MP = Awesome Freeware (1 Viewer)

[mikester]

I just had to share my experience in contrast to the "buggy bloatware" thread, and in general to give a huge kudos to all the devs and the user community who have made this project so great.

I setup my first HTPC about 2.5 years ago, and went with Windows MCE because it was the easiest to setup and (at the time) most stable solution out there. I looked at MP back then, but it was still very early in the development cycle and too rough for my needs.

My goal for this year was to expand from a single HTPC to one for every TV, and integrate TV and DVR functions as well. My dream (and many others) is a single AV device with all my media accessible through a single common interface. Windows MCE just doesn't deliver in that area, so I started looking at alternatives.

The first one one that caught my eye was Linux MCE. Like most people who saw the demo video, I was immediately drawn into LMCE and rushed to set up a test system and play around with it. After spending a LOT of time messing with it, I gave up in frustration. Currently, LMCE is about as stable as MP was 2 years ago, maybe even less. But the biggest problem - their forums are beyond unhelpful, and at times downright rude. I've never seen an open source community so hostile and defensive, and I'm afraid that project will probably fail because of it. Contrast that with MP - the people here are very friendly and willing to help, and I'm sure that plays a big part in how much the project has grown and matured over the last couple of years.

The next one I looked at was MythTV, which I would consider the main competitor/alternative to MP. To be honest, I think the TV server capabilities of MythTV are way ahead of MP, but that's understandable considering how much of a head start MythTV had. And the MP TV Server is impressive considering how long it's been around, so I'm sure it will catch up quickly. And everything else works much better in MP than MythTV, and since DVDs, TV Series, Music, etc. are just as important to me as TV, it made MP the obvious choice.

So thanks everyone for all the effort in bringing us such an awesome product. Yeah, it has it's quirks, but most things I've found I've been able to work through quickly, or find the solution with a little reading on the forums. If you want something that works out of the box, I'm sure one of the high-end audio installers would be happy to sell you a system for $20k that does 1/10th as much, so go for it. As for me, I appreciate what everyone has done, and can't wait until I get up to speed enough to leverage my 15 years as a professional programmer to start contributing to making this program even better.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

So thanks everyone for all the effort in bringing us such an awesome product. Yeah, it has it's quirks, but most things I've found I've been able to work through quickly, or find the solution with a little reading on the forums

Might be a lot of reading , thanks for taking the "MP average" user route, it is a learning curve as all the experienced MP users know.

I would say things are better in many ways, even in so called feature freeze, so many improvements have happened under the bonnet, which are appreciated by the people in the know, including me.

Every so often have to remind all the Devs what a great job they do for MP, trying to balance all the negative feedback that may be given during regular posts, where individuals have screwed up their setup (usually found to be external to MP, whether drivers or Windows updates), no one can account for these, as most people find "always updated software available" for their installed products.

Now for the advert, any DX knowledgeable people out there, please contact us on irc, see here for how to, or PM me and i will get someone to contact you.

Thanks for reading.