[REQUEST] HTPC software (not Kodi)

[Kirby]

I finally got this HTPC computer going and it was a pretty good idea, if I do say so myself. I got RetroPie running on it as well and everything is sweet...except...

Kodi really SUCKS! This thing is the worst. I have spent a lot of time meticulously sorting and naming my media only to have Kodi take over an hour to double-check my work only to mislabel some of it and simply not show some more. Sealab 2021 is definitely NOT Sealab 2020. One sucks, the other does not. It's not quite impossible to run it without a Scraper, but it's pretty damned impractical. What's more, the videos which a scraper won't find, such as home movies, just don't show up at all. And the interface, while pretty as hell, simply isn't practical, with a long line of "movies" and "shows", all on a single line. But it's the stupid scraper thing which really grinds my gears. If I say it's one thing and the scraper says it's another, the scraper wins, the frigging end. I have things sorted into directories and named already, exactly the way I want them.

I know there are a few alternatives to Kodi, such as Plex and Emby. But I've just spent a day building and installing this thing and setting it all up only to find out Kodi is just really, really bad. I don't want to test every software under the sun. Does anyone know of a decent full-screen media organization/player software? It doesn't have to serve it to other devices on the network, and certainly not across the Internet. I want something like Kodi, but with fewer pointless features and, and this is the important thing, I want control of my media, I don't want to give the computer control. Seriously, I don't know what about that is so hard for software makers to understand. I want to control the software, I don't want it controlling me.

And you have no idea how difficult it is not to rant about how useless Linux still is unless you have a ton of technical knowledge, even after not having used it for more than 20 years. I had to install additional software so that I could put shortcuts on the desktop...with the command line. That is just stupid. Nothing has changed since the '90s. It's still useless to the average user. Unless, of course, as has been pointed out, you do all the setup for the user and then their needs never, ever change in any way whatsoever.

 

[glennd]

I finally got this HTPC computer going and it was a pretty good idea, if I do say so myself. I got RetroPie running on it as well and everything is sweet...except...

Kodi really SUCKS! This thing is the worst. I have spent a lot of time meticulously sorting and naming my media only to have Kodi take over an hour to double-check my work only to mislabel some of it and simply not show some more. Sealab 2021 is definitely NOT Sealab 2020. One sucks, the other does not. It's not quite impossible to run it without a Scraper, but it's pretty damned impractical. What's more, the videos which a scraper won't find, such as home movies, just don't show up at all. And the interface, while pretty as hell, simply isn't practical, with a long line of "movies" and "shows", all on a single line. But it's the stupid scraper thing which really grinds my gears. If I say it's one thing and the scraper says it's another, the scraper wins, the frigging end. I have things sorted into directories and named already, exactly the way I want them.

I know there are a few alternatives to Kodi, such as Plex and Emby. But I've just spent a day building and installing this thing and setting it all up only to find out Kodi is just really, really bad. I don't want to test every software under the sun. Does anyone know of a decent full-screen media organization/player software? It doesn't have to serve it to other devices on the network, and certainly not across the Internet. I want something like Kodi, but with fewer pointless features and, and this is the important thing, I want control of my media, I don't want to give the computer control. Seriously, I don't know what about that is so hard for software makers to understand. I want to control the software, I don't want it controlling me.

And you have no idea how difficult it is not to rant about how useless Linux still is unless you have a ton of technical knowledge, even after not having used it for more than 20 years. I had to install additional software so that I could put shortcuts on the desktop...with the command line. That is just stupid. Nothing has changed since the '90s. It's still useless to the average user. Unless, of course, as has been pointed out, you do all the setup for the user and then their needs never, ever change in any way whatsoever.

But apart from that, it's pretty good isn't it?!?

 

[coffee]

So, Instead of ranting could you provide some information so that anyone that decides to help you has a starting ground?

What linux are you bashing about?

I had to install additional software so that I could put shortcuts on the desktop...with the command line.

Running Centos7 are we? lol,,, Post what your using.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I haven't tried Emby, but it sounds like Plex will do just what you need.

 

[NJW]

I had to install additional software so that I could put shortcuts on the desktop...with the command line.

I have never had to use the cli to put a shortcut on the Desktop.

I got RetroPie running on it as well

Did you start with RetroPie, or with a plain Raspbian? RetroPie is probably not a good base.

Edit to add:

And you have no idea how difficult it is not to rant about how useless Linux Windows anything still is unless you have a ton of current technical knowledge, even after not having used it for more than 20 years.

FTFY.

 

[Kirby]

Okay, sorry about the rant guys. I was using Ubuntu, but I'm switching to Windows. I just don't have/want to take the time to learn all the commands I would need to in order to make the thing just work. It looked fine at the shop, but when I got it home there were a ton of other problems and every Google search lead to the command line, even for something as mundane as changing the display settings.

I tried Plex once, but that's when I was looking for a "server" solution to replace Tversity. I had planned on checking it out again.

The features I want are really minimal. I want to browse through my folders (on a local, internal second drive), as I have them set up, and start videos based on the names I gave them. If they have nice pictures, great. If not, I don't care. If other devices on the network can access them, super great. If not, not a deal killer.

 

[Krynn72]

The features I want are really minimal. I want to browse through my folders (on a local, internal second drive), as I have them set up, and start videos based on the names I gave them. If they have nice pictures, great. If not, I don't care. If other devices on the network can access them, super great. If not, not a deal killer.

So... why do you need special software for this? Does Windows' Explorer not do this to your liking?

 

[Your PCMD]

So... why do you need special software for this? Does Windows' Explorer not do this to your liking?

Cortona will surly help.

Maybe read and look at the alternatives.

 

[NJW]

The features I want are really minimal. I want to browse through my folders (on a local, internal second drive), as I have them set up, and start videos based on the names I gave them. If they have nice pictures, great. If not, I don't care. If other devices on the network can access them, super great. If not, not a deal killer.

I'd echo @Krynn72's comment, but I started from Linux rather than Windows.

You can either start with a standard installation and take away what you don't need (easier), or start minimal and add as required (leaner).

If you never persevere, you'll never gain the skills ...

 

[Kirby]

The problem with just using built-in Windows features is that it's not remote-control friendly. This will be on a television, which makes it difficult to read the text from a distance.

I found RetroPie for Windows and I've downloaded Emby and Plex to try.

What I was using was Tversity on my computer and then the Roku Media Player or PS3 to stream it to the TV. I really liked the PS3 interface, the Roku was pretty good. The problem is transcoding. Sometimes they play, sometimes I need to use Handbrake to change the audio, sometimes they work once and then don't work again. It was simple. I had Tversity to just show my list of directories and files and I sorted and named everything. It's really all I'm looking for.

But this is a lot less of an issue with Windows. Installing software is as easy as finding software you want to install, downloading it and running the installer. Uninstalling software that doesn't work is just as easy. If I'm using Windows it becomes fare less of a chore to do simple things like try a bunch of different programs or check drivers if the display isn't right.

 

[MichaelBits]

If you're using Windows 7, just fire up Media Center. You can use a Media center remote to control it, and it will do everything you mentioned.

 

[Kirby]

If you're using Windows 7, just fire up Media Center. You can use a Media center remote to control it, and it will do everything you mentioned.

Yeah, kind of I suppose. I'll check it out if any of the dedicated solutions I'm trying don't work well.

 

[Kirby]

If anyone is interested, I tried both Emby and Plex and will give my thoughts on both.

First, Emby. It's a nice little system, but it doesn't have a dedicated app. Instead you access your stuff through a web interface. It's okay, but one of the remotes I got did not have "F11" to make it full screen. But it worked well with no real problems. I did have to change a setting to make the server start with Windows. It wasn't set by default.

Plex was definitely a lot more professional. Looks very nice, but it, too, has its problems.

The first one I noticed is the text size. While it's fine if you're standing in front of the television, it's way too tiny for aging eyes from a chair a few feet away. I did some brief searching and I'm pretty sure there's a way to change this, but not entirely sure how yet. One set of instructions mentioned an area in the menu system that I couldn't find at all. Another set mentioned manually editing a configuration file. Those instructions did mention some text overlap occasionally, though.

The bigger problem is that the video pauses often while the audio keeps going. It's not entirely unwatchable, but neither does it make for a particularly pleasant viewing experience. I haven't had the time to do the research into a fix for this yet. It may be that the processor I finally ended up going with only has Intel HD 530 graphics. I had hoped to go with at least 610, maybe 620 if I got a 7th gen CPU, but then I would have had to go with Windows 10 instead of 7 because Windows 7 will never support 7th gen processors, according to Microsoft.

Now on to the remotes. I got 2 of them, the Rii i8, which looks like a mini keyboard, and the Rii MX3.

BOTH REMOTES
The i8 was the most interesting looking. It's essentially a keyboard with a couple of joypads on it, including some buttons which are playback-specific. The MX3 is a remote on top and a keyboard on the bottom. It is also an air mouse, which is cool. But the real selling feature was the (4? 5? All?) IR programmable buttons. One remote to rule them all!

Right off the Play/Pause button on both remotes worked with Plex, though there was a little lag occasionally. Also, the "back chapter" button worked, but on a video without chapters it's really a "start from the beginning" button. The audio up-down also worked. Fast forward, rewind and next chapter did nothing. Both remotes have a limited number of keys for the keyboard, so both had "alternate" uses for some of the buttons. For both remotes the text for these alternates is dark blue on a black rubber key, making them almost impossible to read unless the light was really, really good.

THE I8
The i8 was definitely nice. It has a touchpad for the mouse, which worked well. It has no IR feature and that, coupled with the fact that it's USB rechargeable instead of just replacing batteries were the only real drawbacks not shared by both remotes. It has buttons specifically for left and right click, which is nice, and it has 2 for each button so you can use whichever is convenient for the current position of your thumbs. It even has F1-F10 keys and then ALT keys for F9 and F10 to make them F11 and F12.

THE MX3
The MX3 was a little more hit and miss. I quickly got used to the air mouse and loved it. However the left and right click buttons are not clearly labeled as so. Left click is the "OK" button in the middle of a direction pad, which was easy enough to figure out, but the right click button was labeled with a curved arrow to symbolize "back", so it took a while to figure out that was right click.

The real problem came when trying to program the IR buttons. The instructions are literally impossible to follow. The directions are so poorly translated that the words "flying squirrel" appear in one of the steps, I believe referring to the air mouse remote. There are several videos online for programming it as well as instructions on various web sites, but not one of them seems to be the same instructions as any other. Using my phone's camera I am able to see the IR transmission and, no matter which steps I go through, it never transmits a signal, just a steady flashing IR beam.

There is also conflicting information out there over which buttons can actually be programmed. Some say it's just the 4 colored buttons across the bottom. Most say the red power button can also be programmed. And still others claim that any button can be programmed with an IR signal instead of RF. I just occurred to me to use my phone's camera to see if the IR light is lighting when I do something which is clearly intended to be only RF. It never occurred to me before now that might be the case and, if it is, it is a battery waster.

There is a handy button on the remote to enable/disable the air mouse feature so that you can use the remote without moving the cursor around. While the left-click button is centrally placed making it work most of the time, the right-click button is a little high and off to the side, which means that at least 4 out of 5 times when you try to right-click you actually right-drag. This happens far less often with the left-click, but does still happen occasionally. It's a problem with the air mouse feature that I hadn't even considered.

If anyone expresses any interest I will post more what I discover. I'm kind of digging this project right now. It has been a while since a computer without a virus has gotten me excited. It's really kind of sick, if you think about it. I only get wood over, not just any computer, but specifically diseased computers. That's not right. That's not right at all!

 

[FremontPC]

Cortona will surly help.

Ah, no. Cortuna has this hot date with GPE, see....

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

in my opinion kodi is king, for home movies I just access the folder directly but I could probably create NFOs using one of these: http://kodi.wiki/view/Media_manager and I think that would work.

 

[MichaelBits]

With Emby there are other options besides the Web interface.

You can install the Emby for Windows desktop app.

Or better, if on Win 7 and again with media center... Emby can be added into the Windows Media Center which has a nice interface and is controllable from any media center remote.

 

[GTP]

I just plug my Movie HDD into my TV, select USB, select movie and press play. Simple...

 

[sapphirescales]

There aren't any decent media center programs anymore. Windows Media Center was the ONLY decent media center to ever exist and it still pisses me off that Microsoft killed it. It took FOREVER to get my mother off of Media Center. Tried to make it work with Windows 10 but it's just too buggy. She finally relented and now just uses Windows Explorer and Chrome.

 

[NJW]

The i8 was definitely nice.

Yes, I use that one and was disappointed to find that the battery isn't (readily) replaceable. In fact, it will continue to work for several days after the low battery light comes on, so it isn't an issue for me – just put it on charge at the end of an evening's viewing.

 

[300DDR]

I've used Plex for the past 7+ years and haven't had cable TV since then. It's the best, no question, IMO.