Looking for something new, but not different

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HARRINGT0N

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Looking for something new, but not different

#1

Post by HARRINGT0N » Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:25 pm

I built an HTPC and have been running WMC on it since 2009. I have it connected to the big tv downstairs and used Xbox 360's on the other 3 tv's in the house as extenders. It ran great for a long time, but the 360's have grown tired and old and have over time been replaced by Android smart TV's, Amazon Fire Sticks and Roku's. I miss the WMC interface a lot but am dying for a replacement I can use on the Fire Sticks and such. I recently bought the HDHR Connect Quatro to replace some old tuners on the network and thought the "Live Channels" app for Android was going to save me. Well, there's a bug in the app and it doesn't work like I'd hoped. Does anyone know what I can do to get all my locals and DVR capability on these new devices? They all have Kodi installed and I thought about that, but is there a way to get them to point to my HTPC as a whole house DVR?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
o|||||||o

jachin99

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#2

Post by jachin99 » Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:45 pm

Off of the top of my head I bet Emby would do what you need

ZippyTheChicken

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#3

Post by ZippyTheChicken » Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:12 pm

This is the magic thing that everyone wants but no company will develop

Silicon dust that made your quatro has an app for android I believe that provides live tv and dvr but it is payware if you want all the options.

this is the problem as I see it..

Back in the late 90's to about 2005 there were a lot of people on the internet that were developing software for different things... there was a lot of shareware and a ton of freeware and linux was still at least trying to become a desktop alternative..

today kids don't want to program
most of the smaller utilities and stuff that were free that were written by younger people like myself back then have disappeared. People use to do it to learn how to code or for fun or just to cure a problem for themselves and then share it with the world.

The meltdown when obama was in office had a lot of effect on this.. people got greedy .. people started putting all kinds of garbage in their apps like Adware and Malware and the sites that use to help people learn to code have disappeared.

People get older .. they have no time because life gets complicated.. projects fall apart or end up not being supported.. people get sick or pass on.. its life but younger generations are lazy .. and things don't get developed. They would rather be social justice warriors and smoke weed all day than learn how to code. If they are coding they are probably writing phone apps but most of the new development comes from china today and all of that is done because of spyware.

its true.. people can disagree .. tell me about their favorite projects and for each one they tell me about I can name 10 that have fallen apart or haven't seen upgrades for many years.


But code development is not like it was because kids are tied to their phones .. not to desktops or laptops

So i mean I could suggest a few projects that aren't well supported and are flakey

but the truth is there should be someone out there with the ability to do this because although its not as flashy as other things its something that is useful for everyone..

and don't look for the big companies to get involved with it anymore because they won't..

its pitiful WMC should have grown .. not fallen apart.. but microsoft saw another direction to take and today they make all of their money on cloud computing .. just like amazon makes their money on cloud computing not really the merch they sell

its just too easy for kids to steal content off some site that has commercials stripped already.. or use mom and dad's Netflix and DirecTVNow account to watch tv rather than write some code to capture tv off antenna and dvr it

its just not flashy enough.. the want to write the next angrybirds app .. but they never will because they are too busy playing games and posting to instagram

jachin99

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#4

Post by jachin99 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:34 am

Honestly you might want to just stay with WMC. Development is picking up a little, it's reliable, and it has a decent selection of add-ons to choose from. Extenders might become aproblem after a while but MS is still making Xbox 360s

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Crash2009

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#5

Post by Crash2009 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 4:44 am

Try the Win7 WMC - ServerWMC - Emby Server combo.

Wmc manages all the tuners, recording, and storage.

Emby server transmits to your network...LAN or WAN

Server WMC is the middleman.

All your Kodi's would be on the front line.

jachin99

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#6

Post by jachin99 » Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:32 pm

Bear in mind also that if you choose Emby, it has baked in support for silicon dust tuners, and live TV. I don't know how well live TV works right now because it has been slow for me in the past but Kodi's live tv wasn't great when I tried that also. Either way, let us all know what you decide. If you choose to run kodi for TV, then ServerWMC is required because no one makes an EMBY PVR for Kodi. Like crash said, its server WMC.

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DavidinCT

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#7

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:48 pm

ZippyTheChicken wrote:This is the magic thing that everyone wants but no company will develop
Well, It's not as cut and dry as that. Home theater PCs/Home built DVR things are hobbyist things. Even when WMC came out, Microsoft (internally) had some major hope that people would see what it was and what it could be but,70% didn't even know it was there, 90% of people had no idea what it did and 95% of them, if they knew what it did/could do, they would have no clue on how to fully set it up, unless they did a ton of reading. This was clearly a case of Microsoft's ultra poor marketing, there was only one or 2 commercials for Windows that had something about WMC in it... it was under 5 seconds total.

Even with that, it's still a tweaky thing. They need to be tweaked. SO a Dev making a new setup will never retire off selling the software to do it. The market is just too small.

jachin99 wrote:Honestly you might want to just stay with WMC. Development is picking up a little, it's reliable, and it has a decent selection of add-ons to choose from. Extenders might become aproblem after a while but MS is still making Xbox 360s
I could not really say that, Some projects are coming but, most things are stale. Very limited options for plugins that still fully work, and the ones that work, might take a ton of work to get running and it might fail.

The Media Center software itself is very stable, I guess to the OP, maybe go into some theming...

Personally, I wish we could find a option for a "better" extender. If your watching TV ti's fine but, if you try to do any other video content, it's too limited on what I can view with what performance.
-Dave
Twitter @TheCoolDave

Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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Crash2009

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#8

Post by Crash2009 » Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:10 am

jachin99 wrote:Bear in mind also that if you choose Emby, it has baked in support for silicon dust tuners, and live TV. I don't know how well live TV works right now because it has been slow for me in the past but Kodi's live tv wasn't great when I tried that also. Either way, let us all know what you decide. If you choose to run kodi for TV, then ServerWMC is required because no one makes an EMBY PVR for Kodi. Like crash said, its server WMC.
Just a little FYI, in the past I had a Ceton InfiniTV4 and a HDHR-3CC working in the same above mentioned setup. As I recall, I had to delegate the Ceton to handle the recording duties. The HDHR was assigned to provide live tv for the LAN and WAN. I tested live WAN from Thailand, The Philippines, and of course in my truck over 4G LTE.

No "client app" required. I just use a plain old internet browser. Just put the IP and port # in the address box, hit enter, login,

Same thing for LAN. I never did setup Kodi as part of the system, but I did have Kodi's predecessor XBMC using live. As I recall there is a ServerWMC add-on for Kodi. Easy stuff.

For WAN all you need are a couple port forwards in your router, and a 20MB upload upgrade from your provider, and the video is smooth as silk.

I have been playing around with the XBOX360's internet browser with the above. No luck yet, but it looks possible.

frostillicus

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#9

Post by frostillicus » Sat Apr 07, 2018 4:25 pm

I personally use Kodi and ServerWMC, but not Emby. If you can get used to the Kodi interface rather than the WMC ui, then everything you need is there. On my Sony tv that runs AndroidTV as the OS, I have an Xbox 360 hooked up but never even use it anymore because I prefer to access my WMC recordings through Kodi. Live tv works fine, but I don’t use it much as I prefer to watch my recordings and skip commercials. I like the standard estuary skin in Kodi with a few tweaks myself, but there are many different skins to choose if you want a different look.

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#10

Post by mrsilver » Sun Apr 08, 2018 8:49 am

At some point I've accepted that I'm going to have to move away from WMC too :(

Have you taken a look at MediaPortal? They have a WMC skin which means that (although not perfect) it doesn't have an interface that makes me want to cry (unlike Kodi and, to a lesser extent, Emby). I'll caveat my recommendation with the fact that I've not tried it - although I've heard good things about their backend.

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/thre ... ad.135863/

If you try it, let us know how you get on with it.

My personal favourite is Plex, but their live TV doesn't work with my DVB-T2 tuner card and they haven't implemented a proper EPG. Assuming they add support for my tuner then, worst case, we could use the built in live TV capabilities of the television and only switch to Plex when we want to record or watch something. That might end up being the best option to get the other half to accept it.

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