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Is MBT the poor relation?


johnhb

MBT priority  

84 members have voted

  1. 1. Is MBT being given the development priority it should?

    • NO - Please give some love to the HTPC users!
    • YES - It works great!


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Jdiesel

Ran XMBC for months before switching to Plex and then Mediabrowser, now Emby. It was always causing problems. Tried the new plugin and still requires a ton of setup on the Kodi side to get anything that I could consider usable. Since every instance of Kodi is its own entity, each setting change, theme and plugin install has to be applied individually to the five computers in the house. If friends or family come to visit, then I have to modify their computer as well. Like I said, too much work. Then when it doesn't work one afternoon, I have to go fix it. XMBC frequently didn't work. By work, I mean the computer user selects the icon and is watching television in 30 seconds or so.

 

You can just set it up once and copy the userdata folder over to the other clients. I keep an up to date userdata folder on my network drive and can have a new Kodi install going within a few minutes. I get what you are saying about keeping the family happy, I wait for them to go to bed before I get to start tinkering with things.

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I don't understand why so many are insisting Media Center is dead. Microsoft really nailed it when it comes to PVR functionality. Over the last 10 years I think I have tried every other major alternative, including linux-based set-top boxes, XBMC, MediaPortal, DVBViewer, you name it. Nothing comes even close to the stability and general usability of Windows Media Center.

 

Ok, Microsoft has announced end of support for Media Center, but as long as there is hardware available that will run Windows 7 or 8.1 it should continue to work just fine. At some point Microsoft may stop providing EPG data, but there are several xml-based providers which can replace it. I for one have never used EPG data from Microsoft, the in band guide from my satellite provider is much better.

 

Take a simple example: series recording. Only one platform I tried has ever been able to do this reliably. Guess which one? WMC.

 

I certainly hope to be proven wrong, but considering that Windows Media Center after more than 10 years is still the gold standard for PVRs, I very much doubt Emby Theater is going to become an alternative anytime soon.

 

As much as I hate to both say it and admit it, after sticking with Emby from way back when it was called video browser, for daily use in my house we have now switched to Plex home theater and the Plex app for LG Smart TVs. It plays the video content we need it to play, the interface may not be flashy but it works very well and the server has, at least so far, stayed reasonably unbloated.

 

I used to love MBC. I have not done anything to my hardware for at least 2 years, but MBC has become progressively more sluggish and unstable to the point where I just had to stop using it. I suspect the increasing amount of added bulk to the server is responsible for this.

 

I will continue monitoring the progress of MB theater and definitely move back soon as it works as well as PHT but I fear that may not be for quite a while.

 

MCE development stopped with Win7 which ended mainstream support this year. yes they ported it to Win8x but myself and loads of other people have had stability issues with it on 8x.

It's definately not support on Win10. 

Most of the plugins developed for it have been abandoned by their developers, or put onto life support only without further development.

MCE never handled large libraries very well, as it relies on the mediaplayer library management which has always been terrible.

There's no plugins for new media (such as online streaming services) sources that are becoming available.

 

As to series recording - I use ArgusTV these days. It leaves MCE and it's series recording for dead - but I live in an area with really bad guide data so maybe i'm biased because Argus allows you to apply all kinds of rules to match series despite subtle changes in their names. And it's far more stable - i've never had a failed or missed recording ever. 

 

I've used every version of MCE since XPMCE, and it saddens me but I have to admit that it's life is over. MediaPortal has never delivered the required stability IMHO as they've always belived in flexibility over stability, and the last time I played with Kodi it's liveTV just plain sucked. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Redshirt

@@Luke

 

Will the upcoming release of theater have a full featured API for client plugins? Will there still be the option to override the homescreen? I've been thinking about the areas that the old Gamebrowser plugin is weak in and would like to put together a serious gaming plugin.

Edited by Redshirt
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He lives... ;)

 

I know theming is a big point in the new version but I'm not sure about other types of plug-ins.  Of course, core functionality and a good default theme will be the first order of business.

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swhitmore

@@Luke

 

Will the upcoming release of theater have a full featured API for client plugins? Will there still be the option to override the homescreen? I've been thinking about the areas that the old Gamebrowser plugin is weak in and would like to put together a serious gaming plugin.

 

Welcome back!!

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 years later...

Theater now has the virtual scrolling feature for vertical lists:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/82293-44012-virtual-scrolling/

 

That means the lists will no longer load your entire library contents all at once and will instead only load what you see at once. This will help make the entire app more responsive and improve navigation performance.

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