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Show your WMC/MB setup


c0m3r

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Hi all,

 

I'm pretty new to the HTPC arena and WMC/MB as a whole. I'm in the process of building my HTPC and have been testing various set ups etc. on my main PC. I'm a big fan of seamless integration and hate seeing any signs that windows is running in the background so have been working towards finding ways to have all the things I need integrated into WMC so thought I would post what I have so far and see how others have theirs and maybe get ideas on better ways of doing things.

 

First off, I still use WMC as my main interface with the desktop background set to match, just in case the desktop does appear for the odd second. Whilst I love MBT its obviously still in beta and doesn't do everything I need for the time being. I therefore mainly use MBC at the moment with my favourite theme, ROC and MPC-HC as the external video player. I was a big fan of Pearl in MB2 for the simplicity and style and think ROC is the closest to this whilst bringing various improvements. Due to this I use the Unity theme for WMC to make the whole thing look/feel seamless and familiar. Here's a few pics of the main page.

 

52d7e5fe8569e_HomeScreen.png

 

52d7e613c4448_DiscMenu.png

 

52d7e62dcfeb0_AppsMenu.png

 

52d7ec927c06c_InternetTVMenu.png

 

As you can see I have setup various entry points for TV streaming, steam, XBMC etc. These are all created through a mix of Re-Launch and MCE Reset Toolbox. The streaming pages link to websites which are chome-based opening up in full screen and Youtube opens the 'TV' version as you would see any any Smart TV app. All are set to close on the green button and kicks you straight back into WMC. The only bit I dislike is the need to open chrome at all so suggestions on better integration options are welcome! You may also have noticed that I use Total Media Theatre 6 as my DVD/BluRay player. This again is all integrated nicely and plays with no issues that I have noticed. The only way you notice its there is by the 'Play Disc' icon being that of TMT6.

 

The apps such as steam, MBT and XBMC are all set up in the same way so exiting any of these kicks you back to the screens above. You might wonder why I have XBMC as well? The main reason is due to its plugins such as Navi-X for streaming as this is something that MB doesnt offer right now. I'm not the biggest fan of XBMC to be honest as I find it clunky and not particularly pleasing to the eye especially compared with MB however I do have XBMB3C setup to pull my collections from MBS as below:

 

52d7e899a2d05_screenshot000.png

 

Clicking 'Media' opens XBMB3C. I also have various other links:

 

52d7e8c348e0d_screenshot001.png

 

Again, I rarely use XBMC but I like to keep an eye on progress for various applications and always helps to have a backup I guess. Also, I rarely play games these days but I do occasionally so have setup steam in big picture mode which again is seamless and exits back to MCE:

 

52d7e9908b8e0_Steam.png

 

As said above, I use ROC so looks something like this:

 

52d7e9bf2d700_MBHome.png

 

52d7e9d3ae13b_MoviesMenu.png

 

52d7e9e7a1b63_GamesMenu.png

 

52d7ea0d204a3_SeasonView.png

 

So anyway, that's how its looking at the moment. Please feel free to comment or suggest improvements. Always looking for new suggestions on how to improve the integration and please feel free to post pics etc. of your own set ups. Thanks

 

Edited by c0m3r
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Deihmos

My setup is really simple and I still prefer destiny to all of the new themes at the moment.

 

52dadd6352b4d_1.jpg52daddfdaddcd_2.jpg52dade2f29f37_3.jpg52dade6ba3ec7_4.jpg

Edited by Deihmos
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can you post the unity theme installer? old links on old MB site are down.

 

The latest version can be found here. Thanks

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Cheesegeezer

Past month, Square has been my setup:

 

 

sq1.jpg

 

sq5.jpg

 

ST........ a great theme, with plenty of surprises in there!! Great work.....

 

When is it gonna be finished lol :P

 

P.S. you didn't show the money shot?!?!?!?!?! hahaha

Edited by Cheesegeezer
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Cheesegeezer

What theme is that? Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

It's my WIP theme.

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  • 2 weeks later...
trusselo

52eebf198eaff_Untitled.png

 

This is my setup, chocolate, here's why:

 

as you can see, i like a couple different folders for my movies, i like them sorted, but not as finely as genre sorted.

 

also operated with a mouse, as i have it set now, i can view ALL recently added un-watched items, movie,tv ect, with ZERO mouse clicks, nothing but moving the mouse around can scroll to any media folder along the bottom, or move the list of items left and right to see more, no mouse clicks.

 

Usually I am watching the most recently added item, or near-to most recent, i can find it and have it playing with 2 mouse clicks.  not many themes can do that, unless it was THE MOST RECENT item, many can do 2 clicks for that one, 3 to get anything older,

 

I like the weather up top also, to remind me how crumby it is outside, and keep me watching shows.

Edited by trusselo
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52eedf158ca21_MBT.jpg

 

It's been MBT on my main HTPC since it was released, one bedroom uses the Roku app, and another bedroom (Using a laptop) uses MBC (I switch between NEO and Crystal every once and a while) and MBT depending which wants to run the smoothest on that day, I prefer MBT, but for whatever reason MBT doesn't always have the best video playback on that machine.

Once I receive my RikoMagic MK902 I'll be switching our bedroom to the Android app, and using the laptop in another room.

 

90% of our usage comes from our main HTPC running MBT though :)

 

I'm also still using WMC through the WMC Integration app in MBT for my live tv (Now that I've finally got it working nicely!), I've got My Channel Logos and the Modern8 theme installed:

52eee29d3de3c_WMC.jpg

Edited by pmac
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