R.I.P., Windows Media Center

Mike89 said:
Absolutely terrible. I have gone that route in the past with various TV tuners and various software options, never with good or consistent results. Computer and TV never did gel together and it's deader than Elvis. Media Player and Media Center goodbye, you never were up to speed anyway. Microsoft should just stay in the OS and keep it's nose out of everything else.
Click to expand...

Complete opposite here.
I have a 4 tuner card with a cable card in my HTPC, with 4TB for recorded shows and 4TB for home movies, photos, and DVD rips. It can record 4 HD shows at once, while we are watching a DVD rip or another show that was already recorded. I even play back shows across the network to my computer or my tablet.
Almost everything the family watches is recorded or watched live on this HTPC. It's been a really solid DVR.
 
damicatz said:
You could try actually playing basketball instead. I never understood the appeal of watching other people play something.
Click to expand...

I do that too :rolleyes:

I grew up watching and playing the game... Do you watch movies, tv shows? Why not try a drama class instead?
 
crusty_juggler said:
Who the hell still has cable anyway?
Click to expand...

Anyone who doesn't want to spend all their time explaining to the family how to find the shows they want to watch from a dozen ever changing web sites/services?

I've looked into dropping cable, but then I'd have to hear the wife/kids whine about all the shows they can no longer watch because too many of them are not available over streaming. Even local channels are a problem, as there are too many hills between me and the TV stations.

It's much easier to set the DRV to record them, and them watch them later when we have the time (and skip through the commercials).
 
damicatz said:
The better question is, who the hell still needs cable TV? It is nothing but mindless drivel these days.
Click to expand...

I largely agree with you on that point. I wish I could drop 90% of the channels I never watch (like ESPN), and lower my bill, but the media companies will never let that happen.
 
I remember reading somewhere that SiliconDust was making a plugin for XBMC?
 
The death of Windows Media Center will be the birth of HDHomeRun DVR.
I'm a long time Windows 7 media Center user and will miss this PVR software.
Jumped on the Silicondust platform years ago with the HDHomeRun Prime.
Have a 1U server recording with the HDHomeRun Prime to PC and Xbox 360 extenders.
This is a move away from Microsofts long orphaned software and a move in the right direction.

Very sorry to see the death of Media Center as it was a trusted friend and had high Wife Acceptance Factor.
Just backed the HDHomeRun DVR project to get ahead of the curve.
 
I use WMC for my 4 channel Ceton TV card works with a cable card.
Works great for me, been using it for a few years now.
I like win7 so looks like a couple of my systems will not be upgraded.
Maybe everyone who uses it should write a letter to MS and ask them to keep it available.
 
Skillz said:
I remember reading somewhere that SiliconDust was making a plugin for XBMC?
Click to expand...

Not was making... did make. Just go into your Kodi video plugin repo and find it there. Works like a charm. I just found out about it a few minutes ago and it is working just fine.
 
I have two Win8.1 systems with WMC addins. I use WMC quite a lot so i'll miss it as the TV Card manufacturers that release cards here don't make any software that has any good PVR Free To Air TV capabilities with or at least... nothing that's actually useable if they do at all.
 
Software telemetry is leading a lot of software downhill, as dev's only develop for the masses instead of the niche.

I dont use WMC that much but I defenitly see its value and the fact WMP cannot play dvd's on win8 would mean I would use it on win8 if I used win8.
 
Damn. I've built HTPC with quad tuner DVB-T2 pci-e card and it does the job really well. It looks like I need to find an alternative... Or not upgraded at all.
 
All MS needed to do was allow the WMC plug in to integrate with Win10. Just sell it again like they did with Win8.1 and be done with it. No more innovation is needed, it works well enough as it is.

They are throwing away free money.
 
Use WMC everyday.
Yeah, MS could charge $10 a shot for WMC on W10. Surely that would pay for the idiot's salary made made this decision. Are there insane costs for MS to maintain the channel services for the TV portion or something? Freakin MS. Wonder how long my 8.1 Haswell HTPC can last? I'm not sure if it can survive the 4K transition. W10 just might bring too many scaling goodies to ignore.
 
Tup3x said:
Damn. I've built HTPC with quad tuner DVB-T2 pci-e card and it does the job really well. It looks like I need to find an alternative... Or not upgraded at all.
Click to expand...

Well keep in mind that its still going to work in Win7 and Win8. Those operating systems are supported til 2020 and 2023. So you have 5-8 years before its not supported. But that also doesn't mean it won't continue to work beyond that. So you still have some time to enjoy it before you need to find an alternative.
 
I use a SiliconDust tuner and WMC to watch two half hour shows once a week. The only way I can stand to watch any TV anymore is by skipping commercials. If I could stream the shows without pirating them, I wouldn't need the tuner/antenna/WMC at all. I will not pay Hulu to watch the shows and watch ads. I can't believe it costs more than $0.50 to watch 1 hour of TV without ads. The ad revenue cannot possibly be that high or Netflix would be well into the red. If the TV networks want to survive in the future, I'd suggest selling all content direct. No middle-man at all. No commercials either. It would let them know who watches what and how much they're willing to actually pay for it. No time delays either. I know, I'm living in a dreamworld, but my name is not Neo. ;)
 
This makes me sad. I have the ceton network cablecard reader (any PC in the house can watch live TV. But my main HTPC is also a gaming PC and i want my dx12. *sigh*

I don't really expect a replacement for WMC that can use a cablecard. My understand is the OS and software need to be certified and video (for protected content) needs to be DRM'd. Hrmm... maybe someone can make a software the links into windows media DRM to skip around this problem.
 
zurv said:
This makes me sad. I have the ceton network cablecard reader (any PC in the house can watch live TV. But my main HTPC is also a gaming PC and i want my dx12. *sigh*

I don't really expect a replacement for WMC that can use a cablecard. My understand is the OS and software need to be certified and video (for protected content) needs to be DRM'd. Hrmm... maybe someone can make a software the links into windows media DRM to skip around this problem.
Click to expand...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1275320038/hdhomerun-dvr-the-dvr-re-imagined

With this you should be able to replace WMC for live TV, though you can't use it with a ceton card afaik. They already met their goal, so now it's just stretch goals.
 
Cobalt35 said:
Who the hell uses Media Center anyway?
Click to expand...

I do. My parents house, my house, and my siblings house. We all use a Cablecard tuner. Saves us $$$ a month so we don't have to rent boxes that do far less. I use a Ceton Labs InfiniTV tuner. I can network tuners to other WMC computers in the house. It's freaking awesome. Good news is that it's supported through 2020 but I'm sure by then something else will be out. I have been eagerly awaiting something from the team at Emby (formerly MediaBrowser). They have tuner capabilities built in, but I'm waiting for that to flesh out some first. Kodi (formerly XBMC) is also another project. But honestly, until recently, WMC has always been a wonderful product.
 
I have no idea why anyone uses anything other than XBMC (Kodi). It pretty well has single highhandedly devoured the HTPC software market. All the advanced software for the -really- cool automation only works with Kodi. Further that it practically supports everything, and there are plenty of UI's to pick that fits whatever intuitive preference you have. The reason they arn't doing it is because they can't beat Kodi, nobody else can either. If someone tired, it's open source and would simply match it, and beat it.

Spend the time to set it up right, I've built about two dozen HTPC's with full automation for all sorts of things, Kodi is a god send.
 
Announcements like this, ones generally met with disdain, are usually followed up with "Try our new product! Microsoft <blah blah blah>! It's totally not a repackaged version of our previous offering, we promise!"
 
delahaya said:
With Plex and such out media center is kind of dead anyway.
Click to expand...

WMC is the only way right now to privately DVR Copy Once flagged broadcasts.

Microsoft more or less sucked up all the oxygen out of the part of the market and now they are abandoning it. Leaves a lot of folks high and dry. Also creates more incentive for cable companies that aren't doing it, to start doing.
 
Vercinaigh said:
I have no idea why anyone uses anything other than XBMC (Kodi). It pretty well has single highhandedly devoured the HTPC software market. All the advanced software for the -really- cool automation only works with Kodi. Further that it practically supports everything, and there are plenty of UI's to pick that fits whatever intuitive preference you have. The reason they arn't doing it is because they can't beat Kodi, nobody else can either. If someone tired, it's open source and would simply match it, and beat it.

Spend the time to set it up right, I've built about two dozen HTPC's with full automation for all sorts of things, Kodi is a god send.
Click to expand...

kodi can't bypass copy protect, but that doesn't matter. Kodi integrates with tools used to easily download Pirated shit that will run on Kodi. That's why its popular.
 
Vercinaigh said:
I have no idea why anyone uses anything other than XBMC (Kodi). It pretty well has single highhandedly devoured the HTPC software market. All the advanced software for the -really- cool automation only works with Kodi. Further that it practically supports everything, and there are plenty of UI's to pick that fits whatever intuitive preference you have. The reason they arn't doing it is because they can't beat Kodi, nobody else can either. If someone tired, it's open source and would simply match it, and beat it.

Spend the time to set it up right, I've built about two dozen HTPC's with full automation for all sorts of things, Kodi is a god send.
Click to expand...

You may not have much experience with cablecard tuners. Kodi and other open source options can't view and/or record protected content.

Once HDHomerun DVR comes out that makes Kodi a viable option for the person that is using a cablecard tuner.
 
What is a good free alternative to Media Player? One that is simple to use that has all the functionality of Media Player.
 
damicatz said:
The better question is, who the hell still needs cable TV? It is nothing but mindless drivel these days.
Click to expand...

There are tons of shows that are not readily available without a cable subscription -- for at least a year after their initial showing -- specifically those on the major networks, and many more on networks like HBO, TNT, AMC, etc.

The same goes for most major live sporting events.

Basically, where I live, we CANNOT receive any but maybe one of the major networks OTA (even with a massive antenna -- it'd have to be over 500ft high to even have a chance of getting LOS to the towers).

The other point would be that, regardless of my own TV viewing, many of us have wives or other family members -- and if Lifetime, Hallmark, LMN, etc were not available on our DVR setup, my wife would NOT be happy. And, to paraphrase a old maxim, "if she ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy...."
 
Vercinaigh said:
I have no idea why anyone uses anything other than XBMC (Kodi). It pretty well has single highhandedly devoured the HTPC software market. All the advanced software for the -really- cool automation only works with Kodi. Further that it practically supports everything, and there are plenty of UI's to pick that fits whatever intuitive preference you have. The reason they arn't doing it is because they can't beat Kodi, nobody else can either. If someone tired, it's open source and would simply match it, and beat it.

Spend the time to set it up right, I've built about two dozen HTPC's with full automation for all sorts of things, Kodi is a god send.
Click to expand...

Kodi is great -- and works well with PVR WMC using *Windows Media Center* as the headend for TV viewing, for non-DRM content.

The problem is, Kodi CANNOT playback any WMC recorded content marked Copy Once due to DRM. WMC can playback Copy Once content that it recorded itself, on that machine, but it cannot be played back on even a different WMC machine. WMC recorded Copy Once content, however, CAN be played back on Media Center Extenders (Ceton Echo) that are connected to the WMC box that originally recorded the content.

So, while, yes, Kodi is great, I can't use it to record GOT off HBO and then watch it next week, which is what I actually currently AM doing with my WMC box in my living room, and I then typically watch it downstairs across the network via my old HP X280N MCE.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top