On 21 May 2014 17:00:16 GMT, mysto <mysto@spamnot.com> wrote:
>I have a lot of way to watch movies. I have a smart tv that plays
>usb mp4 and a few other formats. My dvd player plays divx and a few
>others. My Blu-ray plays mp4 and some other when it wants to. My
>Patriot media box plays most files but is getting very old. So I'm
>wondering what are you guys using? I thinkI would like a media
>player that plays all (most) formats and comes with or attaches to a
>HD. Suggestions - comments - ideas - rants - we welcome it all.
>
>BTW thanks for all the great posts. A lot of my library came from
>here.
>
>Mysto
>Stay Tuned
Have been using XBMC for several years now. It's pretty powerful,
free open source software for Win and Linux (and prob Mac, not sure).
Let's you set up a mm library within it. I use it mostly with my main
tv which is connected to a computer with HDMI and have it set up with
extended desktop in the video from the computer so that the XBMC is
played on the tv and I can use the computer with it's monitor for
other tasks without interrupting the media playback on the main tv.
XBMC supports various remotes and remote keyboards and has lots of add
ons and accessory programs. It plays just about all file formats,
mkvs, avis, mp4, dvds (on disc or hdd from the ifo) and blurays (from
the m2ts file) and remembers settings for each title, which is kind of
nice, so like if you d/l an mkv movie file with an incorrect a/r, or
out of sync, or other problems, you can adjust it in XBMC and it will
save the settings for that file whenever you replay it. Also will
remember where you left off, if you stop playback midway through and
come back later.
It supports e.g. apple itunes video podcasts , PBS website, youtube
videos, etc thru addons, also you can grab things from pirate bay, old
tv series running 24/7, and various cable stations worldwide thru the
Navi-Extreme portal program so there's a lot of extra programming
thru navix as well as the more legitimate addons. (Lately the navix
portal site has been down a lot, old links saved will still work but
you can't search for new ones when the site is down)
Because of the open source there are an incredible amount of add ons
and scripts being created for it all the time. Does things like lets
you find and d/l subtitles for a movie on the fly as you're watching
it, get imdb info, am probably forgetting a lot of xbmc features.
Also use vlc as a backup when a file won't play in xbmc. E.g. I
record hdtv programs over the air with a tuner card and an antenna. If
reception is really bad with lots of glitches xbmc may not play it
back well, but vlc sometimes will do better. Also vlc supports CC
closed captioning, my version of xbmc doesn't seem to -- need to look
into a newer version, might now support them.
Free Agent
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