Media Portal Vs. XBMC (4 Viewers)

[butchjr]

I am pretty sure that you can use XBMC as a TV-Frontend. I don't use it myself (they only show crap on tv), but I believe it's possible.

And I think that XBMC is very customizable, with remote or keyboard. I can't se XBMC lacking any configuration features. And I don't have any crashes with XBMC. I have set up a minimal ubuntu install, and I my boot time is 20 seconds, from a cold start. It plays everything, never crashes, looks good, feels fast.

 

[sonik]

@ butchjr

a minmal ubuntu-install sounds interesting. How does that work. I have got Ubuntu 9.04 installed but wouldn't know how to do that minmal...can you explain how to go about it? thanx in advance

 

[butchjr]

Sonik:

XBMC - HOW-TO install XBMC for Linux on Ubuntu step-by-step

There you'll find everything you need. It's very very easy, and the How-to is for beginners to advanced users.

I would go with Ubuntu Hardy, there are a couple of small issues with Intrepid and Jaunty and XBMC. But you could run with any of those three, without any big problems.
But Hardy would be my first choice.

 

[poppabk]

I am pretty sure that you can use XBMC as a TV-Frontend. I don't use it myself (they only show crap on tv), but I believe it's possible.

And I think that XBMC is very customizable, with remote or keyboard. I can't se XBMC lacking any configuration features. And I don't have any crashes with XBMC. I have set up a minimal ubuntu install, and I my boot time is 20 seconds, from a cold start. It plays everything, never crashes, looks good, feels fast.

But how well is it supported? MP has DVR functionality as part of its core focus and as DVR is my primary use MP seems my best bet. I can handle an update breaking my news for a week before the author gets a chance to update his plug-in, the chance of the DVR being dead for a week is not an option. Plus I have no real problems with media portal, it does everything I want it to do so why would I consider changing?

 

[butchjr]

poppabk:
I don't know why you would be changing? As long as you are happy with what you've got, don't switch. I didin't like MP, and I love XBMC. I could never think of switching back.
All I can say is that for pure movie/music playback, XBMC much better than MP.
When it comes to TV, I don't know how good XBMC is. But I don't know how good MP is either.

 

[nmt1978]

poppabk:
I don't know why you would be changing? As long as you are happy with what you've got, don't switch. I didin't like MP, and I love XBMC. I could never think of switching back.
All I can say is that for pure movie/music playback, XBMC much better than MP.
When it comes to TV, I don't know how good XBMC is. But I don't know how good MP is either.

Can XMBC use external subtitle .srt? I have lots of movies with external subtitles in our language. I tried XMBC yesterday but noticed that it could not load external subtitles?

Also i have an off-brand remote (yahcoo) but could not find how to use this remove with XMBC? does MCE remote work easily or it requires some tricks to get MCE remote to work with XMBC?

Another thing is - I find that in XMBC the time for loading movies information (description, actor, genre, coverart...etc) is much more than time i had spent with Moving pictures Plugin in MP. (it tooks me nearly 20 minutes for loading informations for 5 movies in XMBC)

Finally i have installed MP in my computer LCD and MP have a very easy tool (in configuration window) to specify which screen it will start. So my wife can use computer in a main monitor while i can use MP for watching movies or listenning to music on a HDTV at the same time

 

[butchjr]

Yes, it can use external subtitles. Almost all of my movies have external, and all of my movies plays perfect with subtitles. Use the latest stable release of XBMC!

MCE remotes is very very very easy to use in XBMC for Linux (I don't know how to do this in windows or macos - it is probably easy). If you use linux, send me a message if you want help with the remote.

I find it very strange that it took 20 minutes to find info for 5 movies. In 20 minutes I can easily find info for all of my movies. Perhaps it was something wrong with IMDB (or whatever place you load info from) just at the time when you were downloading info? Try again. For me it would take a couple of seconds to download all info (including covers) for a movie.

The last question i can't really understand.

 

[nmt1978]

I had to admit that XMBC is superior to MP in term of graphic design. It is amazing. Especially the skin Aeon

However, as for the library. it is terible. I have around 380 movies but the scanning process found only and putting only 250 movies into library. I went to XMBC forum and found that many people had such problem but the XMBC developer seems unable to solve that.

I try to use MIP (Media Info Plus) to create .nfo for all movies but you have to do it each by each film manually and that is tired

Any way, i will stick to MP and wait for future version of XMBC

 

[butchjr]

Strange issue. I've never had that problem myself.

 

[Quek9]

Sorry about bumping an old thread but both MP and XBMC are new to me being a former sagetv and MCE user. I just finished testing XBMC and I am going back to MP. The TV stuff is just too cumbersome. I cannot figure out how to blast 3 different settop boxes and the channel changes are slower than molasses. I agree that MP is more difficult to set up but not by much. The easiest thing to set up was MCE but adding new files such as video files found on a netshare is very difficult because you have to type in the path every time without the ability to copy and paste. XBMC is very beautiful but the streamedMP for MP is nice looking too. MP is the decent looking chick that can cook, clean, and hold down a successful career. XBMC is the beautiful chick that gets by on her looks. This is just my $0.02.