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How do you have your media center setup?

post #1 of 12
5/21/12 at 10:25am
Thread Starter 
Just wondering how others are using their HTPC, maybe I'll get some good ideas for my own. This post isn't about every single plugin you use, just the major ones for content.

I'm using XBMC for local media (movies, tv series, music, emulator games). Content plugins: Free cable, navi-X, hulu, youtube

From 7MC I use boxee and zinctv. I have mediabrowser as a backup to xbmc and it also has my adult videos since MB has parental lock.

Setup:
XBMC-aeon nox skin.
Under the movie category I added playlists for action, comedy, drama/thriller, I left the genre filter, cinemaexperience, trailers plugin, removed all the other filters.

Added 3D category on mainmenu: submenu (3D movies, 3D animated, 3D documentary)

Added Anime playlist on main menu: submenu (anime movies, anime series)

Under tv category: Added playlists for tv series, and tv specials, left genre filter, will add pseudotv

Added internet tv category on mainmenu: submenu (navi-x plugin, free cable plugin, hulu plugin, youtube)

Added games category to mainmenu which startsup advanced launcher to run emulators for NES, SNES, N64.
Disable: featured, tv guide, images categories from main menu.

Future plans:

Want to modify 7MC. Strip everything out and just have buttons for Boxee, Zinc tv, XBMC, Mediabrowser. Make it a front end to launch my front ends...so to speak. I'll probably leave the live tv even though i'm not using it. And I obviously need to keep the task/settings bar.

Option 2 is to try to figure out how to run boxee and zinc from XBMC using advanced launcher and then add them as favorites to put into my internet tv category.

Option 3 - use XBMC's advance launcher to start 7MC (currently using this method but it's a little clunky so I would prefer option 2).

Need to add grooveshark and pandora to xbmc.
Need to add ps1 and maybe ps2 emu.
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post #2 of 12
5/21/12 at 11:52am
Just wondering....why do you use boxee? Aren't most of those apps available as add-ins in XBMC?
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post #3 of 12
5/21/12 at 1:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by HunterX82 View Post

Just wondering....why do you use boxee? Aren't most of those apps available as add-ins in XBMC?

I need to look further into both boxee and zinc. If there are no additional channels or additional content that I can't get from free cable plugin then I will probably not add them. Navi-X probably has a lot of that stuff but there's so much on Navi-X it's hard to find things easily.

I also like the redundancy, so if one program gets screwed from an update or skin change or whatever, hopefully the other will still work. Which is also why I keep mediabrowser. I've had enough issues with media centers to make sure I have a backup already setup just in case.
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post #4 of 12
5/22/12 at 7:48am
As of right now I'm between stuff. My new Motherboard was DOA and Amazon quickly sent a replacement (thumbs up Amazon!) arrived yesterday after order was placed on Friday, not bad.

I just had WHS do an image of my OS drive after I shrunk it down to fit on a 60GB SSD. Works perfectly only faster even on SATA II and IDE.

Since I didn't have to re-install anything (ya!), I am sorting out two minor issues but this is what I use XMBC for -

Fooling around with the skin menu, I added TV Shows to the strip and removed Music since I don't use it for music playback. I didn't know you could add Internet TV, I just have quick launch icons for ESPN3, You Tube, Revision3 and TWiT.

I couldn't get ROM Collector Browser to work right and maybe that was me, so I tried Advance Launcher but I tried to get two games to load (ePSXe) and got a Windows related error message about not being able to load ISO files or something.

As far as I know the emulator is setup property I'll check that again, I've just been getting caught up on shows and watching the NBA playoffs.

I hope somebody can write a Add-on for Speed 2 or I may have to learn how to do by learning some Python, be nice on the CV/Resume anyway, right?

I'm trying XBMC as a replacement for Second Run TV (which I may end up using for Speed 2) and Macro Tube which is no longer supported and You Tube doesn't work which is what I mainly used it for.

Thus far You Tube worked fine until it started acting funny but has since returned to its original state. ESPN3 didn't work but then all of sudden it did. Revision and TWiT always worked, go figure.

I want to prevent the use of browsers in my media center because eventually I would like to go in Media only mode which means WMC when rebooting or whatever remains in WMC mode and never goes to desktop.

ESPN3 was the last hurdle, but we'll see what happens this weekend with the FIA GT1 and GT3 Championship. The replays and live stream have been moved to You Tube this season, but sometimes its Geo-blocked and had to use Tunnel Bear to watch the races. It shouldn't be Geo-blocked but I can understand why since its on Speed 2 in America, but with limited roll-out it shouldn't be blocked anyway.

Its likely a little while longer before I'll able to go into Media Only mode and leave it there.
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post #5 of 12
5/22/12 at 9:31am
Media PC running headlessly in the basement furnace room with BR drive and multiple ATSC tuners, running SageTV media server.

SageTV extenders at each TV.

Connect remotely to the media server with Splashtop when I want to rip a BR or DVD.

-Suntan
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post #6 of 12
5/22/12 at 11:18am
I have an older Acer PC running XBMC with Win 7 x32. It's a dual core Intel at 2ghz with 4gig of ram and a Crucial M4 SSD 120gig. I use a MS USB IR receiver with a Pronto 9400 remote. The video is an ATI 6460 hooked up via HDMI to a Panasonic V10 plasma panel.

The receiver is a Pioneer VSX-1121 with a 5.1 setup. My movies and music are all on RAID 5 NAS storage from TheCus using N4100Pro's using Samsung drives. Network is a gigabit with Trendnet switches.
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post #7 of 12
5/22/12 at 11:29am
Have a headless Windows HTPC/NAS in the basement connected to receiver via HDMI. IR repeater system relays commands to MCE remote IR receiver on the pc. OS on SSD set to never turn off/never sleep. Storage drives sleep after 20 minutes.

On the remote, I have a button mapped to the Alt+F4 command to kill programs, then keybaord shortcuts set up to launch xbmc, hulu, mame, etc.... The remote has the keyboard combinations programmed to launch the various programs. Use an xbox 360 controller for emulators.

I made a few little eventghost macros to troubleshoot a few minor annoyances that have cropped up. I'm happy to say that my wife is able to use it without problems. God bless the harmony remote. After all, isn't the point to make it so you can sit outside and have a beverage without being disturbed?
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post #8 of 12
5/22/12 at 2:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dj4monie View Post

As of right now I'm between stuff. My new Motherboard was DOA and Amazon quickly sent a replacement (thumbs up Amazon!) arrived yesterday after order was placed on Friday, not bad.

I just had WHS do an image of my OS drive after I shrunk it down to fit on a 60GB SSD. Works perfectly only faster even on SATA II and IDE.

Since I didn't have to re-install anything (ya!), I am sorting out two minor issues but this is what I use XMBC for -

Fooling around with the skin menu, I added TV Shows to the strip and removed Music since I don't use it for music playback. I didn't know you could add Internet TV, I just have quick launch icons for ESPN3, You Tube, Revision3 and TWiT.

I couldn't get ROM Collector Browser to work right and maybe that was me, so I tried Advance Launcher but I tried to get two games to load (ePSXe) and got a Windows related error message about not being able to load ISO files or something.

As far as I know the emulator is setup property I'll check that again, I've just been getting caught up on shows and watching the NBA playoffs.

I hope somebody can write a Add-on for Speed 2 or I may have to learn how to do by learning some Python, be nice on the CV/Resume anyway, right?

I'm trying XBMC as a replacement for Second Run TV (which I may end up using for Speed 2) and Macro Tube which is no longer supported and You Tube doesn't work which is what I mainly used it for.

Thus far You Tube worked fine until it started acting funny but has since returned to its original state. ESPN3 didn't work but then all of sudden it did. Revision and TWiT always worked, go figure.

I want to prevent the use of browsers in my media center because eventually I would like to go in Media only mode which means WMC when rebooting or whatever remains in WMC mode and never goes to desktop.

ESPN3 was the last hurdle, but we'll see what happens this weekend with the FIA GT1 and GT3 Championship. The replays and live stream have been moved to You Tube this season, but sometimes its Geo-blocked and had to use Tunnel Bear to watch the races. It shouldn't be Geo-blocked but I can understand why since its on Speed 2 in America, but with limited roll-out it shouldn't be blocked anyway.

Its likely a little while longer before I'll able to go into Media Only mode and leave it there.

There's no program or addon for internet tv, it's just a category I made in aeon nox. I just made it from one of the custom links in the setup and pointed it toward free cable plugin (it won't show up unless you make it point towards something). But I just use it as a category title, I added free cable plugin to the submenu too.

I also favorited my emulators, nes, snes, and n64 so that I could use the submenu under my games menu. 1 less screen to go through. Didn't know I could do this till last night.

I like boxee a lot more now that I have been looking through it. It's good for those times you just don't know what to watch. Surfing through the menus is like channel surfing. Boxee also includes crunchyroll which is AWESOME for anime fans.

Let me know how you fare with the ps emulators....I want to add it to mine but haven't had the time to play with it. Seems confusing compared to the simplicity of the nes ones....just add rom and go.

I still haven't figured out ESPN....I did find a post on it at xbmc, seemed complicated so I'm saving it for later. I'm still learning how to make and edit advancedsettings xml, then I have to figure out a remote control system, then more emulators....it never ends

One day I want to walk into my living room and just say....movie theater mode...play dark knight returns, and then grin as my projector turns on, the receiver switches inputs, lights turn off, and xbmc starts up the movie

That day will be sweet but there's a lot of headaches between here and there....currently I say....baby I'm tired can you put on dark knight....and I just get the reply...go do it yourself you lazy bum and then a shoe hits me.
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post #9 of 12
5/22/12 at 4:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wyen78 View Post

There's no program or addon for internet tv, it's just a category I made in aeon nox. I just made it from one of the custom links in the setup and pointed it toward free cable plugin (it won't show up unless you make it point towards something). But I just use it as a category title, I added free cable plugin to the submenu too.

I also favorited my emulators, nes, snes, and n64 so that I could use the submenu under my games menu. 1 less screen to go through. Didn't know I could do this till last night.

I like boxee a lot more now that I have been looking through it. It's good for those times you just don't know what to watch. Surfing through the menus is like channel surfing. Boxee also includes crunchyroll which is AWESOME for anime fans.

Let me know how you fare with the ps emulators....I want to add it to mine but haven't had the time to play with it. Seems confusing compared to the simplicity of the nes ones....just add rom and go.

I still haven't figured out ESPN....I did find a post on it at xbmc, seemed complicated so I'm saving it for later. I'm still learning how to make and edit advancedsettings xml, then I have to figure out a remote control system, then more emulators....it never ends

One day I want to walk into my living room and just say....movie theater mode...play dark knight returns, and then grin as my projector turns on, the receiver switches inputs, lights turn off, and xbmc starts up the movie

That day will be sweet but there's a lot of headaches between here and there....currently I say....baby I'm tired can you put on dark knight....and I just get the reply...go do it yourself you lazy bum and then a shoe hits me.

Sounds like your GF/Wife isn't apart of the "Make Me A Sandwich" Club.

Yeah ePSX errors are sort of strange, boot up the emulator, load an iso/bin and it runs... No muss no, fuss. Continued problems and I'll have to go with Hyperspin.

Rom based games likely just load and play, I have a ton of NES and SNES roms I might set that up and try it.
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post #10 of 12
5/22/12 at 5:28pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dj4monie View Post

Sounds like your GF/Wife isn't apart of the "Make Me A Sandwich" Club.

Yeah ePSX errors are sort of strange, boot up the emulator, load an iso/bin and it runs... No muss no, fuss. Continued problems and I'll have to go with Hyperspin.

Rom based games likely just load and play, I have a ton of NES and SNES roms I might set that up and try it.

Are you using true fullscreen or windowed fullscreen? My NES and N64 emulators don't load when I use true fullscreen the emulator returns an error. The Snes one does work though. They all work when I use windowed fullscreen. The toggle switch for this is in system>settings>system> video output.

If you are using aeon mq3, trying to run it as a windowed fullscreen seems to screw it up. I kept getting freezing and lockups when trying to exit certain menus. Which is why I'm currently using nox.
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post #11 of 12
5/22/12 at 11:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suntan View Post

Media PC running headlessly in the basement furnace room with BR drive and multiple ATSC tuners, running SageTV media server.

SageTV extenders at each TV.

Connect remotely to the media server with Splashtop when I want to rip a BR or DVD.

-Suntan

Which make/model ATSC tuners are you using? I want to get one, either the Avermedia Duet or the Hauppage 2250. I've been looking at quite a few reviews & the Duet seems to have a more sensitive tuner, however the 2250 seems to be more reliable but cost more.

Any comments would be appreciated.
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post #12 of 12
5/23/12 at 10:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike99 View Post

Which make/model ATSC tuners are you using? I want to get one, either the Avermedia Duet or the Hauppage 2250. I've been looking at quite a few reviews & the Duet seems to have a more sensitive tuner, however the 2250 seems to be more reliable but cost more.

Any comments would be appreciated.

I have 4 Vbox 3560 USB tuners plugged into a powered USB hub. I don't believe they are still available on the market anymore.

I don't have any experience with the above tuners you mentioned. Sorry

-Suntan
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