What media center software do you use?

LithiumKid1976

Hi all.
im currently looking into available media center software, and im curious as to what people out there are using, i have so far had a look at the following.

Boxee
GB-PVR
Got All Media
XBMC media center
Media Portal
Window media center

my personal choice would be XBMC and windows media center, but is there any one out there using anything diffrent for a windows based pc?>

Thanks
Damien

big_moe

i was using media portal as my first experiment into HTPC but found it §hite. far too much configuration required and it wouldnt play half the videos i have. i now use XBMC and its wonderful. plays music & videos perfectly and even got all the artist artwork done correctly as well. virtually zero-config required to get it up and running

Nelbert

Windows 7 Media Center and a plugin in called MediaBrowser (some of the best freeware I've ever used!)

eddiem74

Windows 7 Media Center, and a free plugin called Open Media Library for Movies, and TV.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I've tried serveral different solutions in the past.

Linux with MythTv - worked well for images and video but never for live TV working ... driver issues!

Windows XP running MediaPortal - hated MediaPortal even though it seems to get good reviews.

GB-PVR - didn't get it working

Windows Vista with TV Pack 2008 - worked well for me until I upgraded to Windows 7.

windows 7 Media Center: best solution I've come across by quite some distance!!!!

kaisersose77

Xbmc (linux) with software called tvheadend for watching the freesat channels (and hopefully sky channels when I get sky installed in a few weeks). Will have a few tv tuners on one xbmc pc and then will have other xbmc pc's which can watch these channels without needing to be connected to the satellite. If your not interested in live tv i think xbmc is the best option.

Using the alaska skin which i think is brilliant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg3SXBUt3qw

LithiumKid1976

cheers for the input guys...

i think ill try the windows media center with the MediaBrowser plugin,
have to say the link for the xbmc and alaska skin looks pretty impressive too....
Thanks for you suggestions so far..

Nelbert

You could also download MetaBrowser. It will monitor folders you tell it to and get the metadata and store it locally, it's an option where it's best to use if you've a big library and want to fetch the data once and then take your system offline.
You can also configure it to watch a "Drop Box" folder for TV show downloads (through iTunes or some other paid medium of course!) and move them from this folder into the appropriate folder where you have your tv shows.
I have it configured to rescan the folder every 15 minutes and if it finds a tv show in it it will move it to one of my two TV show folders (whichever one has that particular tv series saved on it as it's spread across two 1TB drives!) Worth a download for this feature alone in my opinion.

Kernel

XBMC.. it simply rocks. TV support and Blu-ray is missing, but for everything else it rules. Check it out on your PC and see what you think. Use something like Media Companion to scrape and generate fanart etc.