CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Zebu Fellenz]

I just installed the newest alpha build earlier this afternoon and for the first time in the four or so times I've tried MeediOS I have yet to be disappointed. This time everything seems to be working exactly as it should and I've actually been able to get my media libraries recognized and imported correctly.

The amount of data that is downloaded and used in the media center is amazing to me, currently it's downloading fan art for hundreds of artists along with biographies, album reviews, lyrics, etc.

One issue I am having is needed to select the fan art for each artist, I was looking for an option to automatically grab all the available fan art and then being able to go back later and prune but I didn't see any option to do that.

I would also like to improve the speed as it is a little sluggish (though really no worse than MC7 with MediaBrowser) but I'm unsure where my bottleneck is.

My HTPC specs are:

Athlon II 630 X4 2.8Ghz quad core
4GB DDR3 RAM
ATI 3200 onboard graphics
7200 RPM SATA Windows HDD

I'm thinking my next upgrade will be a SSD to replace the Windows drive but was wondering if possibly the onboard graphics could also be a bottleneck?

Thanks,

Erik

[greg_mitch]

Not too familiar with the ATI3200 but I thought you needed 3400 or up to get the new HW accel.

What drivers are you using?

I would agree though...the onboard video is the worst in the lineup there.

I may try out MeediOS right now...

[MikeEby]

I put an SSD in my Main HTPC. The results were somewhat underwhelming, I'm not sure what I was expecting but it's not that much faster, hardly noticeable over a WD-VRapor. It does scored 6.9 on the Windows Score thingly.


Mike

[Zebu Fellenz]

[LOTREE]

I downloaded the Alpha version of MeediOS a few months back. The only issues I've noticed, after getting an importer to work correctly, are a few navigation bugs trying to get back to the main screen, when playing a movie the screen often goes black and ZoomPlayer doesn't load or after the movie is over I'm left with a black screen again and I have to shut the program down manually. That said I was using a trial version of ZP so that could be why.

I never had an issue with the fan art, for movies at least, except for Lord of the Rings on Return of the King I think it was, it downloaded a cartoon cover instead. I have no music on the HTPC so I can't help you on that side of things.

[huggy]

I've been running Medios for a few weeks now and although it's great,I found WMC with Media Browser a much easier setup for the family to use.
I've got it so Media Browser comes up as the p.c turns on and then the kids can start watching a movie in a matter of seconds via the Media centre remote,even my wife enjoys movies via the p.c now.
Having said that,I do prefer Medios as it is infinitely customizable.



Dave

[Zebu Fellenz]

Dave,

Do you know if there is a way to define a default view for a category? You're able to switch between the different views using the insert key on the keyboard but when you go up a menu level and the return to what you were viewing it always returns to the default view. I'm not even sure if MeediOS has the ability to do what I'm talking about but maybe you've stumbled upon a setting I missed?

Thanks,

Erik

[huggy]

Eric

Haven't played around with Medios for a while now,got it working in the media p.c in the living room running W7 however,can't for the life of me get it working on the HTPC in the theater room running Vista.
So I'm a noob myself
Have you tried asking in the Meedios Forum? Those guys are very helpful.



Dave

[TheVerge]

Giving it a try now.

[TheVerge]

Uninstalled.


If you can't figure out how to import a movie in 15 minutes... the software is crap IMO.

[perisoft]

I haven't yet found a media frontend that's anything less than unadulterated garbage. The best of them require massive investments of time and energy to get set up correctly, fail completely at basic tasks, and are so full of quirks that your family could never use them anyway.

Then the developers and the communities spend all their time making new skins and adding translucency effects while the core functionality festers in a forgotten dungheap of fail. XBMC, Meedios, that f*cking thing that Yahoo bought, SageTV - you name it, it's sh*t.

The closest I ever came to making anything work was XBMC - which had no option to start fullscreened in the secondary monitor. What the f*ck? It's not like you'd ever want to do that or anything. So the only way I could run it on my CRT was to start it in a window using some hack that somebody wrote - and leaving a white window border burning into the CRT. I'm here trying to make this work, so frustrated I could put one of my arms up my ******* to the elbow, while the XBMC community was busy making skins, ignoring the most obvious, basic requirements, and mainlining amphetamines laced with arsenic.

What a bunch of goddamned jokers.

[huggy]

Peri

I completely agree with what you're saying and as someone who's been down that path I can say that it's no joy and completely frustrating.
The easiest solution for I found was Windows 7,Windows Media Centre and Mediabrowser plugin.
All the kids (5 + 7) have to do now is just turn the p.c on and Media browser launches automatically,I have the Media Centre remote so it's just a matter of them navigating to what they want to watch and press play.Really,really easy.
Even my wife agree's that it's an absolute dream to get going,and she's hopeless at everything



Dave

[greg_mitch]

Never got into MediaBrowser...I fiddled with it for 15 minutes and it wasn't user friendly so I ditched it.

I just installed the Shark007, my movies (to autodownload movie info) and told W7 to monitor my BR rip drive and the movies instantly pop up from the start menu option labeled "Movies" (duh).

[perisoft]

[greg_mitch]

[huggy]

http://mikinho.com/wmc/open-with/