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Thread: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

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    Evil Monkey! MrJim's Avatar
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    Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    I currently use a Hauppauge PCI TV card with Windows Media Centre in Windows 8.1. At some point in the near future I'm planning to do the free upgrade to Windows 10, which will unfortunately mean the loss of WMC. I could use Hauppauge's own TV software, but having tried it in the past I seem to remember it being pretty horrible. I wondered whether anyone can suggest a good alternative to WMC?

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    Oh Crumbs.... Biscuit's Avatar
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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    I use NextPVR as a PVR backend (Blackgold DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 combined card) and Kodi as a front end. Raspberry Pi2 devices are running Kodi (OSMC) on the boxes attached to my TV.

    Reasonably* straight forward to set up and Its accessible from pretty much any of my devices thanks to the multi platform support from Kodi.
    I will admit though, I only use it to watch television in areas of the house where I dont have an antenna point, I dont really use the recording or pausing of live TV. I find that the Youview box I got with the Plusnet TV thing is pretty solid for that.

    Im looking at replacing the TV card with USB devices and running the backend directly off one of the Pi2's with the TVHeadend plug in available in OSMC soon!

    *I wouldn't recommend anyone else setting up mixed DVB-T2 and S2 environments in Next PVR as it can be quite an involved process in setting up the channels correctly. If just running DVB-T2 tuners then it's a doddle.
    Last edited by Biscuit; 18-01-2016 at 05:00 PM.

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    Evil Monkey! MrJim's Avatar
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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biscuit View Post
    I use NextPVR as a PVR backend (Blackgold DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 combined card) and Kodi as a front end. Raspberry Pi2 devices are running Kodi (OSMC) on the boxes attached to my TV.

    Reasonably* straight forward to set up and Its accessible from pretty much any of my devices thanks to the multi platform support from Kodi.
    I will admit though, I only use it to watch television in areas of the house where I dont have an antenna point, I dont really use the recording or pausing of live TV. I find that the Youview box I got with the Plusnet TV thing is pretty solid for that.

    Im looking at replacing the TV card with USB devices and running the backend directly off one of the Pi2's with the TVHeadend plug in available in OSMC soon!

    *I wouldn't recommend anyone else setting up mixed DVB-T2 and S2 environments in Next PVR as it can be quite an involved process in setting up the channels correctly. If just running DVB-T2 tuners then it's a doddle.
    Thanks for the info, I'll take a look at NextPVR

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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    NextPVR gets decent reviews and its a simple install behind it too

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    lnz
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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    Quote Originally Posted by MrJim View Post
    At some point in the near future I'm planning to do the free upgrade to Windows 10, which will unfortunately mean the loss of WMC. I could use Hauppauge's own TV software, but having tried it in the past I seem to remember it being pretty horrible. I wondered whether anyone can suggest a good alternative to WMC?
    Somebody has been able to create a build of WMC that runs on Windows 10. I'm certain that Google will be able to help you locate it from "My Digital Life Forums".

    I tried it and it does indeed work perfectly. But of course I cannot vouch on whether it's "kosher" or not. I am not saying that is not, just that it travelled on other machines after leaving Microsoft.

    I have been looking for a real, workable alternative myself for at least 6 months, installing and uninstalling a lot of stuff.

    Regrettably, I have come to the conclusion that (not wanting to use the hacked WMC mentioned above) all so-called alternatives are either way too bloated, do not really work, fail miserably on other respects, require you to install servers, are buggy, and/or have been designed by people who believe that the shortest route between two points must include a maze and 5 tangles.

    For these reasons I have reinstalled the original Windows 7 Premium on the machine that I use for WMC. I use that machine only for WMC and at the end of the day I am not that bothered what OS runs under it, as long as it is supported and updated. And W7 will be for a while.

    I hope these considerations help.

    Lnz

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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    Have you looked into Plex or XBMC?

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    Re: Alternatives to Windows Media Centre for Windows 10?

    KODI

    Kodi® (formerly known as XBMC™) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet.


    https://kodi.tv

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