Migrating to new hardware, what to install?

[mm_half3 0]

Hello,

 

Have been using a WMC installation & MBC on Win 7 pro 64bit for about fourteen months, with  generally acceptable results.   The system uses WMC to view/record liveTV with two HDhomerun prime tuners.  WMC has some problems with interlaced content, think it may be the old hardware being used...its a leftover gigabyte Desktop/midTower  Intel Core 2, quad core CPU, and a PowerColor Radeon HD 545 graphics adapter, 4GB RAM.   There are also intermittent crashes of the system I have not been able to trace down.  

 

MBC is used to view a movie library of MKV rips of my blurays & HDdvd's.   There is also some mpg2 recorded TV content from a mythTV backend server, that has been transcoded into h264 mkv containers that gets viewed in MBC.    I tried to install Media Browser theater, but could not get it to play the mkv content smoothly, consistently had stuttering or dropped frames, so stuck with MBC.

 

Have had  a zotac Zbox sitting around for about eight months that was earmarked to replace the WMC desktop, and finally have the time to set it up,and see if things improve.   It looks like there have been many changes in Media Browser software since the my last WMC setup, starting with the rebranding to Emby.    Should I follow the current server setup tutorial in the Media Browser wiki on github, then install the WMC app to get the same type of functionality on the current WMC desktop?  In order to get mkv's, subtitles, and HD audio codecs to work,  had to follow guides specific to those for WMC, are those extra steps still required?   

Thanks,

 

 

 

[wiretap 30]

I would use Windows 7 or 8 with WMC as a server with Emby Server + ServerWMC setup, then use Emby Theater for viewing. It has perfect subtitle integration from my experience, MadVR support, and displays all your content how you want it to much better than MBC+WMC. I made the transition not too long ago away from WMC. I have ~1500 Blu-ray/HDDVD encodes, 75 complete HDTV series, etc. Give it a try and test it out first to see how you like it. I find it much faster and easier to manage.

Edited July 4, 2015 by wiretap

[Vidman 589]

Are you running everything on one box...or do you have a separate server?

[mm_half3 0]

I would use Windows 7 or 8 with WMC as a server with Emby Server + ServerWMC setup, then use Emby Theater for viewing. It has perfect subtitle integration from my experience, MadVR support, and displays all your content how you want it to much better than MBC+WMC. I made the transition not too long ago away from WMC. I have ~1500 Blu-ray/HDDVD encodes, 75 complete HDTV series, etc. Give it a try and test it out first to see how you like it. I find it much faster and easier to manage.

 

Thanks for the suggestions wiretap.  On first read did not understand the refs to ServerWMC, but after searching a bit, see its an app to use WMC as a backend for liveTV/PVR from clients (local network & remote).   Was not really thinking along those lines, since the mythTV setup has been much more stable than my current WMC server.  Really only installed a WMC system to view the DMC content comcast has flagged (hbo,sho,etc..)...SeverWMC can't help with that ....will give ServerWMC a test run, to see how it interacts with the kodi media center clients deployed in the house.   

 

You mentioned using emby theater for viewing, was that to watch the liveTV also, or just the ripped video library mkv's?    Is viewing liveTV in emby stable now?  The most recent posts I find on the topic (05/2015) indicate its still has only basic functionality, and does not offer much yet.  A developer (Luke) mentioned a new rewrite to emby was coming, but I don't see any announcement of it on the emby theater forum.   If its still in alpha/beta and minimal functions, will probably still use WMC as the PVR on that television.

 

 

 

Are you running everything on one box...or do you have a separate server?

 

This win7/WMC server will be connected to the living room television, so will be running WMC & emby  server, and ServerWMC (if it works well in my deployment)  all on the same system.    Note the ripped video library is on a networked zfs files server and the mythTV backend is running on another zotac zbox.  

 

Really just hoping to get a more stable PVR and movie viewer for the living room television.   WMC crashes a lot, and sometimes MBC does when navigating through a movie with FF/Rew...not to mention the interlacing issues on some of the channels.

[Vidman 589]

Why not run emby server on the same device as mythtv?

[Deihmos 147]

I would use wmc and kodi and install ServerWMC so you can watch some TV in kodi if you like. That is what I did. Wmc is the only player that can view copy once content and it doesn't look like that will ever change. I find this to be the perfect setup because kodi with the emby addon makes an excellent and highly customizable media player. The best benefit to me is kodi has some great addons like I just found out yesterday that it had ESPN go.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Deihmos

[mm_half3 0]

Looks like I got things migrated to the zotac.   Took pretty much all day, most of the time was spent figuring out how to mitigate the 59/29 stutter bug using the new intel graphics control panel (not sure why they change them so much, and why it never gets more intuitive menus).   Went with WMC to view liveTV and PVR, also installed kodi for windows, to view my movie library of HD rips in mkv containers.   There is a nice little app that integrates kodi into the main WMC menu, and allows a clean switch between the two.   Now have the added benefit of seamless access to the mythTV recordings on this TV...not being able to easily view the myth recordings from the WMC system always did bother me about the last setup.  

 

Was going to try emby theater or emby for windows, but the more I read about theater the less it seemed people were using it....and I think (not sure) emby for windows is MBC...which would mean having to install lav, and the rest of the the codecs to view mkvs, play hdAudio, and subtitles.   It was painful last year, did not relish having to go through the process again, and I think all the mucking with codecs may have been part of the reason my last setup was not very stable.  Everything needed to view the existing media library of ripped HD seems to be self contained in the kodi for windows app.

 

Went ahead and installed emby server on the mythubuntu zotac  box used as the mythTV backend (as per vidman's suggestion), and the installation went pretty smooth.   It does not seem to have had any negative side effects on the mythTv install.   Not sure what I am going to use it for other than maybe auto populating fanart, nfo's, etc for new media.   Probably will try the wmc myth PVR plugin to see what its all about, and maybe look into remote streaming.

 

Thanks for responses, they really helped me  get started  correctly.

 

John

[AdrianW 1053]

I use Emby for WMC (MBC) on my NUC - and to make things easier re: codecs I use MPC-HC as an external player. I also installed MadVR as the renderer which allows easy refresh rate auto switching and great looking playback.