As a disillusioned Vista MC user i have been trialing other HTPC front ends. XBMC, SageTV, Medios, Beyond. MC13 is my front runner and i have been most impressed with it's handling of video files and playlists as well as its visualisations. The ability to queue music and video together is as far as i know unique amongst front ends. Music visualisations are excellent and its customisation outside of the Theatre View interface is impressive especially the tagging of all file types and all other options (all of which should stay outside of the Theatre View interface IMHO).
A few issues are apparent in MC13 however if like me you want to use it as your HTPC front end.
Tagging video by any catagory under options, theatre view has no effect when viewing in theatre view
Remote control (keyboard shortcuts) do not function in theatre view making navigation via remote in theatre view a bit of a pain and not usable by others in the hosehold ;-)
DVD library functions seem absent
Playing now is difficult to retrieve in theatre view when viewing video, especially when using a remote
In every other way MC13 is far superior to Vista MC and indeed the next MS offering in Windows 7
I would gladly stump up the cash for MC13 if we could improve the Theatre view remote control navigation issues, get those video tagging issues sorted, include some way of seperating dvd's from videos in a proper library (akin to MyMovies) and perhaps introduce the one thing i like in Vista MC - Transparent menu overlay when playing video with a simple press of the esc on the remote to quit the overlay and return to now playing
In all other ways MC13 has everything that Vista MC is lacking, in general i love it but it's falling short in a few key areas as a HTPC front end.
SageTV is a strong contender but seems stuck in the 90's and needs some serious eye candy and simplification for jo average to take it up
Any chance of some improvements to MC13 Theatre View navigation and playback on the horizon guys?
Cheers me dears