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martyyn

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#100210 5-Apr-2012 09:52
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Ive had an HTPC since the days of Mediaportal 0.2 but as were selling the house at the moment Ive removed it and were just running the skyhdi.

Although Mediaportal has been reasonably solid for some time now, there has always been something which has failed at some point, or needed to be tweaked, or upgraded and frankly Im over it. I know there are plenty of people who have installed it, configured it and its run 24x7x365 with no further involvment but I havent had that experience.

I always knew NZ tv was dire, but I hadnt realised just how bad it really is. Two weeks with only the Sky box has driven us to tears some nights so I need an easy way to get our 'media' back from the server onto the tv.

As Ive put all my eggs into one basket with the HTPC Im a little behind with all the 'media player' technology so does anyone have any suggestions? I dont need to have live tv anymore, the Sky box can do that, and now I have a decent Logitech remote switching between the two is easy.

All the DVD's we buy are ripped on the server so it needs to play the whole range from SD to bluray and output HDMI to the tv and optical sound to the Amp (doesnt have any HDMI inputs sadly, although Im thinking of upgrading that too).

Ive just signed up to give Quickflix a go so being able to stream that and/or the BBC iplayer would be great. Im keen to explore the whole streaming options via a UK VPN too.

Do I just forget the research and just go out and buy a WDTV ?




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reven
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  #605549 5-Apr-2012 09:59
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if you want 1080p that rules out an ATV2, but if you're happy with 720p i would go for ATV2 with XBMC.

NOT A ATV3 (the newest one, it hasnt been jailbroken yet)

XBMC can play hulu/iplayer/freecable. ATV2 can do netflix (do it though the ATV2 OS not through xbmc app)

if you want 1080p then you will need a HTPC. Boxee box might be an option, they do netflix, iplayer etc, great option if you just want to stream or watch local stuff from your network.

if you want quickflix you need a bravia tv or PS3, theres no plugins for it so no HTPC app will work (except just a web browser, and that needs to run silverlight so win or osx (no linux))






davidcole
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  #605593 5-Apr-2012 11:02
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A new one, a roku is quite nice, can do netflix, hulu (with vpns etc), and a new addition is a plex addition (which you can also put on ATV2. The main difference is it's a "channel" and doesn't require a jailbreak.





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
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reven
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  #605617 5-Apr-2012 11:31
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roku looks pretty cool, wasnt aware they had plex on it (is it the full plex or just basically the library like on LG tvs?)

be nice if they got xbmc on them



davidcole
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  #605619 5-Apr-2012 11:34
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reven: roku looks pretty cool, wasnt aware they had plex on it (is it the full plex or just basically the library like on LG tvs?)

be nice if they got xbmc on them


Just a library viewer.  It's the easiest way of viewing your own content on a roku - they don't have a file system browser like most media players.




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 


PANiCnz
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  #606075 6-Apr-2012 12:32
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What sort of hardware are you running on your HTPC? I would definately recommend giving OpenELEC a go before you give up on HTPC's all together, I find it requires much less tweaking than MP.

kiwijunglist
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  #606121 6-Apr-2012 14:36
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I can recommend WD TV Live it plays everything. If you don't want to bother with metadata/internet scrapig of movies go with Gen3, if you want metadata get gen2 (it's more hackable and supports PC based metadata scraping). I posted a review in this forum.




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martyyn

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  #606177 6-Apr-2012 17:37
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Thanks all,

My HTPC is more than enough to handle anything I can throw at it, Im just over the whole Mediaportal setup thing. Ive done my time spending hours setting everything up I just want something to plug in a work now.

The WDTV review you did kiwijunglist looks good except I would really want the graphics so perhaps a 3rd Gen is out. Ill have a read through the other thread and the links to see what can be done with ThumbGen and see if I can find a 2nd Gen from somewhere.

Cheers

 
 
 

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kiwijunglist
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  #606178 6-Apr-2012 17:40
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I actually got thumbgen working with the gen3 now. I made a custom profile, i'm surprised there were no easy to follow instructions or profiles that you could download, all the instructions required you to manually edit the xml files etc. I don't think the medialibrary has much of an advantage over the file browser, and I think if I used it with all my movies/tv series (>4000GB of data) it would hang the device. Even with a modest number of movies, the OSD is not as zippy as just using the file browser.  So yes you can use a metadata scraper, but having got it going I now think that it's not worth the trouble.

Here is my guide: http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Discussions/I-got-thumbgen-metadata-scraper-working-with-WDTV-Live-HD-Gen3-D/td-p/384575

I'd recommend you just use network shares + file browser, it's not that ugly and it will display folder.jpg

If you have multiple movie files you can do some network wizardy to make them appear as a single folder on the network so you can just have 1x folder with a couple of virtual pointers that point you to the movie folder / tv series folder etc...

PS: apparently you can get WDTV Live Gen3 USA version (netflux/hulu) delivered via amazon for $140NZD.

PPS. Even though gen3 works with thumbgen, if you use gen2 you can probably make the gfx more customisable etc. 




HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.


dontpanic42
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  #606180 6-Apr-2012 17:50
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kiwijunglist:
PS: apparently you can get WDTV Live Gen3 USA version (netflux/hulu) delivered via amazon for $140NZD.


http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=84&topicid=99936&page_no=2#606123

:)

martyyn

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  #607072 9-Apr-2012 15:26
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The HTPC may be getting a reprieve !

I had a play with an old laptop yesterday with W7 MCE and tunerfreeMCE after signing up for the unblock-us seven day trial and I was amazed just how simple it was to set up and get going with the iplayer channels.

I had my 4 year old quality approve the cbeebies channels and she does, so my wife and I sat down last night with the BBC channels and it was great. I watched a couple of programs before we settled on the highlights of the Adele concert in the Royal Albert Hall and it was excellent.

No problems with the quality, the sound was good and tunerfreeMCE was faultless. It threw a little wobbly when I tried an HD channel because I didnt have anything on the remote to make it full screen and I had switched from being cabled for the initial setup but wireless for the test last night, but for an initial 15 mins of setup I have to say I was impressed.

Im going to see what I can get via Hulu and Vudu in the coming week and if I could find a way to watch the English football I would be ditching Sky in an instant.

I just need to improve on the metadata within MCE and I may even consider running freeviewHD through it.

Never in a million years did I think I would contemplate switching from Mediaportal to MCE !

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