NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 OK, some extremely good news. After backing everything up and setting a Restore Point I decided to take the leap once again (The Thundering Horde shan't be home until after 8pm tonight). I removed MB2, installed MB-C and it all worked on the first-go, once I entered the VLC player path. Still having a few minor hiccups (MB crashed hard, WMC could not be closed or the process killed, and only a reboot got things back again) but for the most part things are looking up on the HTPC. Still need to know how to get it to auto-start (if there's a menuitem for that, or if I have to drag its icon into the startup folder in Win7). As for content, my ripping software rips to ISO, not MKV, although by now I've done almost my whole collection so I don't know how much more I'll need to do. I don't have a way to rip BR-D files, but I did get a couple I wanted to watch from an unnamed friend. On occasion I've dabbled with content online, but I find the quality to be vastly inferior to the real thing; how can a DVD Rip to 1GB look acceptable, and ditto for a BR-D. I'm not really up for converting 300+ titles from ISO into MKV format to be bloody honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14902 Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Just drag the shortcut to your startup folder. Check out MakeMKV for future rips. It is free/inexpensive and can create full-quality mkvs of your discs (including BluRays). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Still need to know how to get it to auto-start (if there's a menuitem for that, or if I have to drag its icon into the startup folder in Win7). Are you talking about the server component? There is an option in the web client settings->advanced (but I think it defaults to auto start) It's not fun to re-rip or convert. I know... I've done it 3 times now, at the time I probably had 500-600 movies. But I finally settled on a format I like. Of course, now I decided that I could improve the quality a bit so I am debating redoing 200 or so of them. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Are you talking about the server component? There is an option in the web client settings->advanced (but I think it defaults to auto start) It's not fun to re-rip or convert. I know... I've done it 3 times now, at the time I probably had 500-600 movies. But I finally settled on a format I like. Of course, now I decided that I could improve the quality a bit so I am debating redoing 200 or so of them. lol Earlier today I tried to have MB3 Server run as a service on startup but it failed to do so. I set the service to "automatic" then started it, made sure it was running, then rebooted the machine. The service was not running 5 minutes after the restart. I've set the app to start in the tray automatically from this point - seems to be the only way to ensure it does as it's supposed to, and I'm fine with that (though I think I'd rather have it run as a service). As for MB-Classic, I didn't know if there was a checkbox somewhere to have it start at system statup. The bottom line is this PC is a media server that's on 24/7 and controlled by my remote; I usually hide the keyboard/mouse so only the remote control can invoke commands. I'm trying to get this PC to behave as close to a hard-coded media server box as possible, and not as a computer that happens to run media applications. I do maintenance via remoting in (usually), though for this I have the keyboard/mouse attached. It's easy enough to drag a shortcut, but I didn't know if there was provision for the player to auto-start much as the server does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Well, if it were still acting up, I would <G>. With lunch successfuly accomplished and the machine restarted I attempted the connection from my work desktop and....it worked. I could once again connect using the copy of Media Browser Theater I installed last week. I then DL'd MB-C and installed it, and once again, a qualified success. I say "qualified" since it will display the posters/descriptions/etc, and play actual video files such as .AVI or .MKV. It will not, however, play ISO files (movie rips). When I click PLAY for an ISO, it displays the message "Could not mount ISO. ISO mounter is not correctly configured." This message remains onscreen for about 10 seconds, then another error message "Invalid Application. Unable to launch 'media browser 3." pops up. This stays up until I click OK, at which time MB3 closes and WMC remains onscreen. I was also experiencing this on my HTPC box last week. I have no idea what to do with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 There are issues with the "run as service" for MB3 server. (it has issues with the auto updates) But I've never heard of anyone having problems with the normal "run at startup" option. In WMC there is an option to run WMC at startup. There is no way that I know of to make MBC start automatically but once WMC is started at startup that shouldn't be an issue since you can use the remote to load MBC. Honestly, I wonder if you don't have some other base problem with your Windows install or setup because you have had a lot of problems getting everything running and I can't remember any other posts here with the same problems you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14902 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 You need to open the configurator (there is a shortcut installed for you) and configure your ISO mounter. This is the same thing you had to do with MB 2 you probably just don't remember doing it because it was so long ago. But, if you still have a machine with MB 2 on it, you can look at the settings on that and replicate them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 I would really like to give this whole system an enema and reload Win7 from scratch but I'm holding off until I can give it a good hardware upgrade. A new silent case and power supply, a solid state system drive, one or two more 2-3TB hard drives and a really good video card would be nice, but I just built a very high-powered work PC earlier this year and She Who Must Be Obeyed would not be pleased to see more hardware bought when the old stuff is doing the job, however shakily. I suspect next summer it'll be rebuilt from the ground up. Is there anything that runs cleaner than Media Center Master for tracking, finding, downloading, moving and renaming TV series and episodes? I like to archive an awful lot of what I watch, but I find MCM to be extremely finicky, and it often has random problems when downloading new episodes or series. To your knowledge, is there anything better out there? I have Verizon FiOS TV and the quality is stunning; I find everything I get online looks like a bad SD video copy in comparison, too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Well, MB3 is much better then MB2 was with meta data. There is also a feature where you can have it watch a specific folder and rename/move recorded TV into the proper location (I don't use that feature so I hope I am describing it accurately). A lot of people who used to use other meta data managers in MB2 days have switched to using the MB3 built in meta data fetchers as they really are good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 I had completely forgotten about this. I assume this controls local machine playback, and I would need to put VCD on all the computers I intend to play content on? More a theoretical exercise than anything else - I don't really intend to play content on any other computer in the house. Will anything else work? I have VLC player and PowerISO on my work computer (again, I'm using this for testing only at the moment). Also, will VLC or anything else play Blu-Ray ISO rips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14902 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 You can make MBC run at log-in of the windows user by dragging the shortcut as I mentioned before. Don't also tell WMC to start automatically though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywarrior 688 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I'd honestly recommend you try not to rip as ISO and instead do MKV or something else. With MB3 supporting subtitle files, specials/extras, multiple languages etc. you can rip instead to MKV and probably get all the functionality you expect out of the ISO plus some cool features in MB3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14902 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Yeah, it's pretty well known out here that I hate ISOs . Really cumbersome format in today's world. I know you probably have a bunch of content already so you're stuck with them to an extent but I'd look to move away from that format going forward. Since I don't use ISOs at all, I'm not a great resource but search out here and you should find the information you need to setup either VCD or (whatever that other one is...). Since you'll be using the internal WMC player (I assume) I would not check "Use AutoPlay" and let MBC mount it and kick it off itself. Make sure you get the drive letter right too. Again, if you still have a working MB2 setup, just look at how you had it before. Even if not, look in your old Mediabrowser programdata folder at the config file and you can probably figure out the settings from that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deihmos 147 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 NJ RadioGuy, on 23 Jul 2014 - 8:05 PM, said:Is there anything that runs cleaner than Media Center Master for tracking, finding, downloading, moving and renaming TV series and episodes? I like to archive an awful lot of what I watch, but I find MCM to be extremely finicky, and it often has random problems when downloading new episodes or series. To your knowledge, is there anything better out there? I have Verizon FiOS TV and the quality is stunning; I find everything I get online looks like a bad SD video copy in comparison, too! I use sickbeard and it works really well. If you want the best video quality then you will need to record your shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 (edited) I use sickbeard and it works really well. If you want the best video quality then you will need to record your shows. NzbDrone is a good replacement for SickBeard. Edited July 24, 2014 by CBers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceboy 2492 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Have to say I find media center master to be excellent, never had any problems. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 MCM is OK and does a pretty decent job, but it's hardly user-friendly and still misses entire series. I just can NOT get Mythbusters, BBQ Pitmasters or The First 48 to record. Tried everything in my power, it just can't find or match what I want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nydude25 11 Posted July 26, 2014 Share Posted July 26, 2014 MCM is OK and does a pretty decent job, but it's hardly user-friendly and still misses entire series. I just can NOT get Mythbusters, BBQ Pitmasters or The First 48 to record. Tried everything in my power, it just can't find or match what I want. Are you sure you are selecting the right show in the guide? Unless maybe you don't have enough space left on your drive to record it or it is not a new episode? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJ RadioGuy 2 Posted July 26, 2014 Author Share Posted July 26, 2014 Positive. It has identified the series, I have over 3TB of free space on the drive and I'm trying to download all the back episodes, as well as keep up with new ones. I will find a handful of old episodes in some cases (the first 48) and only sporadically finds new ones. Mythbusters just won't get new ones, and I think it only gets about a dozen BBQ Pitmaster eipsodes. I can't believe nobody is seeding those anywhere, especially the day after an episode airs. I think there are other shows like this too. Canada's Worst Driver comes to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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