LinuxMCE/Pluto vs Crestron/Escient/et al

[tschak909]

How DOES LinuxMCE compare to a fully loaded Crestron system? I've seen and used Crestron, and LinuxMCE has the potential to be so much better than that, of course it was a $100,000 setup, so it wasn't fully loaded..has anyone here actually A/B'ed this stuff functionality wise versus the higher end systems (now I am not talking about all the bugs, believe me, I understand the distinction...)

-Thom

[1audio]

You can emulate most of the features of LMCE with Crestron, but no phone integration and you will have a programmer living with you for a month. The Super high end systems really are little more than elaborate remote controls and work arounds for standard stand alone systems. They have very idiosyncratic UI's that need training to use can do a lot but even the best seems very kludged after LMCE. And HD is only possible with elaborate fiddling around existing HD sources (Bluray players etc.) Xperinet has announced Bluray storage and playback in their system (basically a pretty UI on Xine) and they are waiting for the lawyers. The UI is different on each function and needs to be built manually for every ui device and location. Lots of work for itinerant programmers.
I have discussed the cost of programming a system with several users and the numbers range from $10K to $60K. However among the very rich paying more can be a demonstration of more financial depth (conspicuous consumption).

[nite_man]

I don't like proprietary systems at all. They look perfect to the first view only. I suspect that they have a lot limitations and the cost of their customization is very high. The future will belong to open source systems or proprietary ones which will use common protocols like TCP/IP for example. The main problem with Pluto and LMCE is a big number of bugs or missed things which are very important for the end-of-user. For example, we installed Pluto for one of our customer. He wants to watch DVD on his 50" plasma but Xine doesn't scale video to 16:9. Watching TV/DVD is the most requested feature after lighting control. But the big is still existing in the Pluto and will be fixed next release (when it'll be nobody knows). But generally, Pluto/LMCE is much power and flexible than any proprietary system IMHO.

[1audio]

He wants to watch DVD on his 50" plasma but Xine doesn't scale video to 16:9

I'm a little confused by this. I use a 16X9 1080p display with no problems with LMCE.  It automatically selects what should be the correct aspect ratio. There is even a aspect ratio/scaling selection in one of the menus. Am I missing something?

[tschak909]

Yeah, I am too. Even on consumer devices I sometimes have to fiddle either with the TV or the DVD player to select what they call "Viewing Profiles" to get an aspect ratio that is correct.

-Thom

[nite_man]

I'm a little confused by this. I use a 16X9 1080p display with no problems with LMCE.  It automatically selects what should be the correct aspect ratio. There is even a aspect ratio/scaling selection in one of the menus. Am I missing something?

Sorry, I meant Pluto not LMCE