Guys
I am a big linux fan, i always work under linux and play under windows
But this time i am sorry to say that mediacenter Vista has better features then Lmce.
First the screen crack does not appear when you watch DVDs, online channel work, plugging in a usb stick with photos work!
Music you can even buy online, you can copy with your writer, support for many many hardware cards
Never thought i would say this but these are my thoughts
Quote from: powerbits on April 14, 2009, 12:54:52 PM
Guys
I am a big linux fan, i always work under linux and play under windows
But this time i am sorry to say that mediacenter Vista has better features then Lmce.
First the screen crack does not appear when you watch DVDs, online channel work, plugging in a usb stick with photos work!
Music you can even buy online, you can copy with your writer, support for many many hardware cards
Never thought i would say this but these are my thoughts
Hmmm... what is the point of starting this thread? If you feel that way then just go of and do your thing with Vista :-)
All the best
Andrew
You do realise this whole platform is a massive research platform with feature scope that goes _way_ beyond Windows Media Center Edition?
We're working on differentiating features, while trying to get virtually every single feature from our 5 subsystems working correctly. This takes time, especially when you have several million lines of your OWN code to wade through.
We're sorry you're going, but really, this whole thread was pointless, and shows you simply have not been paying attention to what has been happening here.
-Thom
LOL, I know I'm not supposed to be responding in this manner, but seriously, I HAVE to and I hope the mods are cool with it.
Windows Lighting Control: FAIL
Windows Video Surveillance: FAIL
Windows Telcom: FAIL
Windows Alarm/Motion Detection: FAIL
Dude, when someone rings my doorbell, whatever media I have playing pauses and a wireless camera above my door displays the video of the person on every TV in my house.
When I go to bed, I select "Sleep" on any orbiter in my house (or in my yard for that matter using my wireless webpad), all the TV's/AV equipment in my house shuts off, every light in my house shuts off except my porch lights and one hallway light. Although I don't have it setup yet, in the future my house will call me and display video of the person ringing my doorbell on my phone and I will be able to talk to them through a speaker at my door from my cell phone. Did you get that? My HOUSE will CALL me!!!
Comparing LMCE to WindowsMCE is like comparing the Internet to a telegraph, they are two different animals. The list of things that LMCE can do that WMCE cannot goes on and on.
If all you want is media control then there are a lot of options out there, one being WindowsMCE. If you want centralized, customizable, scalable, complete home automation/control AND media control, there is only ONE option, LMCE.
I think his point was to express what exactly made him decide to go with VistaMCE over LinuxMCE. I understand that LinuxMCE is not a commercial product but rather a community project; but like any product we should want to hear why people chose something else over LinuxMCE. We shouldn't get our panties in a bunch. Is VistaMCE better than LinuxMCE? HELL NO, nothing is. But there are things LinuxMCE could improve on to make it more acceptable to the Vista Robots... I mean users.
I did initially suspect that the comments were trolling, however I'm going to leave this thread as they fairly reflects someone's opinion of LMCE vs VistaMCE, and we are not in the business of supressing opinion. However, if the thread fires up into a "holy war" of platform X vs platform Y, without any useful comment that is of assistance to LMCE users then I will lock the thread and dispatch all posts after the point they become unhelpful.
Powerbits - you have made your point, I suggest that unless there is new information to add, that we leave it at that.
Others - I think you have made robust rebuttals to this comment, that put the LMCE position, I don't think much more need be added. Thom put the strategy position and Dale_K gave a working example... all's good!
My point is, although i realy realy want lmce to work, please realise this:
-Home automation: I dont use it yet
-Simple DVD player, mp3 player, TV sat player , tv recorder, photos etc.. => I used it and i am guessing many people do
Good point: Stable, FREE ,copy, possible home automation function
Bad point: When playing movie: A screen crack appears in fast moving pictures (i have a 2.5GHZ dual core), very limited support towards satelite cards, does not know wat it should do when i connect a USB stick with pics, language support is limited, no blu ray support, etc
But dont worry i wont remove my lmce software , i will probably do a dual boot.
I realy appreciate the hard work , and i know its imporoving, until then i stay standbye
Who knows , after a month maybe i am back with lcme :)
Moderators just remove my topic if you want, all i wanted to do was express my opinion :)
It is important to understand as well that some of the points you bring up are completely out of the control of LMCE as the blame lies with proprietary hardware and software vendors. This is the case for BluRay at least, and probably the satellite cards you speak of (since you didnt specify).
Microsoft has the power in the industry to bend these vendors to their will, which can also include ensuring that they play as difficult as possible with non-microsoft platforms.
To address one of your specific problems: the screen tearing. Simply switch from alpha blended to overlay and it will go away. Yeah you wont have transparent menus, but video will be flawless. The reason for this problem isnt a cpu horsepower one, but that of timing. Theres several threads here where people are looking into why it happens, but it also appears to be something with the way Linux itself or the (vendor supplied) graphics drivers do things.
Powerbits, if you want that screen crack removed try disabling UI2 alphablend and go with UI2 overlay!
- Emiku
I did that guys, yes the overlay looks not good, but i could live with that.
Unforrtenately the tearing still happens. Strange
Does Nvidia not have any good drivers, because they give support until the latest cards..
Ok Blu ray , i know its a commercial thing and i find DVD to be very good also.
Hardware support, i am a linux user so i know i have to choose the correct stuf.
But simple features like plugging in your sd cards from your camera , copying it to your mce and directly viewing a slideshow should realy be no hassle..
Copying a DVD without having to go in the kubuntu GUI, just with the remote control
These little features may seem small compared to the automatisation interface or voip interface, but its something probably mostly used by the novice user
Maybe the lmce guys should take these features more in account and just change that
Quote from: powerbits on April 15, 2009, 12:32:06 PM
I did that guys, yes the overlay looks not good, but i could live with that.
Unforrtenately the tearing still happens. Strange
Does Nvidia not have any good drivers, because they give support until the latest cards..
Ok Blu ray , i know its a commercial thing and i find DVD to be very good also.
Hardware support, i am a linux user so i know i have to choose the correct stuf.
But simple features like plugging in your sd cards from your camera , copying it to your mce and directly viewing a slideshow should realy be no hassle..
Copying a DVD without having to go in the kubuntu GUI, just with the remote control
These little features may seem small compared to the automatisation interface or voip interface, but its something probably mostly used by the novice user
Maybe the lmce guys should take these features more in account and just change that
Here goes... my one and only additional post into this thread;
- We only use UI2 + Overlay on our Dianemo Sytem installs (apart from Touch screens where we use UI1) and we never see any tearing at all on nVidia, ATI or Intel Core's or MD's. So there is something wrong with your hardware or config I'm afraid.
- I agree that managing content from SD/MemStick etc cards and displaying it in slide show format is a missing feature.
- Copying DVD's/CD's can be carried out complete from the Orbiter. Some DVD's (probably significantly less than 5% of discs we have tested) fail to copy due to copy protection. Thats not LinuxMCE's fault at all...in these cases we copy them on a Windows machine.
So looking back over the above... it seems like the only real area you have a valid point about is the management/display of content from memory cards. I agree this are needs more development and if that is so important to you then right now LinuxMCE cant really offer a solution for you.
All the best
Andrew
Quote from: powerbits on April 15, 2009, 12:32:06 PM
I did that guys, yes the overlay looks not good, but i could live with that.
Unforrtenately the tearing still happens. Strange
Does Nvidia not have any good drivers, because they give support until the latest cards..
Ok Blu ray , i know its a commercial thing and i find DVD to be very good also.
Hardware support, i am a linux user so i know i have to choose the correct stuf.
But simple features like plugging in your sd cards from your camera , copying it to your mce and directly viewing a slideshow should realy be no hassle..
Copying a DVD without having to go in the kubuntu GUI, just with the remote control
These little features may seem small compared to the automatisation interface or voip interface, but its something probably mostly used by the novice user
Maybe the lmce guys should take these features more in account and just change that
Hi powerbits,
You're not giving us much info about your setup. ie... what series of Nvidia vga card you're running, have you installed the latest drivers etc...
I am running a quad core with and Nvidia 9xxxxx series with the latest drivers. UI 1 with no tearing. Just the occasional flicker, which I can live
with. Copying DVDs can be carried out from any Orbiter without accessing KDE. As far as the USB/picture import is concerned, you could easily
keep a windows machine around, whether it be a stand alone windows box or a virtualized instance the choice is yours. However Linux MCE is more than meets the eye.
John.
Surely there is a problem on the tearing? This forum is full of users who had problems
My config:
Asrock Kn6fg
4880E 45W Dual COre AMD
Nvidia 7600 256MB Silent HDTV
2GB RAM PC6400
500GB SATA HDD
DVDRW LG
Hauppage PVR150
S1500 technotrend DVB-S card
Remote control with standard mediacenter remote
as others say, it depends what you want it for.
I only want a media center, so I will be using WinMCE until I get around to getting home automation and stuff, when I will switch to LMCE, which I am definitely keeping an eye on, and will probably get when I move to Uni anyway.
You have to remember as well, that this was made by amateurs, who have other jobs. What they have made, is nothing short of amazing. IT CAN CONTROL YOUR HOUSE. IT CAN RING YOU WHEN YOUR HOUSE IS BEING BURGLED AND LET YOU TALK TO THE BURGLAR.
That my friend, is OMGWTFBBQ-amazing. Seriously.
Im gonna go ahead and make a correction here... Im sure this is what he meant anyway
Quote from: Che on April 15, 2009, 03:39:38 PM
You have to remember as well, that this project is open source and therefore is supported by developers who are not getting paid, who have other jobs. What they have made, is nothing short of amazing. IT CAN CONTROL YOUR HOUSE. IT CAN RING YOU WHEN YOUR HOUSE IS BEING BURGLED AND LET YOU TALK TO THE BURGLAR.
That my friend, is OMGWTFBBQ-amazing. Seriously.
My hat of for linuxmce and linux programmers. I support linux 1000% , but as you say it depends wat you want it for.
I hope the little things get solved asap and you will find me using it again asap
Apart from totallymaxed last post, which I 100% support let me add one small little tid bit of information.
Whenever someone comes into IRC and asks about how LinuxMCE does various things, and why it is not doing stuff in a specific way, I ask the person, if all they want is a media center. In my humble opinion, if all you want is a media center, there are systems and projects out there, that are more forgiving in the choice of hardware and might give you more of what you are looking for. And I am not thinking about commercial options, but lots of other free software out there. Heck, if you are in DVB-x land, you might be happy with VDR alone, as it plays DVDs, has support for USB sticks (iirc), and does TV.
I have yet to get my system installed, so speak from a purely research perspective, but I'm going LMCE even though I just want a media centre. I have looked at the alternatives and think the possible (probable) pain is worth it if only half the things people say about LMCE are true!
Posde, the reason I'm not going VDR is that I have a house, not a room. I want the networked facilities and the whole centralised storeage of media (and "follow me" etc.) From what I can see, VDR alone won't give me this. MythTV possibly would, but I'm in the UK and will be using DVB and from what I've read, Myth isn't as hot in that environment! Besides, I like the expansion possibilities. Maybe I should re-word the opening line "even though I just want a media centre at the moment"!
I support what the community is doing here 100% and will do whatever I can to help out. But one step at a time ;)
I do have one question for the OP, though. If the copying of media from removable storeage to the library is so important to you, why not code it up yourself? You say you're a Linux person and, unless I've seriously misjudged the whole FOSS philosophy, that's the idea :D I agree this would be a valuable addition to the feature-set and would offer to dive in and code it myself, but I currently lack the expertise - maybe one day...