Windows Media Center

[perry081064]

thanks for the links, didnt know these existed.. finally ive got a use for my media player.

i lead a very sheltered life

 

[this_is_gav]

Until there's a way to stop the muting of WMC also muting your entire ****ing PC, then it can whistle for it .

When running WMC bring up the mixer from the volume control in the system tray and you can individually change the volume of the various programs which use sound that are running at any given time - WMC included.

Not 100% ideal, but it is only 3 clicks.

 

[Django x2]

Images by Name (for actor images to appear in Media Browser)

and

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en for showing disc details in Media Browser

They need to hurry up and add TV support to MetaBrowser v2 as well

 

[BunnyKillBot]

I switched to a htpc after running a Humax foxsat HDR box, and absolutely hated every minute of the thing. The big companies think they can get away with putting cheap as chips components into a matt black box and nobody will notice. I saw the Sky+ GUI update on my mums box recently and its absolutely awful; counter intuitive, cluttered, slow response time and ugly.

WMC on the other hand is total bliss. I am running 2x dvb-s2 tuners, 2x dvb-t tuners and a healthy movie/music collection, all of which i can stream over my network thanks to dvbLink.

The EPG and record functionality of WMC just works. It truly is the best, most underused, most under rated piece of software microsoft have ever produced

/m$ raving mode off

 

[alex24]

@ Lucero

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll put them in the OP now.

@ BunnyKillBot (nice name btw)

I agree that WMC is underrated somewhat as it is hit with the M$ tarnishing brush as with most of their software. However, it's not without its problems. Although simple to use it lacks flexibility, and having the 'just works' ethic it also is limited in terms of really good 3rd party add-ons and new features being added. There are a few things I'd love to see that'd make it perfect:

1) Proper blu-ray integration. I don't care if you have to buy Power DVD or something, but have it built in from the start and maybe unlocked when you do.

2) Proper itegration of popular UK on-demand TV services. The above plugins work, but are limited. There is MSN video integrated now, so no reason why there can't be more (technically that is).

3) Updated interface. The current one is too big, almost like it's for those with sight impairments. I'd like more rows and columns on the EPG, and updated menu images etc as those and the low res backgrounds etc don't cut it today, they just look dated.

Edit: Updated OP with 3 new programs and changed colours a little for clarity.

 

[Participant]

There is a way to mute WMC without muting the entire pc, requires a mouse though. Go to the sound icon on the bottom right of the desktop, select mixer and mute accordingly. Voila.

I have got in the habit of leaving it open most of the time and just muting things as I go along.

When running WMC bring up the mixer from the volume control in the system tray and you can individually change the volume of the various programs which use sound that are running at any given time - WMC included.

Not 100% ideal, but it is only 3 clicks.

http://www.thisisgav.co.uk/tmp/win7volume.png

Thanks for that.

Now surely that makes a WMC mute button plugin very simple?

 

[Confused]

Wow, excellent thread

I've been using MediaBrowser, TunerFreeMCE and MetaBrowser (1.7.7(?) beta)

I might check out some of the other options now - especially an alternative to TunerFreeMCE - it's a bit clunky and slow.

Possibly an alternative to MetaBrowser, although it appears to be doing a fine enough job running on my WHS machine, and using the NTFS filesystem watcher - it's typically downloaded the metadata before it's even finished copying the file from another share on the server!


My biggest "issue" I've had, is that I was getting stuttering at random times when watching video files that are stored on my WHS.

I think I've narrowed it down now - the demigrator.exe application on the server was hammering my drives trying to balance the storage. I've now scheduled it so that the demigrator service is stopped & disabled at 8am, and re-enabled & started at 2am - that should (hopefully) be sufficient time for it to fully balance any new files added to the system throughout the day.

 

[PatZ1989]

This post was a long time coming, can i suggest the Shark007 codec as a very useful add-on, only suggested to myself recently in another thread, it adds support for all the more bespoke formats and adds media centre functionality for them =)

 

[alex24]

@Confused - Glad you're getting to the bottom of it. Give some of the plugins a go, I found TunerFreeMCE to be a bit clunky too.

@PatZ1989 - I have been meaning to add the Shark007 codecs, they do fairly easily improve the range of files that WMC can play. I'm not normally a fan of codec packs, as they can get complicated, but that's probably the best one to mention. I'll do a bit of research as to what it can do for WMC specifically, then add it to the list. Thanks.

 

[PatZ1989]

No Probs, ive found its main use is for HD ripped movies, which are normally .mkv

Windows hasnt a clue what to do with this so they just dont appear in the library

 

[wonder_lander]

I've got a WHS hosting all my media and currently a Revo R3610 running w7mc as the front end.

I use Media Browser in Windows 7 MC, superb bit of software! What themse is everyone using? Let's get some sexy screen shots people!

I use Meta Browser (paid for movies and free for TV shows, looking forward to TV appearing in the paid version).

I'm now going down the route of adding tuners to my WHS to be controlled in W7MC. Starting with DVB-T but if all proves OK I will look to add DVB-S2 also.
How does W7MC handle multiple tuners? Do I get an EPG / planner per tuner? Tried to find a video or guide to show how this works but came up blank!

If MC proves a reliable TV management then I can retire TiVo, Sky HD and Sky+ that I currently use for recording and playback of TV.

 

[alex24]

Hi wonder_lander, for themes you'll want to check out Media Center Studio (it's in the OP somewhere) in conjunction with the nice customisation of Media Browser. I set both backgrounds the same for a 'seamless' transition into media browser from WMC. I can't remember what theme I'm using, it may be Vanilla? I can check at some point.

As for multiple tuners, I can't comment as I've only used DVB-T.

 

[wonder_lander]

Hi wonder_lander, for themes you'll want to check out Media Center Studio (it's in the OP somewhere) in conjunction with the nice customisation of Media Browser. I set both backgrounds the same for a 'seamless' transition into media browser from WMC. I can't remember what theme I'm using, it may be Vanilla? I can check at some point.

As for multiple tuners, I can't comment as I've only used DVB-T.

Hi Alex,

I'm already running wolvers69 great theme along with Vanilla on media browser but haven't changed the background to match. I will definitely look into doing that.

I currently just have 2 folders Films and TV Shows, are people splitting things down further into genre?

I've ordered a Dual Tuner DVB-T PCIe card which I will put into my WHS and use DVB Logic to control. Guess it's just going to be a case of me "having a go at it!"

 

[DreXeL]

I have multiple tuners in my Win 7 HTPC, and Media Center handles them very nicely and seamlessly. WMC allows up to four tuners of each type. Basically, when you go through the 'TV Setup' option you select the tuners you wish to use, then do a channel scan. Media Center will then scan all channels available on all tuners and unify them onto one EPG.

Any channels that are picked up on multiple tuners (for example, BBC on both DVB-T and DVB-S) it will combine them as multiple sources for the one channel. When you change channel WMC automatically chooses an available tuner from it's sources for that channel. Having multiple tuners allows you to record several things whilst watching another.

 

[wonder_lander]

Cheers Drexel, sounds exactly as I was expecting / hoping!

Are you running Sky or Freesat on your DVB-S? Are you splitting the massive channel lists up by type etc?

 

[DreXeL]

I'm not actually using DVB-S, I have 2 x DVB-T and 1 x DVB-C (Virgin media cable). The EPG has categories that the channels are automatically put into, but TBH they don't work very well and it rarely categorises them properly. You can set up 'Favourite' line-ups though, so you can create categories manually like that. A bit long-winded, but once done it works well.

 

[alex24]

Indeed, I've done favourites before and it's worth it to remove all the rubbish channels. Glad to hear multiple tuner integration works so well. I use a dual tuner DVB-T but never combined it with any other standards. The dual tuner just lets you select the tuners in the setup and as DreXeL says, puts it all into one EPG.

EDIT: Added Shark007 codec pack.

I'd also welcome any screenshots of your setups guys, I'm sure they'd be appreciated by all. I'll try and grab one of mine this week.

 

[wonder_lander]

What are people using Shark007 for? I have everything playing so far and haven't needed anything other than an MKV splitter to be registered

 

[alex24]

I don't use it at all tbh, I don't download/rip anything, just use the discs or watch stuff that was recorded by WMC via DVB-T. It was on a recommendation above. What mkv splitter are you using wonder_lander?

 

[wonder_lander]

I don't use it at all tbh, I don't download/rip anything, just use the discs or watch stuff that was recorded by WMC via DVB-T. It was on a recommendation above. What mkv splitter are you using wonder_lander?

Trouble with codec packs is you get a lot of stuff when actually you don't necessarily need it!

I used a post on AV Forums which recommended you get the MPC-HC Standalone Filters from http://www.xvidvideo.ru/component/docman/?format=html

You then do (quoted from the av forums thread)

Next you need to manually register the mkv splitter from the MPC-HC standalone filters pack. Place the MatroskaSplitter.ax file in the root of your C: drive. Now you need to open an elevated command prompt. To get an elevated command prompt simply open your start menu and type “cmd” then press ctrl-shift-enter. Once inside type the following:

C:\Windows\system32\regsvr32 C:\MatroskaSplitter.ax
C:\Windows\sysWOW64\regsvr32 C:\MatroskaSplitter.ax, if using Win7 x64.

Symptoms I had were that mkv's played in wmp but not in W7MC / Media Browser