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Why don't more people use XBMC? - Page 3

post #61 of 115
2/14/12 at 5:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by none74 View Post

XBMC doesn't work, at least, not for me, not without reading and reading and reading and reading and HOPING someone has EXACTLY the same setup as me so I can get it to ACTUALLY WORK and produce a great image when playing back without stutter.

XBMC doesn't work, WMC7 JUST WORKS, once you add Shark Codec's....I get hd mkv playback using MadVR, beautiful quality, no stutters, subtitles if needed, over my network, EASY. XBMC to do that would mean I'd have to go back to University and get a degree in computer programming, and even then it wouldn't be as high quality playback....

First of all you mean MediaBrowser+MC7 as both are needed.

There are many people who have exactly the opposite experience. With XBMC I don't need to add any codecs and it gets all metadata and plays back everything after a 5min config. It's all a question of what you are used to, but you can't claim that XBMC is any harder.

Let's see the steps required for playing back media from network. I'm not including BR/LiveTv here as for those MB is better (due to integration with Windows).

1. Installation - easy for both
2. Add source directories - same for both
3. Fetch metadata - both do it automatically
4. Add/configure codecs - not needed for XBMC
5. Split according to directory structure - XBMC does it by metadata, MB is maybe more flexible here
6. Add a new skin/addon - both do this, though I find XBMC faster and has much more variety
7. Remote setup - WMC is probably easier here

So I don't see how XBMC is any harder.

Also XBMC is the origin of HTCP frontends AFAIK and has the most active development, without it none of the others would exist. The sheer variety of addons in XBMC is reason enough for me to use it. It's also worth mentioning XBMC is totally free and standalone, you don't even need Windows and it can run on cheap old hardware.
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post #62 of 115
2/14/12 at 5:33pm
I have used both extensively now. I have both installed, use both daily and have written and researched guides for both. AssassinHTPC.com now also installs and sets up both front ends --- often we install both for customers on the same HTPC.

Both are GREAT. Neither is perfect.

Setup is somewhat dependent on what you first used. XBMC users will find WMC/MB confusing to setup and vice versa.

Arguing this is really splitting hairs, imo. Just use whatever you think looks better or whatever meets your specific needs (i.e. Live TV for WMC, tablet control for XBMC, etc).
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post #63 of 115
2/14/12 at 5:51pm
I use my HTPC as my cablebox/DVR. AFAIK, there is no simple way to incorporate live TV through XBMC. I have the HD Homerun Prime, with an HTPC in the LR, plus a XBOX360 and two DMA2100s in other parts of the house. If I'm missing something let me know. I have purchased Assassin's guides, but don't recall seeing that in there. (edit: I also use Media Browser for all my movies, other TV shows, etc., which XBMC should be able to handle just fine, except on the DMA2100s).
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post #64 of 115
2/14/12 at 5:57pm
When something other then windows MC is certified by cablelabs to use cablecards I'll probably try it. Until then, that's why I use WMC.
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post #65 of 115
2/14/12 at 6:53pm
XBMC isnt even smart enough to know if you added a movie.
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post #66 of 115
2/14/12 at 6:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTinkerer View Post

XBMC isnt even smart enough to know if you added a movie.

My set up does. I have it set to scan for new files at when I start the program. As long as my folders and filenames are correct the show up automatically.
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post #67 of 115
2/14/12 at 6:59pm
After getting my mediaportal to work and 23.97645 out of my gpu...I don't feel like tinkering anymore.

Took forever to get it near rec 709 too haha
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post #68 of 115
2/14/12 at 7:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTinkerer View Post

XBMC isnt even smart enough to know if you added a movie.

Mine does and always has.
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post #69 of 115
2/14/12 at 7:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defcon View Post

First of all you mean MediaBrowser+MC7 as both are needed.

There are many people who have exactly the opposite experience. With XBMC I don't need to add any codecs and it gets all metadata and plays back everything after a 5min config. It's all a question of what you are used to, but you can't claim that XBMC is any harder.

Let's see the steps required for playing back media from network. I'm not including BR/LiveTv here as for those MB is better (due to integration with Windows).

1. Installation - easy for both
2. Add source directories - same for both
3. Fetch metadata - both do it automatically
4. Add/configure codecs - not needed for XBMC
5. Split according to directory structure - XBMC does it by metadata, MB is maybe more flexible here
6. Add a new skin/addon - both do this, though I find XBMC faster and has much more variety
7. Remote setup - WMC is probably easier here

So I don't see how XBMC is any harder.

Also XBMC is the origin of HTCP frontends AFAIK and has the most active development, without it none of the others would exist. The sheer variety of addons in XBMC is reason enough for me to use it. It's also worth mentioning XBMC is totally free and standalone, you don't even need Windows and it can run on cheap old hardware.

That is a key point that older hardware works great with XBMC. I used a cheap 8400 GS video card from nVidia and XBMC offloads the decoding to the GPU and it's amazing how little it uses my CPU. On average when I am watching a BluRay rip my CPU utilization is about 3%. I have had great success running XBMC on older PC's. These guys saying XBMC is hard to setup makes me wonder what they don't understand, it's very simple.
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post #70 of 115
2/14/12 at 7:11pm
I started with XBMC when I first modded my XBox 5 years ago. Really liked it a lot. When I moved to an HTPC though, I found it limiting and I tried out both Media Portal and VMC. I really liked Media Portal, but once I got a CableCard, there's no other option than 7MC. I really like 7MC, but I miss the customization of XBMC and Media Portal.
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post #71 of 115
2/14/12 at 10:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulinmn View Post

My set up does. I have it set to scan for new files at when I start the program. As long as my folders and filenames are correct the show up automatically.

That's what always bothered me too (having to manually update library). Never even thought it was possible until reading your post. Looked in settings - library. It's right there. Nice. I don't know how I never noticed it before.
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post #72 of 115
2/14/12 at 11:28pm
I wonder if the name "XBox Media Center" puts off people who don't have xboxes...
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post #73 of 115
2/14/12 at 11:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebberry View Post

I wonder if the name "XBox Media Center" puts off people who don't have xboxes...

It did for me lol
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post #74 of 115
2/15/12 at 12:02am
According to the XBMC team, the X no longer stands for Xbox !
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post #75 of 115
2/15/12 at 3:08am
I like the XBMC look, but I think WMC is slick as hell. Just the right amount on the screen at one time. I use both media browser and My Movies, but mainly My Movies because it keeps with that seemless, slick WMC look. I notice here that many think of WMC as less modern or less advanced looking. I think the opposite. You always see those Apple commercials talking about "intuitive" interfaces. WMC, especially the 7 version is intuitive. Very easy to use, no matter the control device, with quick and smooth animations. Plus, they are the ones to their credit who got the cablelabs certification, which is a huge win. Some of the plugins I use are ESPN3WMC, Hulu plugin and Secondrun.TV, which I love and have setup channels for every year in the 80s. I noticed that Media Browser has a similar custom channel setup, at least how they describe it. has anyone used it?
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post #76 of 115
2/15/12 at 6:50am
I stick with MB+WMC for one main reason: XBMC can't deal with mixed content (movies & TV) in one folder. I switched to XBMC when Eden beta 1 came out, but couldn't get it set up the way I liked it, so I switched back.

For example, I have all of my Anime in one folder, which has both Anime movies and Anime TV/OVA series. XBMC won't recognize this as a mix of movies and TV; to XBMC, a folder can *only* contain one or the other when I add it to my Video collection. Same with my Cartoon collection - I have all of my non-Japanese animation sitting in one folder, which includes both cartoon TV series and theatrical/direct-to-video animated movies - and my Documentaries folder contains both documentary films and TV series. Heck, even my Criterion Collection folder contains a couple of TV releases that Criterion put out on DVD amidst all their movies.

In Mediabrowser, I can just point to my Anime folder, name it "Anime", and MB doesn't give a damn if it's movies, TV, or both, and I love that - it just shows up. With XBMC, I have to split Anime up into "Anime TV" and "Anime Movies" to get them to scrape and show up, and I still can't see the contents of both folders under one view. I have to split up the other media sets I mentioned in the same way. I don't like that - I'd rather see ALL my Anime in one view regardless of format, as well as the others.

I tried everything in XBMC I could find, like Smart Playlists, to get this working like it does in MB, but to no avail. So I stick with MB and I gladly donate to the software creators for their hard work because they allow me to display my media collection the way I want.
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post #77 of 115
2/20/12 at 6:44am
Premium cable TV comes to XBMC, GoodPlayer and more via InfiniTV 4 tuner

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/20/p...-via-infinitv/
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post #78 of 115
2/20/12 at 6:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Quiring View Post

Premium cable TV comes to XBMC, GoodPlayer and more via InfiniTV 4 tuner

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/20/p...-via-infinitv/

Still very limited, unfortunately. Looks like you can't access anything that is copy once protected.

Looks like WMC is unfortunately still the only answer for people wanting to replace cable/satellite.
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post #79 of 115
2/20/12 at 11:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Looks like WMC is unfortunately still the only answer for people wanting to replace cable/satellite.

And will be for a long time (unless you have FIOS). I'm not sure there is any company that is going to pony up the $0.5M required to get into the game anytime soon unfortunately.

I have been curious though to see if there is a way to get PDVD to view the streams from a Dish Network STB since PDVD now supports DTCP-IP
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post #80 of 115
2/20/12 at 12:24pm
I wonder how much longer FIOS will be able to keep the hounds at bay and continue to provide copy freely content. I feel FIOS is like Netflix was in the beginning - the content providers thought it wouldn't work, so the granted Netflix full rights to do whatever they wanted. Once things caught on, they were pretty pissed at themselves and, after the initial contract was up, decided it was time to change things so they would make more money off the deal. Unfortunately, I see the providers clamping down at some point in the future, so that FIOS will fall in line with cable and have a few copy freely, and the majority of copy once or copy never channels/shows/etc.
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post #81 of 115
2/20/12 at 12:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kegobeer View Post

I wonder how much longer FIOS will be able to keep the hounds at bay and continue to provide copy freely content. I feel FIOS is like Netflix was in the beginning - the content providers thought it wouldn't work, so the granted Netflix full rights to do whatever they wanted. Once things caught on, they were pretty pissed at themselves and, after the initial contract was up, decided it was time to change things so they would make more money off the deal. Unfortunately, I see the providers clamping down at some point in the future, so that FIOS will fall in line with cable and have a few copy freely, and the majority of copy once or copy never channels/shows/etc.

I agree, I have been tempted to jump to fios for this reason. But have the feeling as soon as I do they will switch things up on me. Plus I'm getting a decent price from TW right now.
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post #82 of 115
2/20/12 at 2:49pm
A Chevy vs Ford debate...

I have used XP Media Center, Vista Media Center and now W7 Media Center. People are basing much of this debate on the fact that Media Center has not had a major upgrade or facelift mostly since XP.

Its has some minor tweaks to the UI and natively supports OTA-HD and now Cable based HD content.

There is no low level typing going on to update the software with Windows. Though many of the more polished Linux distros hide this and allow you to click buttons instead...

Second Run TV is not working as I would like and I am considering a second front end for streaming content. Right now I'm using the Kylo browser but that has no remote control support.

Windows Media Center is included with the OS. You can download the Live CD of MythUbuntu or XBMC and try it out. I had to dig for the customized distro that works on AMD hardware however (XBMC).

Linux is free, not automatically better. As I said before devout Linux users talk to themselves and they are hard to get information from. Which is why when I tried most of the free solutions to Occupy LA's desire to have a file server, I ended up with WHS v1.

I am open to using anything that will work like it says it does.

Right now I am not fooling around with my HTPC, it works and while I would like faster boot up (SSD) and move all my media over the server (hard drive cost!)

But this is a software debate, however Linux poor support of AMD makes it a hardware debate too.

I noticed that somebody created a ESPN3/Watch ESPN plug-in for XBMC so with the coming ALMS season opener at Sebring I may have to check that out, but for Live TV, nothing beats Windows Media Center.

If eye candy is your thing Media Browser solves that issue and of course there is the Game Browser plug-in for that!
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post #83 of 115
2/20/12 at 3:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTinkerer View Post

XBMC isnt even smart enough to know if you added a movie.

A good carpenter never blames his tools... :-)

Mine always has...love it.
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post #84 of 115
2/20/12 at 4:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dj4monie View Post

A Chevy vs Ford debate...

I have used XP Media Center, Vista Media Center and now W7 Media Center. People are basing much of this debate on the fact that Media Center has not had a major upgrade or facelift mostly since XP.

Its has some minor tweaks to the UI and natively supports OTA-HD and now Cable based HD content.

There is no low level typing going on to update the software with Windows. Though many of the more polished Linux distros hide this and allow you to click buttons instead...

Second Run TV is not working as I would like and I am considering a second front end for streaming content. Right now I'm using the Kylo browser but that has no remote control support.

Windows Media Center is included with the OS. You can download the Live CD of MythUbuntu or XBMC and try it out. I had to dig for the customized distro that works on AMD hardware however (XBMC).

Linux is free, not automatically better. As I said before devout Linux users talk to themselves and they are hard to get information from. Which is why when I tired most of the free solutions to Occupy LA's desire to have a file server, I ended up with WHS v1.

I am open to using anything that will work like it says it does.

Right now I am not fooling around with my HTPC, it works and while I would like faster boot up (SSD) and move all my media over the server (hard drive cost!)

But this is a software debate, however Linux poor support of AMD makes it a hardware debate too.

I noticed that somebody created a ESPN3/Watch ESPN plug-in for XBMC so with the coming ALMS season opener at Sebring I may have to check that out, but for Live TV, nothing beats Windows Media Center.

If eye candy is your thing Media Browser solves that issue and of course there is the Game Browser plug-in for that!

You mentioned Linux a lot in your comments and I just to clarify that XBMC also run on Windows and OSX. The Windows version is much easier to deal with than any Linux distro and no AMD issues. What's also cool is XBMC can be installed on a $99 Apple TV.
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post #85 of 115
2/20/12 at 4:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kegobeer View Post

I wonder how much longer FIOS will be able to keep the hounds at bay and continue to provide copy freely content. I feel FIOS is like Netflix was in the beginning - the content providers thought it wouldn't work, so the granted Netflix full rights to do whatever they wanted. Once things caught on, they were pretty pissed at themselves and, after the initial contract was up, decided it was time to change things so they would make more money off the deal. Unfortunately, I see the providers clamping down at some point in the future, so that FIOS will fall in line with cable and have a few copy freely, and the majority of copy once or copy never channels/shows/etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteboy714 View Post

I agree, I have been tempted to jump to fios for this reason. But have the feeling as soon as I do they will switch things up on me. Plus I'm getting a decent price from TW right now.

Verizon is a pretty huge company, compared to the cable companies, so they probably worked out deals where the content providers get savings on their data circuits.
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post #86 of 115
2/20/12 at 4:53pm
The first thing that crosses my mind when I see the title to this thread is it has no DVR, native bluray support (BD ripped folder images and ISOs), no clients over Internet (restricted to LAN). Plus, it only offers big/noisy/expensive 360's as extenders. I have to hand it to XMBC, it does look really nice.
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post #87 of 115
2/20/12 at 5:13pm
Believe it or not, I started using XBMC for the rear passengers in my car on my carpc. I was having issues getting dual zones working with Centrafuse, and XBMC just worked great. How many front-ends allow you to specify a specific screen that always works as expected? After tinkering with it, I decided to give it a go on my HTPC, and I am glad that I did. All of my BD and DVD rips work great (DVD via XBMC and BDMV via TMT5), I have access to tons of online tv shows via awesome add-ons like Free Cable, Hulu, and Amazon, the music player is decent, there are some awesome skins for it, and it's constantly being developed.

I don't record any TV, so XBMC works great for me. Microsoft should take a hint and allow people to make add-ons, because MCE could be so much better. It's so locked down that you either take what MS gives you, or you look for another product - which is not possible if you want to use a cablecard tuner.
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post #88 of 115
2/20/12 at 5:18pm
The Eden releases of XBMC do have BDMV support. It picks the largest file and plays it back, and it does a great job, too. Unfortunately, sometimes the longest one isn't the one you want (extended scenes, director commentary, etc). But, it does work.
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post #89 of 115
2/20/12 at 6:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulinmn View Post

My set up does. I have it set to scan for new files at when I start the program. As long as my folders and filenames are correct the show up automatically.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Quiring View Post

Mine does and always has.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mike10778 View Post

A good carpenter never blames his tools... :-)

Mine always has...love it.

Yes you have to restart or force an update. Not smart enough to autoscan.
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post #90 of 115
2/20/12 at 10:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kegobeer View Post

Believe it or not, I started using XBMC for the rear passengers in my car on my carpc. I was having issues getting dual zones working with Centrafuse, and XBMC just worked great. How many front-ends allow you to specify a specific screen that always works as expected? After tinkering with it, I decided to give it a go on my HTPC, and I am glad that I did. All of my BD and DVD rips work great (DVD via XBMC and BDMV via TMT5), I have access to tons of online tv shows via awesome add-ons like Free Cable, Hulu, and Amazon, the music player is decent, there are some awesome skins for it, and it's constantly being developed.

I don't record any TV, so XBMC works great for me. Microsoft should take a hint and allow people to make add-ons, because MCE could be so much better. It's so locked down that you either take what MS gives you, or you look for another product - which is not possible if you want to use a cablecard tuner.

Could you explain your car setup? I was thinking about this very issue last night.
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