RIP Windows Media Center

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › RIP Windows Media Center

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629 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1299208 6-May-2015 16:00

Satch:I guess I am more questioning if there would every be 16 shows on Sky at the same worth recording. For me 16 in a month would be a great stretch.

You are looking at it the wrong way. The better way to look at it would be to say when do you ever need more than 4 channels recorded? It actually happens once every 2-3 weeks for me. Usually around 6-8 at night when the overlap between something finishing at 7pm and starting at 7pm clashes. I could see a very good use of being able to record 6 channels and if 16 is the next iteration then I would class that as a pretty usable feature.

reven

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#1299213 6-May-2015 16:06

k14:
Satch:I guess I am more questioning if there would every be 16 shows on Sky at the same worth recording. For me 16 in a month would be a great stretch.

You are looking at it the wrong way. The better way to look at it would be to say when do you ever need more than 4 channels recorded? It actually happens once every 2-3 weeks for me. Usually around 6-8 at night when the overlap between something finishing at 7pm and starting at 7pm clashes. I could see a very good use of being able to record 6 channels and if 16 is the next iteration then I would class that as a pretty usable feature.

this. i use to have a similar setup (quad tuner with sky card), i would never record 16 shows, but quite often I would have all 4 tuners in use. this was when there were 6 adults living in one house. a dual tuner wouldnt cut it, and the next step up is a quad tuner (for not very much money really)

richms

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#1299247 6-May-2015 16:23

Did anyone ever get a working method of batch running recordings thru a softcam leaving decoded content on the drive?

Richard rich.ms

mcraenz

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#1299254 6-May-2015 16:28

Yes the 16 channels was really just to see how far I could push it and to point out what a robust piece of software MP TVserver is.

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theUtmost

50 posts

Geek

#1299259 6-May-2015 16:43

I am also sad to see WMC being discontinued :(

What is interesting to me though, is that every single comment or discussion I see online, here, or on various G+ communities, or reading through the comments here:
http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-media-center-is-dead

People seem mostly enamoured of the WMC featureset involving TV recording in some shape or form.

I've been an enthusiastic WMC user since 2004, through various iterations of it, yet have never ONCE used it for anything involving a TV tuner card.
In fact, I have never owned a TV or TV tuner card in my life.
So - what do I use it for?
Primarily: MUSIC playback.
Sure, I know the purist audiophiles will cringe at the notion of using WMP/WMC for playback duties, but the dirty little secret is that with the right hardware and drivers and source files (EAC/AccurateRip ripped by myself of course!) the sound quality is really VERY good.
But it doesn't support FLAC! I hear you say?
Very easily rectified with free plugins, even to support perfect metadata display/handling AND correct time / seek functions with the WMC player.

The clincher for me though, is really the excellent 10" navigational method with the official Microsoft MCE Remote (can still be bought online for all of about NZD$45) by me sitting on the couch on the other side of the lounge.
Notice that I deliberately didn't say "UI".
I have seen many comments saying WMC is dated / looks ugly compared to modern "Media Centre" alternatives.
True, but I don't care.
What I care about is the ease of being able to navigate a really large music library by genre first, then into album cover art-heavy displays and quickly, easily queue things up pretty much with just directional buttons and enter, occasional "back" button to get out of the current genre into another one.
It's brilliant.
I love the fact that it is also context-aware so if there is nothing currently playing, the default album "select" method = play, whereas if something IS playing the default album "select" method changes to enqueue.
Easily used & understood by people who have never used or even seen a HTPC before in their life.

Every year or thereabouts I take another look at XBMC(Kodi), AppleTV, mediaportal and a few others.
Whilst Kodi in particular now completely wipes the floor when it comes to PQ and metadata handling for a largish library of movie rips in various formats versus WMC, not one of the alternatives comes even close to handling the navigational methods for MUSIC as well as WMC.
I had hoped with the zillions of themes available for XBMC out there that just one would change the navigation methods to match WMC, alas the themes do not / cannot change the functionality (which seems to be what I want...) The XBMC/Kodi themes are limited to just changing all aspects of the UI screen placement/design/colours, not what options are there...
The Kodi "enqueue" function for an album select is reached via "right-mouse" click - not easy from the perfectly good MCE remote I already have...

I'll be taking extra special care of my Win7 install disc and serial.
I can always buy new hardware to replace my newish IntelNUC when it finally dies in a decade and firewall it completely "off" the internet when MS stop supplying updates.
I live in hope that someone, somewhere will improve Kodi music playback navigational methods, but all of the dev effort seems to be into movie & video playback.
Until that day, "long live Windows Media Center!"

reven

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#1299280 6-May-2015 17:13

it always surprises me (not saying its wrong, just surprising) that people use WMC or similar for music playback. to me this is very slow and I don't want to have TV on when listening to music. I've switched from mp3s to all streaming music, using sonos which I can control from PCs, tablets, my phone, even my watch (I love playback via the android wear). searching for music to play via a PC is a million times better than a remote. searching via voice on a tablet/phone is brilliant. using the phones keyboard etc is also better than a remote.

well in my opinion.

I get why microsoft are discontinuing it, theres not a lot of money (if any?) in it for them. They can sell their streaming services (movies, xbox music) and get people to use xbox, xbox supports a lot of this functionality now (well in america).

people should really give kodi another chance, it really can do everything you want, if you need help, ask in the forums, if you have suggestions, post them in the forums.

richms

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#1299283 6-May-2015 17:25

I have no problems having a TV on when I am playing music. IME the computer freaks out sometimes when outputting to an AVR with the TV off because the idiot HDMI designers never put an audio only mode into it. Also means I have to have my monitor go via an AVR which sucks in many ways.

Richard rich.ms

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mm1352000

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#1299288 6-May-2015 17:38

richms: Did anyone ever get a working method of batch running recordings thru a softcam leaving decoded content on the drive?

Not that I'm aware of. I think that's probably "impossible" due to the frequency with which conditional access system decryption keys and other properties are updated these days to try to make key sharing difficult.

mm1352000

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#1299295 6-May-2015 17:50

reven: They can ... get people to use xbox, xbox supports a lot of this functionality now (well in america).

I'd never even consider buying previous or current gaming console models for an HT solution. Way too locked down and inflexible.

reven: people should really give kodi another chance, it really can do everything you want, if you need help, ask in the forums, if you have suggestions, post them in the forums.

Why stop at Kodi? :)
Plex, Emby (Media Browser), MediaPortal, N-PVR, SageTV... try 'em all and find something that suits.

mcraenz

1140 posts

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#1299297 6-May-2015 17:56

Can Kodi do NetFlix, TVNZ/TV3/Choice On-demand, lightbox, YouTube and TED talks?
Including 5.1 audio for the services that offer it?

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sm250

88 posts

Master Geek

#1299300 6-May-2015 17:57

mm1352000:
reven: people should really give kodi another chance, it really can do everything you want, if you need help, ask in the forums, if you have suggestions, post them in the forums.

Why stop at Kodi? :)
Plex, Emby (Media Browser), MediaPortal, N-PVR, SageTV... try 'em all and find something that suits.

I'd love to try them all, but don't have the time to configure them to test them. With WMC I know that it works and it works well.

Stefan

sm250

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Master Geek

#1299301 6-May-2015 17:58

mcraenz: Can Kodi do NetFlix, TVNZ/TV3/Choice On-demand, lightbox, YouTube and TED talks?
Including 5.1 audio for the services that offer it?

Good question re: 5.1 - I know that WMC does, don't know if others do.

But WMC doesn't do any of those (maybe Netflix??) and that makes using those sort of services a real pain on a TV.

Stefan

mcraenz

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#1299310 6-May-2015 18:09

IMO using a movie streaming service without 5.1 is basically useless.

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richms

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#1299313 6-May-2015 18:10

mm1352000:
richms: Did anyone ever get a working method of batch running recordings thru a softcam leaving decoded content on the drive?

Not that I'm aware of. I think that's probably "impossible" due to the frequency with which conditional access system decryption keys and other properties are updated these days to try to make key sharing difficult.

Mysky has to do it after the fact when you playback. You are getting near to my reasoning for wanting to do them one at a time in a batch method ;)

Richard rich.ms

mcraenz

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Uber Geek

#1299316 6-May-2015 18:17

I don't get it. In MediaPortal it's decoded on the fly through MDAPI and saved unencrypted to the disk. Why would you want to do it after the fact?

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