• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Suggestions for "front end" software

B

bigddybn

Supreme [H]ardness
2FA
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
8,100
I've been trying to wean my wife off of our cable bill by building an HTPC for her. I've got the hardware put together and running just fine but she complains that she has to go to several different places to access all the content available to her. I'd like to set something up that has everything in pretty much one place. The machine is Vista Ultimate which means media center is available though frankly I'm not against going with a different OS if it opens up an option worth considering.

I'd like her to be able to access the following-

Ripped DVD collection
Hulu
ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS full episode collections
Itunes media (this one doesn't NEED to be included)
Music (MP3, etc.)
Pictures

She seems to like the media center interface so if I can find a way to add the streaming content to media center it would probably do the trick just fine.

Ideas?
 
Vista Media Center does all that except Itunes related stuff.

I have my DVD/Blu Ray collection ripped as actual videos instead of ISOs, I can add/play them from the videos section in media center. You can make/play iso rips with the popular "My Movies" software, but I've never used it.
 
Regarding "ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS full episode collections" I'm assuming you mean streamed from their respective websites. If that's the case, Boxee seems to fit your needs.
 
Except that Boxee only works with Linux and MacOSX right now.

I'm sort of in the same boat. I'd love to get my Hulu, Netflix, and website TV Shows added to VMC to make it extremely simple to get to everything. Basically an on-demand system.
 
I've been looking into this myself. There are a couple pluggin's for Media Center that get Hulu and Netflix working plus a few that improve playback for a ripped movie library.

Hulu: http://secondrun.tv/

Netflix: vmcNetflix: http://myweb.cableone.net/eluttmann04/projects/vmcNetFlix/default.htm

Media Browser: http://www.mediabrowser.tv/index.html

There is another media browser that is supposed to work well called "My Movies". I don't have any experience with it but its supposed to work well.

If you're looking for some good Media Center info head over to "TheGreenButton.com". It's Microsofts official forums for messing with Media Center.

I had Boxee for Windows up and running (torrent) for a little while but it isn't ready for a full release. Hopefully one day soon it will be.
 
ATM the is no frontend that actually does everything we want..... specifically in reguards to ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. The cable companies and broadcasters are not ready for people to be able to get on demand content with out paying for it on their TV.

this may change but they are all okay with you using your computer (ala with a keyboard and mouse) but the second someone has created a 10ft UI for browsing this type of content it is hit with cease and disist letters and such.

it will take another couple of years for these companies to see there is revenue here and that they are not giving away their product for free,


ATM your wife needs to get over the fact that see needs to go to multiple sites for content.... or else pay $50 for cable....
 
The best thing to do would be to get secondrun.tv for hulu, vmcNetlfix for streaming netflix movies, and media browser for any videos stored on your computer. You can then use MC Menu Mender to create a custom strip that only has those 3 items on it. That way your wife won't have to go all over the place and the 3 apps she needs are in one place.
 
Meedio + Media Plugin + Netflix Plugin + My Movies plugin + iTunes library sync + ......

Meedio isn't for the timid or easily confused though, it does take a bit of effort to get it running and to keep tweaking it. MeediOS may make it easier, if it ever gets released. Streaming video from websites comes and goes, as the websites make changes to keep the htpc crowd from doing it. Hulu and the network websites were working last week.....I'm not sure about iTunes, I gave up using it long ago, but there's probably plenty of Meedio users that still use it - I know I've seen several iPod/iTunes plugins come and go over the years...
 
I have secondrun installed. It's a beta and still very much runs like one.

I was under the impression that vmcNetflix required PlayOn? It seems silly to stream everything locally to make PlayOn work. I tried streaming to a 360 with it and CPU usage was quite high.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top