Aaron
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 04
Location: Cottingham, East Riding
User status: Offline
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Right,
I've got a media centre connected to my TV which plays movies, music etc from a server at the side of my apartment. At the moment, it has just a basic installation of Windows XP Pro on it and I simply use windows explorer to open the video files.
I've got a bit of time this weekend and wouldn’t mind "jazzing it up" a bit with some front end media centre software.
My options so far are:
Windows XP Media Centre Edition - I have a copy of this which I downloaded some time ago but never used it.
Windows Vista (all version) - Again, I got a copy off a friend some time ago...Ultimate has the Media Centre add-on I think.
Any other 3rd party apps out there which I could use?
Ideally, I’d like to have thumbnail images of each movie cover which I can click on to play the film 
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Simon
Member
Registered: 24th Apr 03
Location: Oxfordshire
User status: Offline
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http://www.team-mediaportal.com/showcase.html
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colour_golden
Member
Registered: 24th Feb 08
Location: Hull - UK
User status: Offline
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Original Xbox Media center is now available for windows.
http://xbmc.org/
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by colour_golden
Original Xbox Media center is now available for windows.
http://xbmc.org/
Complete and utter FTW.
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ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
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media portal enough said, its free and looks so good when you take the time to set it up properly.
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Eddie.2k
Member
Registered: 4th Dec 06
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Doug
quote:
Originally posted by colour_golden
Original Xbox Media center is now available for windows.
http://xbmc.org/
Complete and utter FTW.
Just downloaded it
What a pile of crap  !!!
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Doug
Member
Registered: 8th Oct 03
User status: Offline
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Please explain your reasoning.
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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I just downloaded Media Portal and it's awful. So very buggy. I didn't even manage to get into the main app. It crashed on 'Loading Plug-ins', and then crashed when 'Loading DirectX'. Before I even opened the app it was chucking error messages up when changing the settings in the config app.
Absolutely horrible.
Any other suggestions? I really like the Windows Media Centre but it just can't be customized enough. I don't watch TV through my HTPC but there's still a setting with 'Recorded TV' and so on, and it just looks messy.
I have a massive library of .VOB files which are lossless DVD rips. I just want a application with a nice GUI that can cycle through them displaying the front DVD cover, the name and description, and possibly the length. I don't mind entering all the information manually, including the image for the front cover.
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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I just tried XBMC and it's the best I've found yet... But scrolling through .VOB's shows text (the file name) and not a thumbnail. There's no way (from what I can see) to add a thumbnail. 
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Aaron
Member
Registered: 9th Aug 04
Location: Cottingham, East Riding
User status: Offline
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You must download the cover of the film manually and place it in a specially named folder.
My friend who uses this will be able to shed some light on it when he next reads this thread.
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colour_golden
Member
Registered: 24th Feb 08
Location: Hull - UK
User status: Offline
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yup download the cover in jpg format and call it folder.jpg and put it in the movie folder, assuming your movies are in sub folders that is.
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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Uhm... My .VOB files are just in a single folder. There's 1,000+ .VOB files in one folder.
How would I do it exactly?
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Sam
Moderator
Premium Member
Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
User status: Offline
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My laptop has Vista Premium and comes with Media Center so it's not just Ultimate that has it BTW.
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colour_golden
Member
Registered: 24th Feb 08
Location: Hull - UK
User status: Offline
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convert them to xvid for a start 
Make sub folders for each movie and move the vob file into its own folder.
for example
[Edited on 08-03-2009 by colour_golden]
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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That's ridiculous... There's no way I'm doing that with 1,000 films! I also stream a single folder to the PS3 which means I'd need to select every folder too... That's such a silly design!
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ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
I just downloaded Media Portal and it's awful. So very buggy. I didn't even manage to get into the main app. It crashed on 'Loading Plug-ins', and then crashed when 'Loading DirectX'. Before I even opened the app it was chucking error messages up when changing the settings in the config app.
Absolutely horrible.
Any other suggestions? I really like the Windows Media Centre but it just can't be customized enough. I don't watch TV through my HTPC but there's still a setting with 'Recorded TV' and so on, and it just looks messy.
I have a massive library of .VOB files which are lossless DVD rips. I just want a application with a nice GUI that can cycle through them displaying the front DVD cover, the name and description, and possibly the length. I don't mind entering all the information manually, including the image for the front cover.
god knows how you managed that seriously, ive had it crash mabye once or twice and im still using an older version that the new r1 release which has massive imporvement.
are you sure you downloaded the newest release, theres really no reason it should crash so much.
and as for the covers media portal automatically scans every file on your pc, downloads covers, artwork, actors, title and movie descriptions so it really is what your looking for.
its no were near as buggy as your making out  perhaps your pc is full of useless codecs ect, seriously after using it for about 6 month its hardly crashed.
[Edited on 08-03-2009 by ssj_kakarot]
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colour_golden
Member
Registered: 24th Feb 08
Location: Hull - UK
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
That's ridiculous... There's no way I'm doing that with 1,000 films! I also stream a single folder to the PS3 which means I'd need to select every folder too... That's such a silly design!
Not really its just good housekeeping to keep your media organized, its the logical way. How can you find anything when everything is just lumped into 1 folder?
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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I downloaded the newest 'stable' release directly from their site, and loaded it on a freshly installed copy of XP SP3... I honestly couldn't get into the actual application. I still have all the awful short cuts everywhere it failed to remove... I have no reason to slate it for no reason. I was prepared to give it a go and I did. It is utter shit on my computer (and my laptop), but I'm sure it works on some machines for you to defend it... Not stable enough for my family to use, though. I wouldn't trust it.
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Dom
Member
Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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A  for MediaPortal - decent program, no problems here and it's regarded as one of the best, plenty of people use it over on AvForums and Overclockers
MythTV is another i've looked into and seems to work well once you have you linux distro setup properly. Although it's a bit on an arse to configure.
xa0s - it's probably worth looking into why MediaPortal didn't start (most likely it's conflicting with codecs/drivers), as there isn't much choice otherwise.
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xa0s
Banned
Registered: 4th Mar 08
Location: Dartford, Kent Car: Turbo'd Fabia vRS
User status: Offline
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Simply crashed when loading DirectX apparently, then crashed the 2nd time when attempting to load up when it got to 'Loading Plug-ins'
I then tried to go into the config application and that error and crashed when I tried to save. Gave up and un-installed it.
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Voyto
Member
Registered: 9th Feb 03
Location: Stafford
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
Simply crashed when loading DirectX apparently, then crashed the 2nd time when attempting to load up when it got to 'Loading Plug-ins'
I then tried to go into the config application and that error and crashed when I tried to save. Gave up and un-installed it.
Have you ever thought that if you can't use MediaPortal or XBMC without it crashing, and everyone else can use it fine, the problem may be your computer? 
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ssj_kakarot
Member
Registered: 29th Apr 03
Location: hartlepool
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Voyto
quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
Simply crashed when loading DirectX apparently, then crashed the 2nd time when attempting to load up when it got to 'Loading Plug-ins'
I then tried to go into the config application and that error and crashed when I tried to save. Gave up and un-installed it.
Have you ever thought that if you can't use MediaPortal or XBMC without it crashing, and everyone else can use it fine, the problem may be your computer?
i did sugest that but apparently its not 
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Voyto
Member
Registered: 9th Feb 03
Location: Stafford
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by ssj_kakarot
quote:
Originally posted by Voyto
quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
Simply crashed when loading DirectX apparently, then crashed the 2nd time when attempting to load up when it got to 'Loading Plug-ins'
I then tried to go into the config application and that error and crashed when I tried to save. Gave up and un-installed it.
Have you ever thought that if you can't use MediaPortal or XBMC without it crashing, and everyone else can use it fine, the problem may be your computer?
i did sugest that but apparently its not
No Experience with XBMC, but ive used Media Portal beta versions for over a year...not had any issues that wern't my own stupidity yet
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Rob_Quads
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: southampton
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by colour_golden
quote:
Originally posted by xa0s
That's ridiculous... There's no way I'm doing that with 1,000 films! I also stream a single folder to the PS3 which means I'd need to select every folder too... That's such a silly design!
Not really its just good housekeeping to keep your media organized, its the logical way. How can you find anything when everything is just lumped into 1 folder?
So its good house keeping to create a folder for each film with the film inside but not a directory containing all the films which are single files. Both will look the same one will just show files one directories except with directories you have to go another level down to open it.
I have been using Vista Media Center with lots of success. I have tried MediaPortal and also had problems with it in the past.
My biggest problem is getting all the various HD formats to play properly in them i.e. BluRay m2t2 files, .ts x264 files etc.
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