HTPC Software

[SickBoy]

This was missing from this area so I figured I'd contribute some basic info on this.

The all in one solution:
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/default.mspx) - Comes with integrated support for a lot of tuner cards and has the extra software to drive your HTPC setup. A lot of PC's were coming with this version of Windows in the lead-up to the Vista release, so it's pretty easy to get your hands on. Drawbacks: You're at Microsoft's mercy when it comes to DRM (current or future), as well as for updates and enhancements to the PVR interface itself. Switching to a different PVR app may require disabling some services and other tweaking. Can extend an MCE PC with an Xbox or Xbox 360.

Seperate PVR Apps (pay):
SageTV (http://www.sagetv.com/) and BeyondTV (http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/) - these apps have varying degrees of features. Trial versions are available for each and I would suggest trying them before you buy. Some TV Tuner cards come with BeyondTV bundled.

Seperate PVR Apps (free):
GBPVR (http://www.gbpvr.com) - Freeware PVR app. Closed source, but has a published API for writing community supported plugins. The developer is extremely responsive to support requests via their forums. Does pretty much anything most of the other apps do and is programmable/extendable. Good support for the Hauppage MediaMVP thin client and has built in support for client/server GBPVR setups (meaning, you can keep your TV cards and storage in the fileserver and stream them to either the client PC or the MediaMVP client). Also has excellent support for Hauppage remotes and Snapstream remotes. Based on .NET 2.0 and GDI+, so it works on Windows 2000 but works *best* with XP or better. Built in support for comskip (program for skipping commercials on playback). 1 GHz CPU minimum processing power is recommended.

MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/) - Linux based, can be difficult to configure. Requires MySQL database backend. Available as a knoppix-based LiveCD distribution. Plus: excellent TV tuner card support. If your tuner works with tvtime, it'll work with Myth. Negatives: WAF (wife acceptance factor) lowers significantly the more you have to configure and fix issues with it. Most of us interested in setting up HTPC's do't really want to mess with them too much or engage in excessive configuration, and it can be VERY complicated if you're not already a power user on Linux.

Other Apps of Note:
TSReader Lite (http://www.coolstf.com/tsreader/) - Assists in some advanced tuning of HD channels. Can tell you the program number, ID #'s of the AC3 and MPEG2 streams for any particular channel. Lite version is mostly crippled, but free, and can do enough to help if you have tuning issues.
VideoReDo (http://www.videoredo.com) - Inexpensive/simple video editing program that can remove commercials from TV programs. When used in tandem with GBPVR's postprocessing capabilities, can automatically remove commercials in tandem with files produced by ComSkip.

Some basic tenets of HTPC software setup:
- Before going into setting up a PVR type program, make absolutely sure your card is working with the software it came with. Start with the most recent driver and app versions from the vendor's website. Be sure you know how to diagnose the difference between a driver/hardware problem and a problem with the PVR software, because the developers of the PVR app won't be able to help you much if your card doesn't work in the first place.
- Install ONLY decoders and codecs that you absolutely need. Codec conflicts can cause a lot of problems.

I'll add some more to this post later on....

[Audioaficionado]

I use GB-PVR set up as a recording service but I play TV on my PC using WinTV2000 by Hauppage.

[Wicked Klown]

MeediOS (http://www.meedios.com/)-is a new open-source project which is will recapture the magic of Meedio with sizeable improvements such as a WPF based UI built on the .NET Framework 2.0. It is a free program.

Yahoo Go TV (http://sites.mobile.yahoo.com/go/tv/index) thats is based off part of the Meedio code. This is a freeware program that is nice for watching your recording movies.

BeyondMedia (http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondmedia/)
Beyond Media is a perfect addition to your Beyond TV home theater PC. Beyond Media is a DVD player, a music player, and a photo browser--an all-in-one media player that will take your entertainment PC to the next level.

Beyond Media lets you…

Access all your photos, music and videos from one, user-friendly interface
Access movies on-demand with SnapStream Spotlight
Access weather information and Caller ID
Have fun with photo slideshows
Watch DVDs with Dolby 5.1 channel surround sound
Sort and browse your music by genre, title, artist and keyword
Seamlessly integrate & access Beyond TV. Retail price $49.99 trial version last 21 days.

[smokie mcpott]

i use Media Portal
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
i love the options and the expandability of plugins....as well as its nice support wiki
i think this one should be on the list as well

[wa77ss]

Wow.

Media Portal looks exactly like XBMC

[Shiggity]

Anyone use beyond TV? I have it and I'm regretting I bought it. The UI is slow, unresponsive, and often crashes.

Is that how all TV apps work or is it just me?

[el]

Anyone use beyond TV? I have it and I'm regretting I bought it. The UI is slow, unresponsive, and often crashes.

Is that how all TV apps work or is it just me?

did you get all the patches? Mine never crashes? I run 6 tuners and really like the interface but hate that commericals don't autoskip and the media player doesn't work with ipod videos....

DRM =bad and hurtful to the industry u M$/apple idiots!!

[leftheaded]

can you use pvr software for hd-dvd or blu-ray playback? do you "have" to buy power dvd ultra to do this?

[masterwoot]

can you use pvr software for hd-dvd or blu-ray playback? do you "have" to buy power dvd ultra to do this?

Check out this thread at AVSforums (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=751319).

Interestingly it's cheaper to download powerdvd ultra through Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681565108SF) than through Cyberlink (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_112_ENU.html). (Btw, many people have horrible experiences with Cyberlink as a company.)

I'm hoping WinDVD9 Plus (http://www.es.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/jp/jp/Product/1189528392361) comes to us soon.

[silkshadow]

I've got a couple things to add to this sticky:

1) KMplayer (http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/index.php) - Integrates FFDshow. Far less buggy than Zoomplayer. Remote compatible. Supports non-unicode subtitles. Best standalone video player IMO.

2) MeediOS (http://www.meedios.com) was mentioned. I use it and love it. However, not sure its good for a first timer till the new MeediOS is released. I have to reluctantly suggest Media Portal for that user. Not reluctant because Media Portal is bad, its not, but because MeediOS is awesome and should be what everone is using if not for Yahoo, which bought and killed Meedio. If you know what you are doing and love HTPC function, MeediOS is for you.

3) The TVDB (http://www.thetvdb.com/) - Not software but I have to plug the best open, user built, community driven TV database on the web for HTPCs. Disclaimer, I am on the admin team for the site.

4) HIP (http://byremote.com.au/HIP/) - How do you control your HTPC? HIP is free and what I use. Couple it with a Harmony remote and you have HTPC control bliss.:) Another one is Event Ghost (http://www.eventghost.org/). Also very good and free. However, it supports less IR receivers than HIP. If you don't care about free and open software, Girder is what a lot of people like. I find the price ridiculous and their system obtuse.

5) SageTV - I don't provide a link because I can't recommend this software even though I use it myself (5.x version, refuse to pay for 6.x upgrade).

My SageTV hit list:

A) Its expensive. They are totally unclear about their upgrade policy so they charge you randomly. The original idea (though never clearly stated) was upgrades would be free. That is clearly untrue.

B) Sage itself is closed. It does not have anyway to manage your library. The file itself is frickin' encrypted. Even MCE gives you WMP which can manage the library of MCE. This, IMO, makes Sage useless for anything besides recording TV. Yet you are forced to pay for a "media center". This is one thing BTV has the advantage of (it just does TV and that's what you pay for).

C) Sage's attitude is anti-consumer and pro-content cartel and everyone else besides consumers. For example, Sage considers commercial skipping a "grey area" (how lame) so relies on 3rd parties to write programs for it. Any 3rd party program made for Sage commercial skipping can work with any HTPC software. They are external, probably due to Sage's anti-consumer attitude. In fact the best one, showanalyzer (http://www.dragonglobal.org/), has now been updated to work with MeediOS, MCE, BTV and everything else. Another thing that BTW has a slight advantage of. It marks "chapters" but BTV's implementation is slightly flawed.

D) The community is active, very helpful and friendly (if you don't criticize Sage). Post for help and you will get it in spades.

E) However, it has a pretty large flaw in its community. Communities are the most important aspect of HTPC software because plugins come from users and plugins are so important to a good HTPC setup (for advanced users anyway). The Sage community is closed. Say anything bad about it and get attacked. By "anything bad" I don't mean just lame flames. I mean constructive issues you have with Sage. If you don't start out your criticism with "Sage is the best FTW" you will get flamed on by the Sage apologists.

F) There are plugins but very few are useful. One author is pretty much responsible for all the useful plugins (neilm is awesome) IMO. Another author is responsible for the only "theme" and that is SageMC. There is no interest in supporting non-mainstream stuff. That includes anything that is helpful to P2P users such as metadata to tag downloaded material. This has the added effect of being unfriendly for people outside of North America and, to a lesser extent, the UK. The only good support international users get is from a French fellow from the BTV forums who ported his XMLTV plugin to Sage.

G) Further highlighting Sage's anti-consumer attitude is that they reluctantly released "studio" only recently. This allowed plugins, but its clunky and unintuitive which is probably why the plugins are lacking even though it has an active community. Besides Neilm's plugins, all the useful ones are external IMO due to Sage's closed ways.

H) Sage's client/server setup is really good. Best of any HTPC software I've tested and is the reason I still use Sage. However, you have to buy a Sage client license for every PC or extender you connect to it. This gets expensive fast for a large setup.

I) All the improvements Sage has been adding since 5.x cost extra money. Placeshifter, extenders, etc all come with a price tag. And to get access to these features, you have to pay an upgrade price from 5.x first and then pay more to use these features. In other words, since 5.x Sage has become money grubbing. So beware if you buy Sage now, you are in for the money trap. Its a trap because, like me, you will get hundreds, even thousands of $$s into Sage (depending on how many client/extender licenses you buy, (I bought a lot) and walking away just means you loose all that investment.

J) For you Americans, no cable card support for Sage and none is planned. Basically it makes Sage useless to the very market they cater to, ironically enough. I guess there are still a lot of Americans who haven't made the switch to HD, given the activity in Sage's forums, but this will change as more and more people switch to HD and more HD channels are available to you. When I went home over Christmas, even my retired parents and almost retired uncle switched to HD and I setup Vista MCE with cable card for them all. Sage wasn't even in the picture.

K) Sage is better than BTV IMO for TV. I am constantly testing alternatives because I want to be rid of SageTV. BTV is still lacking in almost every way. From the community, where they delete posts critical of BTV, to the UI which is less robust and much slower than Sage's. Media Portal's TV module is coming along nicely but its still not up to Sage's level. Of course Media Portal's solution is free and open, which is a big plus. I'd probably be using it if I didn't make the mistake of buying Sage years ago (I started on Sage 2.x).

[ratbuddy]

Any updates here?

[Twigglish]

Any updates here?

Yea, this thread greatly needs an update or someone make a new one that can take this ones place on the stickies.

[Shiggity]

+1 to update

Screenshots would be amazing

[beingblueeyes]

I was using the free version of xlobby on all of my HTPC’s when they were running xp but I’ve been migrating to windows 7 on 3 out of the 4 and I’ve found xlobby doesn’t play nice with “7” . Can anyone suggest a good front end that works with windows 7 (windows media center is out because I don’t like the feel of it) any suggestions would be great