Anyone else still use Media Centre?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Anyone else still use Media Centre?

baabits

56 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#288666 15-Jul-2021 21:30

Know it's long in the tooth, unsupported, etc. but Windows Media Centre is still my favourite big UI to use as a hub for all of my media.

Currently using an old-ish HP ZBook Studio Laptop (Xeon E3-1505M, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Quadro) that sits on a shelf in the cupboard running Win 7 and connected to a Thunderbolt disk array and Ethernet. It has a quad-tuner for Freeview hooked in through USB, and serves up media for the house.

Picked a few Xbox 360 E's and media remotes and use them as media center extenders and as long as you're not doing anything online Media Center works great. For Netflix and the like we just use the native Xbox 360 apps which can also be controlled with the remote.

I've tried out Kodi and a few others but always find myself being drawn back to Media Centre for its simplicity and smooth and fluid UI. I get why Microsoft abandoned it but I wish they hadn't :(

Lias

5589 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2744809 15-Jul-2021 21:41

Now that's a blast from the past.

Plex all the way here.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

SepticSceptic

2190 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2744876 15-Jul-2021 22:46

I only abandoned Media Centre when I updated my TV. No media centre app....
But yeah it's a good UI.. miss it.

fe31nz

1231 posts

Uber Geek

#2744885 15-Jul-2021 23:28

I have not actually used Media Center myself, but it appears to still be well used - the EPGCollector mailing list had lots of people recently wanting to use EPGC to get their EPG for Media Center when the old source got shut down. Personally, I use MythTV on Ubuntu for the same job. As I understand it, MythTV and Media Center do similar jobs, but MythTV is considerably better at the core functions of TV recording and playback, and it is still supported and being upgraded. I have it set up to record Freeview from 5 DVB-T tuners and Sky from 5 DVB-S2 tuners.

davidcole

6034 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2745002 16-Jul-2021 08:49

I stopped using a dedicated media center when Apple tv 4 came out, it was capable enough to get apps for all the supported nz media, had a plex client, plex added live tv via hd homerun. So there was no need to have a dedicated PC anymore that primarily wasn't being needed for recording because ondemand from tvnz was pretty good.

Previously known as psycik

Home Assistant: Gigabyte AMD A8 Brix, Home Assistant with Aeotech ZWave Controller, Raspberry PI, Wemos D1 Mini, Zwave, Shelly Humidity and Temperature sensors
Media:Chromecast v2, ATV4 4k, ATV4, HDHomeRun Dual
Server Host Plex Server 3x3TB, 4x4TB using MergerFS, Samsung 850 evo 512 GB SSD, Proxmox Server with 1xW10, 2xUbuntu 22.04 LTS, Backblaze Backups, usenetprime.com fastmail.com Sharesies Trakt.TV Sharesight

rb99

3423 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2745014 16-Jul-2021 09:33

I used to, less use, more tinker, with Media Player years ago, but I'm an Emby fan now. Not perfect, but very good.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

sm250

88 posts

Master Geek

#2749580 25-Jul-2021 22:38

I've only just abandoned it in the last few months because the machine I was running it on was simply too slow. Got a new machine set up with Kodi but it's not nearly as good as media centre. So really not watching broadcast TV anymore....

CYaBro

4585 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#2749582 25-Jul-2021 22:53

I still help a friend keep their htpc running with windows 7 and media center.
Older couple who just like the interface and how easy it is to use.
Easy to rip an audio CD and have it added to the music library with album cover and track names etc.
Easy to add photos and view them.
And they have a card reader for their sky card so don’t need to use the sky decoder at all.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

Dingbatt

6756 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2749637 26-Jul-2021 07:33

My HTPC was running WMC and Mediaportal but had a motherboard failure. I have multiple disks full of TS files (preferred MP) that are now sitting collecting dust. Perhaps if I get time I will transcode the files to MP4s for a Plex server, but if I’m honest they will probably go the same way as the boxes of VHS tapes I have. The ubiquity of streaming services, including on-demand FTA on smart TVs, plus MySky and a DVR in our house means the HTPC had fallen into disuse.

The downside is the HTPC ran 24/7 and I had ducted the air from the cupboard containing it to our HW cupboard. So now the clothes aren’t getting as well aired.

The final UI of WMC before Microsoft dropped it was quite nice and something MP took a long time to emulate.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

fe31nz

1231 posts

Uber Geek

#2750001 26-Jul-2021 15:47

Dingbatt:

My HTPC was running WMC and Mediaportal but had a motherboard failure. I have multiple disks full of TS files (preferred MP) that are now sitting collecting dust. Perhaps if I get time I will transcode the files to MP4s for a Plex server, but if I’m honest they will probably go the same way as the boxes of VHS tapes I have. The ubiquity of streaming services, including on-demand FTA on smart TVs, plus MySky and a DVR in our house means the HTPC had fallen into disuse.

The downside is the HTPC ran 24/7 and I had ducted the air from the cupboard containing it to our HW cupboard. So now the clothes aren’t getting as well aired.

The final UI of WMC before Microsoft dropped it was quite nice and something MP took a long time to emulate.

Your .ts files may well be playable on Plex without trancoding. They will be MPEG Transport Stream files with H.264 inside them. The the streams inside will be compatible and do not need transcoding, but I do not know if Plex handles transport stream files. So you should just change the container format to .mp4 and tell the software you use not to touch the streams inside, just to copy them. FFmpeg can do that.

gehenna

8503 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2750005 26-Jul-2021 15:54

I loved the Windows Media Center PC's that I built back in the day. Dual tuners, "lots" of storage. K-lite codec pack and Acronis True Image to take a clone of your FINALLY working build. I loved it, I think I built 3 upgrade cycles by the time I was done and moved to Plex. The last one was a completely silent build in a Silverstone HTPC case with a Blu-ray player that was able to be launched from the HTPC interface. So cool in 2007.