Torn Between XBMC and WMC

I do exactly that, except I don't use netflix/hulu at all, just the live tv. Use this free program:

http://xbmcwmc.teknowebworks.com/

It integrates the two programs together and makes it pretty seamless. If your not running your wmc in shell mode, sometimes the app switching is problematic because it doesn't always keep focus. I'm not sure if there is a workaround for that. I have my system running in shell mode and the integration is pretty seamless and works really well.

~Ninja

+1. I use XBMC for viewing ripped Blu-Rays and DVDs in MKV format and WMC for watching and recording TV shows. The app mentioned above allows you to launch XBMC from within WMC and returns you to WMC when you exit XBMC. For me it's the best of both worlds.

I think you can also use advancedlauncher to add WMC to XBMC. But I think both programs would be open in that case unless you wrote autoit script to close xbmc when opening WMC.

There are plenty of free tv content that can be gotten, unfortunately the quality can be pretty bad at times. I use boxee and zincTV from WMC and free cable, navi-X, hulu, and youtube from XBMC. I very rarely use these things for internet tv anymore though, mostly just to find anime.

I use Hulu a lot.  XBMC user experience getting to Hulu is poor.  XBMC user experience getting back to XBMC from Hulu is a big fail.

 

I also like to jump out of my media application to the OS, and haven't found a way to minimize XBMC.

 

Media/Music Browser is far superior than anything else I've seen.

 

I use WMC + MediaBrowser + Hulu.

So what does MediaBrowser has that XBMC doesn't ? I've been a long time MediaPortal user and recently switched to XBMC and despite its initial learning curve I'm really liking the add-on and features that it offers.

Personally, I use wmc for Netflix and livetv, and I use plex (xbmc spinoff group) for my local media files. I have a home server with all my media running the plex server, but it works just as well running it on the local machine.

Plex doesn't have as big of a user base as xbmc, so there isn't as many custom ui's for it or add-one I assume. But its built in metadata grabber is awesome, and it just works out of the box. Almost nothing to configure other then the watch folders. It takes the same approach as mentioned above. Adds a plex icon to media center, you click it, it launches plex, close plex and it resores media center. Pretty seemless with a few hiccups every now and then.

What is shell mode? I have the same setup except plex instead of xbmc but I do get the unfocus sometimes and if "shell mode" can fix it i'm all ears!

I've been searching around for the guide I used, but didn't come up with it. But this guide seems pretty good:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-entertainment-pcs/1520187-how-modify-windows-7-boot-straight-into-media-front-end.html

I use SageTV to record OTA shows but it can also play the other ripped media files but I prefer to use WMC with Media Browser. I use Netflix in WMC. Watch ripped media through MB. I have the Pandora app on my desktop and wish it could integrate into WMC. I've recently been checking out Crunchy Roll.,I may subscribe to it for a bit to see if the full setup is worth it. I have only recently learned about Plex due to its future availability on the Ouya. I'm still trying to learn more about it and to see if and how I could incorporate it into my HTPC.

There are so many ups and downs between the two programs that I find it's really what small things bug you more.

Overall I think XBMC is more polished. I prefer mediabrowser because I am most familiar with it and I disliked having to use the xbmc integration (linked above). Also with mediabrowser, using the external player MPC was very easy. I like how it calls upon it as an external player. I prefer LAV filters with Madvr which is why I do this. I know that XBMC is capable of utilizing external players, but I would hate to lose the eye candy of the intrenal player.

Anyways, I came from mediaportal a long time ago. I'd still suggest playing around with both to see what suites your needs better.

Yep, it's absurdly easy to setup. Decreases your boot time, decreases the chance of rogue notifications interrupting you, makes everything seem more polished, etc. I honestly don't understand why anyone using a Windows 7 HTPC isn't using shell mode.

Question, since it seems you have some experience with this. Last night I was attempting to adjust the Nvidia control panel settings. Well when running shell mode as above, I could not right click the desktop to open the panel. So I opened the task manager, and ran a new task explorer.exe. The result of this was a file browser window opened. Problem was I had expected the start bar, and other windows GUI elements, including background to come back. For whatever the reason they did not. How do I bring back the normal GUI if needed temporarily? I've tried searching online but haven't found it. If it was supposed to do this, it could be because my OS is not validated but I don't know that for sure as I don't have much experience operating the computer this way. (I'm a technet user and was too lazy to go get the key at the time of installation (been in use for a while, not sure if a full month))

Apprecaite the info.

~Ninja

PS. I did get to the Nvidia Control panel, just had to manually find the file to open the panel since I had no GUI access

Not 100% sure, but I think you can bring up task manager using either alt-ctrl-del or shift-ctrl-escape, then File-Run, then run explorer.exe.

xnappo

Yea when I briefly ran my WMC as shell I had to do this to get back to normal desktop.

Thanks for the tip, maybe thats how it was supposed to work. Could be my license validation issue then. Maybe you both read over my post to quickly, but I explained that I had done just that...

Thanks though!

My HTPC boots in about 30 seconds after it gets past post and counts all the harddrives.

It launches directly into WMC and when I do it as an activity it goes direct to LiveTV. I don't shut it off because it idles down to less than 10W so why bother? This way the part of my library stored on my HTPC is available to me globally using PLEX too. I like being able to jump right out into Windows and configure something if I have to as well.

Problem with this, like the user stated above. Is that if using the XBMC or Plex in conjunction with WMC (switching via a launcher menu in WMC), often I found that the computer would loose focus of the app thats running. This would then require a mouse or keyboard (instead of the remote) to get the application back in focus, which is not acceptable for the WAF in my opinion. Since having moved to using ehshell and directly launching WMC with no gui access, it has virtually become an appliance and worked without fail, thus greatly improving the WAF!

I also leave my HTPC on all the time, no argument there!

Any recovery problems when running in shell and having a power outage?

I pretty much reboot it like its an appliance. But I've never had to do windows system repairs or anything like that due to a power outage.

^thx. I will try it on my rebuild. Just had power go out and restart required response to prompts and lengthy startup . Not good for WAF.