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[perpetual98]

After spending a bunch more time with the software, I can say that I really, really like 90% of it.  Here's a few things that I've noticed:

There's a really cool view in Theater View, but it defaults the cover art to a square, presumable because of CD covers.  I've seen it mentioned on the forums, but didn't run across a fix.  I have hundreds of ripped DVDs in multiple folders, and 98% of them have a folder.jpg and at least one background.jpg that MediaBrowser displays.  I know that MC uses database entries for metadata, but it would be cool if it could use existing metadata to populate it's database (MediaCenterMaster, MyMovies, etc)

I hooked up a USB tuner that I had to test out the Television functions.  It went pretty painlessly and I got the TV part of it working.  What I then noticed was that MC didn't list all of my available channels.  Not sure if it was a MC issue or a mc2xml issue.  I went to Silicon Dust's website to get a list of available channels in my area, then I went back into MC and manually configured them.  That seemed to take care of that issue.  I then dug around for a while to find a way to change the EPG.  The list version of an EPG is almost useless to me, and the WAF is out the window.  I couldn't find a way to get a grid view like almost every guide I've ever seen (WMC, DirecTV, Tivo, etc)

I also have some TV series DVDs that are quirky.  For instance, I have HBO's ROME ripped as individual DVDs.  Season 1 Disc 1 contains the first 2 episodes.  MC pretty much had no clue what it was.  Tying MC into thetvdb.com would probably address the issue of not being able to scrape television.  So I took that DVD and ripped the first episode into a MKV named something like Rome_S01E01.mkv.  MC again didn't know what to do with the metadata of that, but the MKV played brilliantly with no additional configuration, which WMC/MB can't do out of the box.

I can't remember if I had any other issues, but so far, I really like the software and would for sure consider purchasing it if I can figure out some of the things that are bugging me at the moment.

We've been running our HTPC for OTA only for the past few years and Windows 7 with MediaBrowser has suited our interests to a tee.  We recently just hopped back on board with DirecTV because there was a lot of stuff that we missed watching.  That's the reason that I'm looking at other software, not necessarily to integrate DTV into the HTPC, but to have a great experience with our movies mainly.  I'm leaning towards also running OTA into the HTPC again to record local stuff if/when we have tuner conflicts with DTV

[Matt]

Thanks for the feedback, and welcome to Interact.

We're currently working on several of the things you mentioned, so stay tuned.

[CountryBumkin]

After spending a bunch more time with the software, I can say that I really, really like 90% of it.  Here's a few things that I've noticed:

There's a really cool view in Theater View, but it defaults the cover art to a square, presumable because of CD covers.  I've seen it mentioned on the forums, but didn't run across a fix.  I have hundreds of ripped DVDs in multiple folders, and 98% of them have a folder.jpg and at least one background.jpg that MediaBrowser displays.  I know that MC uses database entries for metadata, but it would be cool if it could use existing metadata to populate it's database (MediaCenterMaster, MyMovies, etc)

I use MyMovies to collect the metadata and cover art. It does a pretty good job and most of the data is caputred when new media is added to its monitered folders. It does a good job with TV series too, but it doesn't put the TV data in a metafile so you have to do some manual manipultation if you want to use it. I'm trying to find a better way to share this data (looking at some software that might work - but it's too early to tell)

I hooked up a USB tuner that I had to test out the Television functions.  It went pretty painlessly and I got the TV part of it working.  What I then noticed was that MC didn't list all of my available channels.  Not sure if it was a MC issue or a mc2xml issue.  I went to Silicon Dust's website to get a list of available channels in my area, then I went back into MC and manually configured them.  That seemed to take care of that issue.  I then dug around for a while to find a way to change the EPG.  The list version of an EPG is almost useless to me, and the WAF is out the window.  I couldn't find a way to get a grid view like almost every guide I've ever seen (WMC, DirecTV, Tivo, etc)

I found that mc2xml did not have data for two of the 48 OTA channels I receive. Did you find a way to configure MC to download the guide data once you got the Silicon Dust data for your missing channels? I have not had the time to investigate this myself.

I also have some TV series DVDs that are quirky.  For instance, I have HBO's ROME ripped as individual DVDs.  Season 1 Disc 1 contains the first 2 episodes.  MC pretty much had no clue what it was.  Tying MC into thetvdb.com would probably address the issue of not being able to scrape television.  So I took that DVD and ripped the first episode into a MKV named something like Rome_S01E01.mkv.  MC again didn't know what to do with the metadata of that, but the MKV played brilliantly with no additional configuration, which WMC/MB can't do out of the box.

I'm doing the DVD per episode rip to mkv. That works real well (and it can play back with MAdVR if your system is setup for it). Name your mkv rips something like "Series" "season number" "episode number" "episode name" (like "Rome s1.e01 Pilot.mkv") and it is easy for MC to sort the file name into the correct fields using "Fill properties from Filename."

I can't remember if I had any other issues, but so far, I really like the software and would for sure consider purchasing it if I can figure out some of the things that are bugging me at the moment.

We've been running our HTPC for OTA only for the past few years and Windows 7 with MediaBrowser has suited our interests to a tee.  We recently just hopped back on board with DirecTV because there was a lot of stuff that we missed watching.  That's the reason that I'm looking at other software, not necessarily to integrate DTV into the HTPC, but to have a great experience with our movies mainly.  I'm leaning towards also running OTA into the HTPC again to record local stuff if/when we have tuner conflicts with DTV

What you may find worth while is to invest in Hauppauge Colossus tuner card. It can capture DTV shows (although at slightly less than HD resoultion). I can't guarantee it will work flawlessly, but I had one installed and i was able to capture everything on DTV during my test period. My issue was an audio-video sysnc issue, and i did not have the expereince or time to solve problem so I sent card back under free return policy. However, now I'm getting ready to buy this again as I belive it will work (as good as my VVR-2250 Tuner card) with a little TLC setup time.