Moving on from WMC - What is everyone else doing?

[Tur0k 143]

I used WMC back in the early days on XP.  it was nice, but i ended up buying new PCs that didn't have WMC pre-installed and M$ didn't have a route to just pickup the application.  I ended up using other applications to chop up the recordings to get rid of commercials.  I have used Kodi/XBMC for years now, and though it took some fiddling, I absolutely love it.  My wife is comfortable in its use so that is also a plus for us.  Emby Theatre works on my systems and will play an entire movie but is just a bit difficult to navigate as we are so comfortable with the Kodi menus/options.  Instead we opted to keep using the emby addon in Kodi.  I have now moved all my systems to win 10 or Linux with Kodi on the front end.  I moved my media management over to Emby server because we have 3 media players and one primary media player/server, and it does a fantastic job of remembering what we have watched, when we paused, and meta data for the shows and movies.  Emby Server allowed me centralized management of our media.  Currently, I use an HDhomerun with a cable card for live TV and capture.  I also use Picasa for the screensaver on my media players.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Tur0k

[Scotty0844 0]

I have been rocking the WMC for about 7 years now and I don't have any plans on moving away from it in the immediate future. I mean the EOL for Windows 7 isn't until 2020 which gives me plenty of time to find a replacement and train the family on said replacement. It also gives Emby plenty of time to polish their product further.

 

I currently run WMC and Emby side by side in Hyper-V on a Proliant ML350 with Dual Xeons and 64gigs of memory and 2 HDHomeRun Primes. WMC handles all TV recording. We primarily use WMC in the house on extenders and 360s and Emby for external access. The only exception being a FireTV on 1 TV I have been using for testing and letting the fam preview possible replacements. 

 

If and when I do replace WMC, Emby is definitely at the front of the pack however it still isn't stable enough to become a permanent replacement for WMC. I tried the KODI/XMBC combo but found it to be clunky on both the front and backend and with a very impatient redhead calling herself my wife i quickly axed it. To be fair i didn't give it much of a chance. I really wish Microsoft had put a little more effort into the development of Media Center.

[dark_slayer 103]

Keep the W7 machine running Emby server as your backend

 

Keep with WMC for as long as we continue to receive guide data. Install ServerWMC.

 

I just run the ServerWMC addon in Kodi along with the Emby for Kodi plugin. If you have a WMC capable backend doing double duty as your Emby server, the options are very high

 

Exceptions - if your provider is TWC, Cox, or one of the cablecos that DRM all channels. Nothing works well, your best options are a variety of bad options at that point. If you have FiOS or Comcast then you are much luckier. The premium movie channels are DRM on all providers though

 

In the AVS HTPC forum, the DRM'd crowd (the unfortunates ), many have found some combination between multiple boxes and a smart remote or compromising one way vs the other in a single box.

[mitchellross 3]

This is an excellent topic - one which I'm sure many of us have grappled with over the last few years.

 

I've been through so many different variants trying to replicate the WAF of WMC. I've tried backends with Kodi including NPVR, Mediaportal & DVBLink. Most of these you can get working ok - but all have drawbacks of some form. The biggest issue I've found is that there is nothing (and this is the point of my reply here) that replicates what WMC does with recording conflicts. In WMC, if my family try to record too many things at once, or (heaven forbid) try to record Teen Mum instead of formula one - a screen immediately appears seeking a way to resolve the conflict. The best any of the Kodi backends could do was a quick notification in the bottom corner of the screen. If you're not paying attention, easy to miss that you've just stuffed up someone else's recording.

 

So after two years away from WMC - I've actually just returned to it. With ServerWMC I can use Kodi on raspberry pi's around the house and stream live TV/recordings. And as it turns out, SeverWMC+Emby does a far better job of transcoding and serving up LiveTV and Recordings than DVBLink ever did.

 

I don't care if 2009 is calling and it wants its media center back.... I'm not answering.