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317 Posts
So now that I finally have a seperate office and living room, I want to get all my DVD's ripped and saved on a harddrive for use in the HTPC i've built. Right now i'm just ripping them to DVD folders, but I'm considering compressing everything into x.264 if i can find a good container that is readable by what ever front end i pick
The problem I'm facing is i cant seem to find a good front end, they all suck. I'm using Vista x64, and Media Center looks great but the lack of plugins and tons of features i dont want bog it down. I want a simple Video and Music and image player, i dont want TV or anything else, I just want somthing to handle my media files. To many things in MC dont make sence, like why are Pictures and Video on the same "cross section". Why arent they two seperate catagories??? Why have TV + Movies on the same tab? they are 2 completely different things that should have there own sections. All this yet Sports gets its own tab? What about people who dont want any of this? why is there not an option to remove these useless sections?
So after fussing with Media Center I tried "My Movies" add-on that was made for it, and its great if it werent for it being incredibly ugly and not integrated well at all. So that was a huge let down as it looks like a great concept that just has been executed very poorly.
Next up I tried MediaPortal, which so far i like. Its easy to customize, easily threw out all the junk in it I didnt want. But its very bland, lacks that sparkling interface of MC. I want somthing thats snappy and very easy to use so the wife can pick it up and just find the movie she wants to watch and press play. Another problem is how it handles music, no DJ settings, no cool ways of telling it to play your highest rated songs, and no slick interface to enjoy.
So I'm asking does anyone know of a good, high quality front end that you can customize alot that handles Movies and music well. Somthing that makes sorting through 200+ movies and 10,000+ songs easy?
The problem I'm facing is i cant seem to find a good front end, they all suck. I'm using Vista x64, and Media Center looks great but the lack of plugins and tons of features i dont want bog it down. I want a simple Video and Music and image player, i dont want TV or anything else, I just want somthing to handle my media files. To many things in MC dont make sence, like why are Pictures and Video on the same "cross section". Why arent they two seperate catagories??? Why have TV + Movies on the same tab? they are 2 completely different things that should have there own sections. All this yet Sports gets its own tab? What about people who dont want any of this? why is there not an option to remove these useless sections?
So after fussing with Media Center I tried "My Movies" add-on that was made for it, and its great if it werent for it being incredibly ugly and not integrated well at all. So that was a huge let down as it looks like a great concept that just has been executed very poorly.
Next up I tried MediaPortal, which so far i like. Its easy to customize, easily threw out all the junk in it I didnt want. But its very bland, lacks that sparkling interface of MC. I want somthing thats snappy and very easy to use so the wife can pick it up and just find the movie she wants to watch and press play. Another problem is how it handles music, no DJ settings, no cool ways of telling it to play your highest rated songs, and no slick interface to enjoy.
So I'm asking does anyone know of a good, high quality front end that you can customize alot that handles Movies and music well. Somthing that makes sorting through 200+ movies and 10,000+ songs easy?
