Other Media Centers

[skeptic]

I tried to give the most fair and honest response I could a few posts up...

Way to pick up on the sarcasm golgo,  you're are brilliant. (that was more sarcasm)

To clear it up for up you...again.  My origial post was looking from someone who used other media centers as the list of needs I have were not working out for me with LMCE. 

Google for that, people here use LMCE because we like it better than the other options.  As far as I can tell, the product you "need" doesn't exist.  LinuxMCE is probably the closest, and with a bit of patience (next release) and efforton your part  (make a touchpad UI the way you want)  it could very well be the solution you are looking for.

As we all can see, there are to many hard headed people out here that took it personally.  And that brings us where we are today.

I can't argue with that, but you must include yourself as well.  You started off ok IMHO, but went down hill quickly.  Personally, I tried to address all your points to the best of my knowledge (and I certainly don't know as much as many/most others here).  However, you seem to have not read my post or simply dismissed it.  It would appear you are looking for sympathy or a reason to be unhappy instead of trying to find actual solutions.

[freymann]

What would be interesting to know is:

-what other software packages have you looked at in the last while (to replace LMCE)?

I honestly haven't bothered to go looking for other alternatives as I find LMCE is great! I had a full blown 3-4 station MythBuntu system working and that was fine, but it lacked some of the extra functions that LMCE offers that I would say are now my "must have" features and I would feel 'naked' without them! (specifically for me: X10 integration; IR control; different users; easy Samba shares; easy media discovery; UI2 and gyro control, network booting MD's, various orbiters, events & scenarios, etc)

I downloaded the XBMC iso and booted off it to have a look and yeah, their screens are super pretty, but it doesn't have a PVR so it's useless to me. LMCE will never look that fancy because LMCE has to display on a wide variety of screens and to get that means some of our screens have to look "1982-ish" in order to be so flexible. I don't see anything wrong with the look and feel of UI2 and a gyro. There are some things that can be tidied up but none of those things are show stoppers.

You won't appreciate UI1 until you see it rendered on different orbiters (like a cell phone or PDA or web) and then realize, gee, you can still do all this wonderful stuff from any device. So it's not as pretty as XBMC, but you have so many more options!

I have to thank Thom for educating us on the inner workings of LMCE. There are a few things I think are kinda crazy too, but when you understand why certain things have to work in a particular fashion, it starts to make sense. I thought there was a significant change between the 7.10 betas and the 7.10RC2 package. One can only imagine what good things await us in later releases.

You've made your points about what you like and dislike about LMCE, so perhaps you can now tell us about the other software you are trying out. I'd be interested to hear about it (but I doubt the rest of the readers will be).

There's no sense continuing to bash the project in this thread, so instead, let's hear about the other software you are sampling or just stop posting. It's time to agree to disagree!

[golgoj4]

What would be interesting to know is:

-what other software packages have you looked at in the last while (to replace LMCE)?

I honestly haven't bothered to go looking for other alternatives as I find LMCE is great! I had a full blown 3-4 station MythBuntu system working and that was fine, but it lacked some of the extra functions that LMCE offers that I would say are now my "must have" features and I would feel 'naked' without them! (specifically for me: X10 integration; IR control; different users; easy Samba shares; easy media discovery; UI2 and gyro control, network booting MD's, various orbiters, events & scenarios, etc)

I downloaded the XBMC iso and booted off it to have a look and yeah, their screens are super pretty, but it doesn't have a PVR so it's useless to me. LMCE will never look that fancy because LMCE has to display on a wide variety of screens and to get that means some of our screens have to look "1982-ish" in order to be so flexible. I don't see anything wrong with the look and feel of UI2 and a gyro. There are some things that can be tidied up but none of those things are show stoppers.

You won't appreciate UI1 until you see it rendered on different orbiters (like a cell phone or PDA or web) and then realize, gee, you can still do all this wonderful stuff from any device. So it's not as pretty as XBMC, but you have so many more options!

I have to thank Thom for educating us on the inner workings of LMCE. There are a few things I think are kinda crazy too, but when you understand why certain things have to work in a particular fashion, it starts to make sense. I thought there was a significant change between the 7.10 betas and the 7.10RC2 package. One can only imagine what good things await us in later releases.

You've made your points about what you like and dislike about LMCE, so perhaps you can now tell us about the other software you are trying out. I'd be interested to hear about it (but I doubt the rest of the readers will be).

There's no sense continuing to bash the project in this thread, so instead, let's hear about the other software you are sampling or just stop posting. It's time to agree to disagree!

slight disagreement. I think we can create nicer looking screens, and people such as me are learning HADesigner thanks to the fact that Thom has been deep into the code, learning what it does. So i think its a matter of time before we start getting more UI skins. As far as other software, this isnt an HTPC forum, its a linuxmce forum. So I dont know why this topic wasnt deleted to begin with. I didnt realize part of linuxmce was posting reviews of other media centers.

[skeptic]

slight disagreement. I think we can create nicer looking screens, and people such as me are learning HADesigner thanks to the fact that Thom has been deep into the code, learning what it does. So i think its a matter of time before we start getting more UI skins.

I'm with you 100% on this. We need to have at least one default UI, currently UI1, that works on anything and everything.  However, I see no reason we cannot have additional optional UIs suited for very specific devices.  Why not have a UI that only works well with a touchpad, or on a widescreen 40"+ 720p+ TV, or whatever?

I'll add in a big thanks to Thom for giving the community the instructions to allow creation of new UIs.  If I though a new UI was a requirement for LMCE I'd put in the effort to make one, but I'm satisfied with UI2. 

[jgaffney]

I saw your reply skeptic, but it was too late.  The regular crew already had the damage done. 
Freymann,   I'll be posting shortly my experience with LMCE and Vista Media Center shortly.

This did go downhill fast. But this wasn't started as a bashing thread.  The regulars could of took it as constructive criticism, but instead took it personal and started bashing me.  They didn't point me to the hardware that could tie in netflix in,  I was told to leave because I wanted netflix to tied in.  If this was the first time I read a rude reply to either me or many others it would of been different.  The problem is that's the norm out here, the decent people are the exception.

I could wait for the next release and maybe some things would work better than I want, but I already invested good money into hardware.  So I'm better off using a product that work as I need it to now.

I found that product, it not only does everything I want. It does it better than I expected and much more. 

[Zaerc]

I saw your reply skeptic, but it was too late.  The regular crew already had the damage done. 
Freymann,   I'll be posting shortly my experience with LMCE and Vista Media Center shortly.

Funny how you couldn't be bothered to respond to skeptic (or Seth) who addressed your "problems", I guess you were more interested in trolling about then finding a solution for your "problems" that you never even bothered asking about.  Quite amusing how you hold everyone else responsable for your own shortcomings with dramatics like "The regular crew already had the damage done", while you're obviously not one of "the exceptions" yourself.

This did go downhill fast. But this wasn't started as a bashing thread.  The regulars could of took it as constructive criticism, but instead took it personal and started bashing me.  They didn't point me to the hardware that could tie in netflix in,  I was told to leave because I wanted netflix to tied in.  If this was the first time I read a rude reply to either me or many others it would of been different.  The problem is that's the norm out here, the decent people are the exception.

This thread wasn't started looking for help either, and in reality it was you that started bashing after the simple question of what you had done yourself to look into these perceived and over exaggerated "problems".  That is mostly why this thread went downhill so fast.  The reason we didn't point you to the netflix hardware was because you never even bothered to ask remember? Now apparently (according to you at least) everything you say is supposed to be "constructive criticism" while everything else is just "rude replies". Oh the drama!

I could wait for the next release and maybe some things would work better than I want, but I already invested good money into hardware.  So I'm better off using a product that work as I need it to now.

I found that product, it not only does everything I want. It does it better than I expected and much more. 

So now that your biassed review of a very limited set of features from a one sided point of view is posted you can finaly move on, I hope you and your product become very happy together.  However I am sorry to inform you that I haven't lost a second of sleep over it like you were so hoping for.


PS. This is called hypocrisy, and it seems rather typical of you:

First of all, when did I ever say I never got any help out here?

But again,  the lack of help and attitude from the LMCE community speaks for itself.

[jgaffney]

Your signature says it all about your character  Zaerc.

The bottom line is If there wasn't so much truth to my posts, you wouldn't be so upset about it.

Go back to your south park episodes.

[tschak909]

funny how the sense of humour of a comedian is often completely lost on people.

-Thom

[Zaerc]

In this case it's pretty typical I think, I wonder why he's even still here, get over it man!  Got to laugh at the illusion that I'm upset over the amount of "truth" in his posts though, so there might be hope for him afterall.

And thanks for proving my points by once again resorting to petty personal attacks jgaffney, it illustrates your hypocrisy even more.

Now how about you go back to your precious VMC, and enlighten their support facilities with your (loose interpretation of) "decency"?

[jgaffney]

Give a shot, I guarantee you won't turn back.

[geekincolorado]

jgaffney  I want to chime in as I have also posted a comment/question about linuxmce and got nothing but snipe remarks and criticism.  See post http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6786.msg42113#msg42113  and I will totally agree with you that if you are not a so-called programmer (which is what they seem to consider a contributor) then you just need to move on.     

Now for a side note: 
I can tell you that Vista Ultimate works pretty well with the OML (Open Media Library) and Mymovies installed.  With anydvd I can take just about any movie (currently my son's whole dvd Library) insert it into a dvd caddy, rip it to a drive, and mymovies then imports it.  This works great on my main htpc in the basement but the client (currently a dma2200) is where I have the problems.  With OML and bit os so-called tweaking I have the full library on my extender that I bought (only $120).  VMC has some pitfalls but almost every place I have posted a question.  Just my input.  As for LinuxMCE it is currently only a test product in my house.   I have new dinovo edge keyboard that I got for Christmas (bluetooth) that because it is bluetooth I was hoping LinuxMCE would recognize without tweaking...it didn't.  I put the bluetooth dongle on my vista box and with no drivers, etc.  it just worked.  Did I pay for my VISTA (for those linux people that always push linux is free....) NO.  It is a full MSDN version that was not being used from work. 

I am still trying to decide if linuxMCE is for me but I don't have all the extra time to tweak, tweak, compile, modify this, modify that...  maybe as it progresses it will get better!!

[hari]

my popcorn tin is empty. And this thread is a collection of flames, offenses, off topic and a waste of time.

br, Hari