (or theoretically HDMI 1.3) output. There is a very noticeable difference on my 46" DLP btwn VGA and DVI.

Yeah, I'd suggest DVI/HDMI if you can get it. I noticed a difference in the video on my projector between DVI and VGA. Also look for an HDCP capable card and TV, as in the future media may require the DVI connection between the two be encrypted. (Vista is a big offender in that department).

[snq]

Hmm, my mainboard only has an AGP slot. And all HDCP capable cards I found were PCI-E cards. It doesn't really matter for now I guess, by the time this HDCP stuff catches on this whole machine will probably be pretty outdated anyway.

I'm even having trouble finding decent gfx cards that will fit in a low profile case. And I really quite like the case so I don't want to swap it. The best I can find is a GF6200 with 128 MB, which is kind of sucky if I would want to play any kind of game on the thing. On the other hand it only costs 50 bucks and it doesn't have a fan which is good because I don't want any noise. I guess I can't have everything