What are you doing with your HTPC?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › What are you doing with your HTPC?

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Beaker03

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1698389 4-Jan-2017 14:42

My HTPC takes a hammering from the whole family. We watch Netflix via the Window's 10 app, youtube, TVNZ and TV3 on demand, music via Spotify app, and gaming.

It's all wireless keyboard and mouse control, we never even touch a remote. The key wireless keyboard has volume controls on it, and I've also mapped some extra mouse buttons to control volume, so you actually only need the mouse for Netflix and TV on demand.

lchiu7

6467 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1699479 6-Jan-2017 16:53

I have always had debates with friends if we prefer a universal device to play everything or a universal remote to control a number of devices. I am in latter camp so I only use my HTPC to record TV shows from Vodafone cable and Freeview which I watch from a Popcorn house which maps to the video drive on the HTPC. I have also lately been using it for Hangouts on my 60" TV which makes for a nice video meeting :-)

For streaming services I can choose between a Amazon Fire Stick, a Sony BD player which can do Netflix and Amazon Video and PS3.

Everything is controlled using a Harmony remote apart from the Fire Stick which is BT so it has to use its own remote.

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Firelfy

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1702244 12-Jan-2017 21:10

My HTPC runs Kodi with PlexKodiConnect for seamless integration into the Kodi library, obviously Plex as the Backend and NextPVR as the backend for livetv.

Streaming services are all handled with the Chrome launcher addon which launches the website in kiosk mode of all major streaming services in NZ (Netflix, TVNZ, TV3, Lightbox, Neon etc) and is controlled with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (The v nice Logitech one, also very expensive!).

Along with all that I have Kodi modified to use MadVR, a directshow player for lots of playback control (gotta get the best picture) and SVP for smooth 60fps playback.

Other programs running include CouchPotato for movies, Sonarr for TV Shows and a couple of other things I can't remember. Everything is stored on a NAS, however I would like to upgrade to a rack server in the future for local storage and running all the behind the scenes components and have the NAS as a backup.

Here's a link to a youtube video showing my setup starting up, may be a bit shaky it was very early in the morning .

Kodi Startup

Hope you like!

Firelfy

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1702249 12-Jan-2017 21:23

Also everyone who wants to play blurays directly in kodi, I'm pretty sure you can setup an external player (PowerDVD for example) to play the content within kodi, I haven't tried it myself as I rip any blurays to MKV and place it on my NAS. also my HTPC doesn't have Disc drive support haha.

Here's a few links for anyone interested. I find that people give up on the one system for all with one remote idea when it gets too complicated, don't forget you have a whole community to help you!

Scripts for External Players

PowerDVD in Kodi

One more thing, if it's too much, set powerdvd to launch via Advanced Launcher in Kodi, set it as a home button (such as a replacement button for New TV Shows in the video of my previous post) and have it as a Disc icon. This seems almost like how the Xbox 360 does it and I feel that's a very clean way of doing it. Obviously haven't tried it though! (There are some real smart people over in the Kodi forums, along with a lot of new people who don't know they're using the program in the worst way possible).

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