Movie library replacements?

[DavidinCT]

Hey all,

First of all, Media Browser looks like too much for my needs, I don't want all the fluff and keep it JUST FOR MOVIES with no settings or options for other content(if I can access other content in WMC with this app, I don't want it). Don't care about streaming movies, if I can do it with Remote Potato then cool, otherwise I don't really need it.

I want something smooth and fast but, MUST work on Extenders.

-Wont care if it looks and works like the current setup but, it MUST work better
-Needs to fully work with extenders (transcoder for extenders would be nice, for formats that the Xbox 360 has problems with).
-With the Transcoding for Extenders, I want NO CHANGES on the WMC machine itself(everything works and I don't want more codes messing it up).
-Meta data needs to show up when I open a movie and when I stop a movie with native MC features (would be nice if I could search in WMC and find in my movie library)
-I don't want something that takes a lot of overhead (I understand the transcoding thing could hurt but, a smooth experience with 500+ movies is important) under the CPU or memory.

More and more I am working with full Blu-ray rips (25-40gb movies) and more and more I keep having problems with extenders, even when I compress them down to 10-15gb, sometimes the extender will try to play, then after about 5 min just say something about "critical system error" try it again and it will do the same thing.. I've blown a way the profiles and rebuilt it, still same issues with 2 different extenders. Never mind the other BUGS with the Movie Library in WMC.

Only thing I have seen is My Movies, this does work on Extender and offers transcoding for Extenders but, that is $50 to get that feature (1250 "points"). Seems like a little much.

Thoughts ? Or ideas

[3rob3]

Media Browser (Emby). It just takes a bit more setup than it sounds like you are willing to do. i think you'd be happy with it though if you can get past the configuration. Give it a try, if you need help with something just ask.

[DavidinCT]

Media Browser (Emby). It just takes a bit more setup than it sounds like you are willing to do. i think you'd be happy with it though if you can get past the configuration. Give it a try, if you need help with something just ask.

Can you clear up a few questions before I try Emby ? Last I looked this was a Media player, that handles videos, movies and music, I don't want all those features, I just want movies with some features.

1. Can it be stripped down just to do movies(with no option in WMC for other content) ?
2. Last I heard performance on Extenders were questionable, Does it offer a feature that can convert video on the fly for best compatibility for the 360 ? (this is HUGE, I need all my movies to be able to play on extenders without changing the original video file that I use in my home theater).
3. does this do ANYTHING to the media streams (audio, video, HDMI high bit rate audio, etc) ? As my codecs are fine everything works, I don't want to "break" anything.

As I am not worried about configuration as long as I am not reinventing the wheel (documented issues for setup) but, I am looking for something that exactly fits for my needs here.

If My movies didn't cost $50 to get the feature to convert videos on the fly, I would give that a shot because it looks like it would fit my needs. Seems a little much as the default Movie Library for the MOST part works good but, some annoying bugs that I am sick of seeing.

Extenders are huge, so if Emby cant convert videos on the fly for compatibly, I wont even attempt it as it will not fit what I need.

This extender/movie issue is causing major impact to the WAF so it's kind of big.

[newfiend]

Since you want extender capability you may be happier using PLEX. Emby in my experience has had lack luster extender performance. If your movies were in a .mp4 container the Xbox seems to play those really well. Other containers like .mkv.. Not so much. I don't think extender support is high on Emby's list of devices to support at the moment since they see Media Center as an aging platform. Don't get me wrong I love Emby.. It does what I need very well, but I'm not worried about movie support on an extender.
Plex from what I hear supports transcoding to the 360 and they have a Xbox 360 app as well. Might be more of what you're looking for IMO.
HTH,
newfiend

[newfiend]

Another thought, you could always image your drive for a backup since everything is currently working then try tinkering with Emby or Plex etc.. Only downside to Plex and My Movies is the cost factor. Emby is much cheaper and works well. I wish they would release an Xbox 360/One app! Or even fix transcoding so when a 360 is steaming it works no matter what your files container is in. That's the biggest bummer for me is lack of 360 support with Emby and I'm not going to container swap 500+ movies and 4TB of tv shows just so extenders work. I watch movies on my big screen TV and use my AVR for surround sound so I use Emby for that and streaming content to my phone and tablet works great.
Emby is still new really.. Plex has been around longer and has a slight edge on Emby as far as features and support go but Emby is closing the gap quickly. There have been rumblings of an Xbox app from time to time but i haven't seen anything solid on it yet on the Emby forums.

[DavidinCT]

ok, about 85-90% of my movies are MKV(love this container), some AVI, some m2ts, some DVD rips(VOB) but, for the most part, it's MKV. I WILL not re-encode my movies, it will take too long and I can lose quality. My Main HTPC setup has a 65" 4K tv, so picture quality there is most important (along with the DD/DTS-HD master audio).

From what I have read(and your statements about it, here and the other thread), Emby would be nice just for the HTPC and I almost want to try it for that but.......

>Emby in my experience has had lack luster extender performance

With that statement alone, it could kill looking at this. My wife and kids use the Extender (in the Kitchen/Family room), and more and more the movies not playing are causing a MAJOR issue to the WAF (and we all know this is big as all). I watch all MY movies in the HT room but, the wife and the kids watch movies on the extender as their primary location.

Any product that I get NEEDs to work IN WMC on the Extender, if they need to exit out of WMC to use a 360 app, it's a fail, as it would be a pain for my wife to do and that would kill it, nor would I want her to HAVE to go through it (WMC issues can be a WAF issue)

If there was a 3rd party fix for the Movie Library (performance and extender playback), that would work fine... Anything I get HAS to fix the problems I have with the ML now...It needs to be better but, not cause more problems

Plex seems like a 3rd party item. is there true integration for it in Windows Media Center or is it just a link, does it have true transcoder support for extenders ? If it do they offer a full trial ?

Looks like I will have to try My Movies, it seems it has the transcoding feature for Extenders(reviews of it are pretty good)built in, They do offer a 21 day trial for the maxed package. I hate to spend $50 on something I already have but, with a few bugs but, if it really solves all problems and makes movies run 100% of the time, it might just be worth it...

Of course, I always clone my OS drive before doing ANY changes...

Curt, thanks for your thoughts, it really helped and again, I have to get you a brew one of these days

[3rob3]

I think you are out of luck then. Your best bet for full file compatibility would be the Plex app for 360 dashboard (which you said is not acceptable, not to mention you have to pay for a Plex Pass subscription).

[Sharks]

I would suggest the 21 day trial of of My Movies, no harm in testing and see if it fixes your system. If it does I would say it is probably worth the $50 to $100 dollars to keep your family happy. : )

[DavidinCT]

I think you are out of luck then. Your best bet for full file compatibility would be the Plex app for 360 dashboard (which you said is not acceptable, not to mention you have to pay for a Plex Pass subscription).

OK, so Plex does not have a TRUE Media Center pluggin that works on Extenders ? Having a 360 app is worthless in my case, if it was me, I would not care but, it's for the wife and my young kids it wont work... You have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to use it ? It's not a buy and use ?

I would suggest the 21 day trial of of My Movies, no harm in testing and see if it fixes your system. If it does I would say it is probably worth the $50 to $100 dollars to keep your family happy. : )

Looks like I will have to try it, I'll see if I can this weekend. Even though it's $50, I hope it fits the need, as this is a real problem and I want things to just "work". As if it does not, it seems I have hit a dead end

Wish MS would update WMC to fix these bugs so I didn't have to do this....I guess I am dreaming again..

I'll post back after I start testing it to let people know how I feel about it..

Something I have not head about in a long time...I remember it from the old TGB, is it still out there ? OML (Open Media Library) ? anyone know about it ? Would it fit my needs, even if it's a little older ?

[Doctor Feelgood]

I tried a few options briefly at the beginning and settled on MyMovies... I now have the paid version (@$25 level if I remember right - definitely not $50 for me) to get some of the extra features, but I really like the interface, and my wife and kids can all manage it just fine. The server portion runs on our main HTPC, with all movie files stored on a NAS, and the WMC interface works perfectly on the HTPC that is also the server, all connected HTPCs, and extenders.

[DavidinCT]

I tried a few options briefly at the beginning and settled on MyMovies... I now have the paid version (@$25 level if I remember right - definitely not $50 for me) to get some of the extra features, but I really like the interface, and my wife and kids can all manage it just fine. The server portion runs on our main HTPC, with all movie files stored on a NAS, and the WMC interface works perfectly on the HTPC that is also the server, all connected HTPCs, and extenders.

Do you have the transcoding feature for extenders ? How well does it work ?

The main reasons I am looking for a replacement (although on the main machine it works fine for the most part), is some movies not playing on extenders, some 1080p movies look worse than a 480p movie (on extenders, depending on codec used) and Meta data not always showing up, when you open a movie, it normally takes 1-3 seconds for it to show up(on the main HTPC), and after you stop a movie, it could take a min+ for it to show up again.

For those wondering, I am using YAMM for meta data. Over the years, I have tried other 3rd party options and it's always performed this way.

The built in Movie Library is flakey and does not give a solid experience, it was fine with 75 movies but, now that I am over 300+, it's not that great any more.

[3rob3]

I have seen the pixelation you are talking about, making the video look like <480P. I ended up going to a small NUC in my bedroom because of this, and poor performance in general. I use RecordedTV HD pointed at my main Media Center's recorded tv directory, and both PCs have Media Browser Classic installed. I also have it connected to an HDhomerun (OTA antenna) so I at least have some amount of live tv as well. It's really a trade-off I wish didn't exist. I either get great performance and video quality for local media on NUC, or poor performance with an extender but access to live cablecard channels.

As for your question about Plex pass, it is a subscription so you either pay monthly or yearly I believe (maybe even a lifetime option). Eventually they will open up the Xbox apps for everybody without Plex Pass for a one time fee. I will probably give it a try when this happens.

[Doctor Feelgood]

I tried a few options briefly at the beginning and settled on MyMovies... I now have the paid version (@$25 level if I remember right - definitely not $50 for me) to get some of the extra features, but I really like the interface, and my wife and kids can all manage it just fine. The server portion runs on our main HTPC, with all movie files stored on a NAS, and the WMC interface works perfectly on the HTPC that is also the server, all connected HTPCs, and extenders.

Do you have the transcoding feature for extenders ? How well does it work ?

I will check that out to confirm... Can't say I have noticed anything, but most of my movies are full uncompressed rips from DVD/Blu-Ray. I'll check a few of my files soon and go download some MKVs if necessary to see how they react.

[DavidinCT]

I have seen the pixelation you are talking about, making the video look like <480P. I ended up going to a small NUC in my bedroom because of this, and poor performance in general. I use RecordedTV HD pointed at my main Media Center's recorded tv directory, and both PCs have Media Browser Classic installed. I also have it connected to an HDhomerun (OTA antenna) so I at least have some amount of live tv as well. It's really a trade-off I wish didn't exist. I either get great performance and video quality for local media on NUC, or poor performance with an extender but access to live cablecard channels.

As for your question about Plex pass, it is a subscription so you either pay monthly or yearly I believe (maybe even a lifetime option). Eventually they will open up the Xbox apps for everybody without Plex Pass for a one time fee. I will probably give it a try when this happens.

This is why I was looking towards something with a Transcoder in it. The movies not playing and poor quality on extenders, it should help As My Movies claim it does it for formats to make it something that an Extender will support, if it 100% works as it says, it will be 100% worth the $50 to get the 1250 points (anyone know how to get a discount ?)

I'm not expecting a full uncompressed 1080p video on the Extenders but, I would expect at least VERY CLOSE video on them. Using another HTPC for it runs into a whole other set of issues and support problems.

Oh, a yearly/monthly free to use PLEX, wow, I would not do that unless I was getting Netflix and Amazon videos included :-\

I will check that out to confirm... Can't say I have noticed anything, but most of my movies are full uncompressed rips from DVD/Blu-Ray. I'll check a few of my files soon and go download some MKVs if necessary to see how they react.

I rip my movies to MKV because I like the flexibility with the container(with free tools, you can just drag and drop Audio tracks, subtitles, etc, easy and works great), just a preference. About 40% are full uncompressed(or very little) but, others, like romances movies with very little action in them, I will compress them down (normally sit around 10-15gb per movie), as it's hard to even see the difference on a 4K tv when watching them. When you have a building blowing up or something, you can really see when there is a LOT of compression in video so those are normally uncompressed. I figure in 2-3 years when space COULD be an issue, it might allow me a handful of uncompressed movies by compressing a good % down.

Thanks for checking into it !

[Doctor Feelgood]

Didn't have much time last night, but was watching TV on an XBOX 360 as an extender and decided to try this out... It was a 1080p Bluray rip in .m2ts format (25GB file size)... It started out fine, and I watched the first 5 minutes or so without issue... Then I skipped ahead several minutes, and when playback resumed it was choppy. Not sure what the deal was, but will have to look at other sources for a confirmation. It also shifted to French from English, so maybe the whole file is bad, as I have never watched that one before... lol.

I guess most of what is watched are DVD rips in mpeg-2 @4GB each format... Never a problem there, and even asked my kids since it is mostly them watching things down there...

[DavidinCT]

Didn't have much time last night, but was watching TV on an XBOX 360 as an extender and decided to try this out... It was a 1080p Bluray rip in .m2ts format (25GB file size)... It started out fine, and I watched the first 5 minutes or so without issue... Then I skipped ahead several minutes, and when playback resumed it was choppy. Not sure what the deal was, but will have to look at other sources for a confirmation. It also shifted to French from English, so maybe the whole file is bad, as I have never watched that one before... lol.

I guess most of what is watched are DVD rips in mpeg-2 @4GB each format... Never a problem there, and even asked my kids since it is mostly them watching things down there...

Thanks, I guess no biggie. As I have read, it's not just an install and it works. So this weekend, I will make a IMAGE of my system as it is, install My Movies and go through the process of setting up my 300+ movies. I wont activate the 21 day trial till all the movies are setup and tested (as your 21 days start as soon as you take it).

Even the kids movies (Frozen, Hero 6, etc) are ripped down and compressed (animation is normally done at 15fps anyway) down to about 10-15gb.

I really hope this transcoder feature does work well, as I am at a dead end now for this type of feature if it does not help or work.

[3rob3]

Didn't have much time last night, but was watching TV on an XBOX 360 as an extender and decided to try this out... It was a 1080p Bluray rip in .m2ts format (25GB file size)... It started out fine, and I watched the first 5 minutes or so without issue... Then I skipped ahead several minutes, and when playback resumed it was choppy. Not sure what the deal was, but will have to look at other sources for a confirmation. It also shifted to French from English, so maybe the whole file is bad, as I have never watched that one before... lol.

I guess most of what is watched are DVD rips in mpeg-2 @4GB each format... Never a problem there, and even asked my kids since it is mostly them watching things down there...

The Xbox natively supports mpeg-2 (obviously) and m2ts, so no transcoding was done in your test. I think the max bitrate it supports is 15Mbits per second, maybe that Bluray rip you tested was over that and that caused your issues?

EDIT- The last post in this thread suggests 10Mbits per second:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =32&t=4126

[Van Gogh]

My setup of Emby is exactly like what I'm hearing that you want. I use it just for movies (and I use Recorded TV HD for television shows). It's a little complicated to configure, but you can have Emby go straight to your movies when you enter the plugin from the Media Center menu. My movie library is just like yours - mostly mkv's (around 200) with a few other formats sprinkled in. Emby plays them all in conjunction with the Skark007 codec pack. I also use an Xbox 360 as an extender and it's very rare that it won't play something. Menu performance is not stellar on the 360 (what else is new), but I configured that session of Emby differently than the main HTPC in that I don't have Emby display the movie backdrops on the extender, which really helped. Bottom line is that Emby could be the solution that you're looking for.

One note on using the Shark007 codec pack - When installing, it asks if you use extenders and is supposed to do something to optimize the settings for this environment. My experience has been that even if you use extenders, reply no to this question anyways. Other than setting some subtitle options in LAV, I use the standard codec options.

[DavidinCT]

One note on using the Shark007 codec pack - When installing, it asks if you use extenders and is supposed to do something to optimize the settings for this environment. My experience has been that even if you use extenders, reply no to this question anyways. Other than setting some subtitle options in LAV, I use the standard codec options.

Interesting, I always selected that I use extenders. Another feature I like about this codec pack is converting the audio on the fly (to AC3) as I prefer DTS and DTS-HD on the main HTPC, so most of my movies have the DTS/DTS-HD audio tracks, the extenders do not support DTS, so when I was using my old codec setup (manually doing each codec I needed), any movies with a DTS sound track would have NO audio on extenders. Shark007 resolved this issue.

I might try to uninstall the Advanced Codecs and reboot, then try to re-install(not selecting I use exenders) with just a few settings (bit streaming with LAV and convert audio on the fly for extenders). Then test some known problem videos.

Emby is a monthly or yearly fee, I can see a one time $50 fee for current version (still think it's a little much but, if it works, it might be worth it) and with that, it will work forever. A monthly or yearly fee, just to play back my movies that I have, is not something I am willing to do.

My Movies, as I look over features, it takes a lot to configure each movie but, it looks like it has a lot of features that will take the Movie Library to the next level.

I have been using the built in Library from day 1, so maybe it's worth playing a little.

I really just want this all to work and be seamless inside WMC and the extender...

[DavidinCT]

One note on using the Shark007 codec pack - When installing, it asks if you use extenders and is supposed to do something to optimize the settings for this environment. My experience has been that even if you use extenders, reply no to this question anyways. Other than setting some subtitle options in LAV, I use the standard codec options.

Ok, so just using the Built in Movie Library, I tried that with Shark007. I said NO for extenders, this resulted in about 95% of my movies would not play at all giving a "Codec error" when trying to play them. I rebooted, reinstalled, rebooted, said Yes, to Extenders, Tried both Extender support and Alternate extender support, there still is some movies that will not play at all.

I guess my next step is to try to see if My Movies feature will solve this problem but, I did see some people claiming MKV compatibly problems when going through their forums. So, it might not resolve it.

Is there a free option or low one time cost for Emly, or is it just a yearly fee ? I am not sure I am willing to pay a monthly or yearly fee for something, unless it was like $5 a year. I would buy it not rent it as that is...

With this being said, Now does Ebly plug in for WMC work on an Extender with out having to exit WMC or is it a Xbox 360 app that I need to exit WMC to use ? (If I have to exit WMC on the extender to use it, it's worthless to me for the kids and wife aspect)

Is there any 3rd party program or Codec that will make an Extender play every format just like Windows does ?