My First media center was XBMC... would is amazing, probably one of my best game consoles becuase of XBMC surpassing both my 360 and Wii. It's great for music, with its visualizations and videos for its wide range of support.
Just one flaw, no HD support. So Im deciding to upgrade. I have a 130' projector in my living room for parties and like to switch back and forth from music to music videos (I got a library of 700) I like it to be an easy interface for people to be able to queue and change songs.
Looking for HD support and great visuals, I came to the conclusion that I should have a dedicated Media PC hooked up to my Projector. After playing with theater mode for a little while I came up with a few questions. Can I bypass the Show Menu so that when i select a Genre/Artist/Song it goes directly into the next folder until it reaches the song which would be played if pressing enter? Any maybe have a substitute button for my remote/keyboard that would bring up this show menu. Also when I was scrolling through videos I couldn't seem to find out how to arrange the videos in details rather then in thumbnails.. Is this possible? and can videos be cropped and changed to different aspect ratios in theater mode? I would appreciate any help..
I'm also planning on using this media center on my LCD in my room in dual screen mode. After using Windows Media Center for a little while I started getting frustrated with having to click into WMC on my 2nd screen to be able to control it and then having my mouse get locked into that screen. Does Media Center 12 have any support for being able to simultaneously control your computer while using a remote to control the media center on a 2nd screen? I'd appreciate any suggestions.. THANKS