Recommended HTPC software

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ZollyMonsta

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#82353 27-Apr-2011 21:27

Hi

I'm wanting to crank up my HTPC again.

Im running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit with a Hauppasge 2200 DVB-t card (Dual Tuner)

Was previously using Windows Media Centre, and EPG collector with Big Screen EPG for guide.
Before then I was using GBPVR and liked the way I could record all channels on a particular mux at one time.

Any recommendations?

Some things I'm looking for

* Native BLuray/DVD support
* Multiple recordings (ala GBPVR) via one tuner/same mux scenario
* Native loading of EPG Collector file for EPG
* Exportable files to iPhone for later viewing (nice but not essential)

Thanks.

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

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Snowflake

#463183 28-Apr-2011 00:17

do you really need the mulit-mux recording requirement? another dual tuner TV card is only $100 or so and will you ever need to record more than 4 channels at once? I occaisionally might have the need for three at once (kids shows!), but never 4.

there are bunches of add-ins for MCE to get blu-ray and dvd experience going well.

there are also a few windows phone/iphone/android phone apps to handle remote guide scheduling for MCE which is a very nice feature to have.

the XBOX as extender is great too, and hopefully we might see some MCE embedded set top boxes soon too.

(as you might have guessed, i'm running MCE and will quite happily recommend it :p)

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davidcole

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#463204 28-Apr-2011 08:05

nPVR - sub's replacement for gbpvr probably has everything you want - I'd expect the blueray bit, as i had that working under GB, but haven't personally moved to it yet.

Hmm actually he doesn't have the mheg5 going from dvb-t though so you'd still need a collector (or sat card) to get epg info.

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geekiegeek

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#463207 28-Apr-2011 08:14

MediaPortal.

Pretty sure it does everything you are wanting.

There is a Bluray playback plugin
iPimp will transcode files to iphone - even on the fly for streaming - this app also acts as a full remote for mediaportal
Native support for tvguide.xml created by EGP Collector
and I'm pretty sure it can record multiple shows off the same mux.

davidcole

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#463222 28-Apr-2011 08:46

geekiegeek: MediaPortal.

Pretty sure it does everything you are wanting.

There is a Bluray playback plugin
iPimp will transcode files to iphone - even on the fly for streaming - this app also acts as a full remote for mediaportal
Native support for tvguide.xml created by EGP Collector
and I'm pretty sure it can record multiple shows off the same mux.

Must look at media portal again. Has it's stability increased? in terms of recording. A couple of years ago it was a bit messy. Also does the open source nature of the project cause development instability? as in developers causing issues? One advantage of gbpvr/npvr is the sole developer doesn't tend to cause issues by random bits of code.

reven

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#463235 28-Apr-2011 09:01

ive tried every PVR under the sun, used gbpvr for years, mediaportal for about a year, mythtv and xbmc/boxee for about a year, had a tivo for a few months, and now im using Windows Media Center 7.

wmc7 has the best interface in my opinion, and has a load of plugins (including a really good netflix one), mediabrowser is pretty good (not a fan of my movies) the guide is pretty easy (a little time consuming) to setup.

the end of the day i went with wmc7 because of the interface, its looks really good; i customised the theme to use the http://www.hack7mc.com/2010/10/streaming-light-theme.html theme. which was very easy to do. and im using guidehound to import the xmltv file generated by the epg collector.

gbpvr is really rock solid and reliable, but the interface is old and the plugins dont seem to be there anymore. microsoft really are putting a lot of effort into MC these days (i didnt like mce05 or vista media center) and mediaportal has stability issues.

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geekiegeek

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#463245 28-Apr-2011 09:14

@davidcole. Its a lot better then a few years back. TV recording is rock solid in fact the whole thing is solid. If you keep updating every plugin and running beta code you may have issues but that is common to any software really.

The skins available are really cool as well - I use StreamedMP which has some really slick transitions and works well with fanart.

The TV Series and My Movies plugins are fantastic and as I'm into music I find the abiltity to do bit perfect output via ASIO for .flac a real plus.

It also has a great refresh rate changer built in that matches the frame rate of the video you are playing which helps reduce tearing etc as long as your screen and GPU can handle it - i.e my refresh changes to 24p for HD downloads and back to 50 for live TV.

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Nety

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#463365 28-Apr-2011 13:54

@Reven, is that theme a moving background like the MS one or is it static? Looks very cool but I do like the way the standard one has movement.

@ZollyMonsta I use MC7, I have seen the others but never used them myself. I do find MC7 a great solution especially now that EPG collector has removed the need to rely on web based EPG sources.
I use TMT for bluray playback with powerstrip changing the refresh rate to 24p.
It does not record on multiple mux's but getting a tuner is a one of cost so now that I have the tuners I have the ability to record 4 channels at once which is more then we ever need. As for EPG loading OK so MC does not have native support for EPG collector but there are free offerings that you can use.

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reven

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#463376 28-Apr-2011 14:28

Nety: @Reven, is that theme a moving background like the MS one or is it static? Looks very cool but I do like the way the standard one has movement.

theme image is static, but windows has a moving overlay effect (which is the standard thing you are talking about) which works well and really suits this theme. if you have a win 7 box, just download it and give it a quick go

dan

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#463398 28-Apr-2011 15:49

Mediaportal,

Its stability is excellent.

Once you get it up and running i would install the Fortherecord plugin to expand its tv related capabilites,

dale77

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#463493 28-Apr-2011 20:00

Mediaportal - solid and in "production" use at our place for recording HDTV, music playback.

I am back on 1.0.2 (current is 1.1.3) because I had "stutter" issues with 1.1.x. I'll try the upgrade to 1.2 beta when that is released soon, as it has an anti-stutter fix that many are raving about.

Blu/dvd handled by PDVD8 standalone.

I'm still on Vista, never used media centre as it was never an option for HDTV on Vista.

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dklong

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#463526 28-Apr-2011 21:54

+1 Mediaportal.

Handles multiple channels per mux really well (like GB-PVR). Not sure that those who have never had this quite understand the benefit. It's not only for multiple shows on different channels, but it also means that two programs recorded back-to-back can both be 'complete' without using 2 tuners. Without it you seem to have to have the start of one program on the end of the other and hope that you don't delete one before watching the other.

I use Mediaportal bog-standard and find it very stable. I tried Win7 MC on another machine recently and was very disappointed in how hard it was to manage my movie collection without add-ins. Unless you spend lots of time creating meta-data it just lists them as one big list. MediaPortal showed them in the directories I'd put them in ... Action, Drama, Comedy etc and made more sense to my simple mind.

My 7 year old can run Mediaportal so the interface works, even if it isn't as 'pretty' as Win7MC . I also like being able to run 'client' PCs anywhere on the LAN. We can send the kids off to watch TV/Movies and give us back the 'big' TV.

Only missing tick appears to be BluRay... I just jump out to PowerDVD... but sounds like they are working on it for the future.

Good luck with it all!

Cheers

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ZollyMonsta

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#463555 28-Apr-2011 23:55

Wm7 it is. Fired it back up today and it worked straight away.
Ran EPG collector (old version) and imported with no worries via big screen EPG.
It. Just. Works.

Can someone tell me where to find TMT for bluray playback? Can't get an answer for site via google.

I will look at guidehound too for EPG importing into WM7.

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

ZollyMonsta

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#463556 28-Apr-2011 23:56

Btw: any point to updating to latest EPG collector? I have the earlier version and seems to be working just fine.

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

Regs

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Snowflake

#463559 29-Apr-2011 00:05

TMT: http://www.arcsoft.com/estore/software_title.asp?ProductCode=TMT5P

I use BSE http://bigscreenglobal.com/bgproduct.aspx?PID=BSEV1 and the latest version of EPGcollector. Was pretty easy to set up from scratch.

There was a thread on here (GZ) that talked about the differences between GuideHound and BSE EPG.

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Nety

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#463574 29-Apr-2011 06:23

Concerning TMT, when I purchased it you could "buy" one of their other products that was free. That then gave you a sizeable discount voucher which you then used to buy TMT.

As long as EPG collector is pulling in all the data you need correctly then I would not bother updating it. Have a look at the change log to see what the reason for the update was.

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