Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Vocalpoint]

And as I said before, I find the Theater view actually quite unproductive and dull on anything - I've thrown dual-Xeon, upper-midrange GPU's with locally-sinced, all-SSD storage at the HTPC role in the past, and it's not so much the hardware as I said but Theater View is sluggish in terms of the general response and 'workflow'.

I hear ya. I just recently switched to MC for video and it has been a challenge (and a great disappointment) for me. Having used a Dune Smart D1 for the last little while - moving to MC has really done a number on our family. Regardless of version or hardware (All the best that money can buy) - we have had epic struggles with even getting MC & the PC to play nice (networking issues, HDMI issues and on and on).

It has reached the point now where I am "on call" as "tech support" just to get a movie on screen since the family simply cannot get anything going. Too many remotes, too much switching...just annoying to be honest. Quite sad actually - I spent a ton of money on a huge reno, a complete redo of the entire media room to accommodate MC and hopefully have the 10 foot "experience" just to watch them abandon the room and turn to Netflix or use the Dune upstairs. Easy Peasy wins the day - every day. (:

Can't blame MC for everything - it's really a twisted combo of many things - lots of tech that should work - does not. But we will have to make a decision here soon...maybe MC 19 will help...maybe it won't...but changes will be coming for the "video" portion of our media. There is way too much "Do I really have to fight with that PC again - just to watch a movie?" negative vibe in the room to continue as is.

I travel a lot so having the ability to have my entire library available to me with the same user interface as the main MC is a very valuable asset to me. When on transport where the internet is erratic I'll probably be more likely to be listening to my synced podcasts. However when I'm back at the hotel at the end of the day and I'm doing a bit of writing in the evening, it's great to have 'the full MC experience' outside.

Would be wonderful - but having 2TB of FLAC on hand just doesn't get any easier for me

VP

[JimH]

Could you apply the tar with a finer brush?

[retro]

I hear ya. I just recently switched to MC for video and it has been a challenge (and a great disappointment) for me.

Disappointment in what way? In my system, entirely htpc-based, it works close to perfect. 

[Vocalpoint]

Disappointment in what way? In my system, entirely htpc-based, it works close to perfect.  

As I mentioned - not ALL problems relate to MC - but I could start with client/server - as in client never finding server. That one took about a week to 10 days of non stop testing (despite everyone telling me it was MY system that was at fault). As a last gasp effort - once I gave up and made the HTPC "the server" - of course that issue was solved. Not exactly how I want to run things here...but it is what it is.

Then I continue to battle with Auto-Import. I add a few movies to the Movies share - which is rightfully (and correctly setup) being watched by MC - and in some cases - hours go by without an update. And of course - this happens right when we actually want to watch a movie Any other time like 2:00am on a Sunday morning - the file will auto-import quickly and perfectly. This one remains a mystery....

Then I have my battles with "display" in Theater View. I want my movies displayed by Cover Art (alpha) and no other way - but every time I enter Theater View - I have to crutch around and get to Toggle List View to actually get the list display I want. Maybe I am missing something here that I can set? But I have searched. I do not think so.

There are other smaller issues that plague us infrequently - (not all MC related) and I would be remiss if I did not mention the actual time it took to get the PC under control after I first set it up (from Windows Update appearing in the middle of a movie to ironing out hardware settings etc) it was a very long road. And here I thought I really knew PCs

Then we have the whole mobile angle...iPads are the norm in the house now and everyone is crying for a media server that can play to those devices...alas MC cannot at this time (* we are just getting started with JRemote - so this may change) so I have that battle to wage.  More and more - the wife and kid simply do not want to deal with the "issues" in the media room and now just want to watch a movie in bed - who can blame them?

Finally - from a pure esthetics point of view - as I look closely at other Media Server offerings - the Theater View interface in MC is tired to me. It's functional but I guess I am one of those guys who likes a snazzy looking front end once in a while.

But I digress - it was me who wanted to go down this road after hanging with everyone here on the forums for several years - I thought it would be better than it turned out to be. And don't get me wrong - for music - there is no contest. MC is it - and there is no other contender. But on the movie side - once the iPads and Dunes and Netflix came into the house - and you can be watching a movie in 30 seconds (with zero hassle factor) - I knew my "big room media" dreams were compromised.

Now - I should mention that we do use MC for very large screen viewing (the new projector system) but that usually involves 10 minutes of setup by me to get the room "ready". Then as long as the HTPC is not cranky, the HDMI is working and MC is ready (and my auto-import hasn't failed - or the movie we actually want to watch has been scraped properly) we can get down to it.

But again - never....easy.  Break out that IT degree....

VP

[cncb]

Then I have my battles with "display" in Theater View. I want my movies displayed by Cover Art (alpha) and no other way - but every time I enter Theater View - I have to crutch around and get to Toggle List View to actually get the list display I want. Maybe I am missing something here that I can set? But I have searched. I do not think so.

Is this on a "client"? I think it defaults to what is selected on the server.  So, launch Theater View on the server, select the desired list view for your movies, and close Theater View on the server.  It then should use the correct default list view on the client.

[Vocalpoint]

Is this on a "client"? I think it defaults to what is selected on the server.  So, launch Theater View on the server, select the desired list view for your movies, and close Theater View on the server.  It then should use the correct default list view on the client.

No - the HTPC is the "server" now - so we are watching and using the server copy of MC. As a workaround - as long as I leave MC hanging in the Movies view in Theater View - the "view" of course sticks.

But if I wander over to Audio and then come back to Video->Movies - I immediately get thrown back into the "cover flow" view or whatever it's called....

VP

[MrHaugen]

I agree on a few things here.

- I do not have any problem with the server/client setup. That sounds a bit abnormal.
- The import issues might be some trouble with your NAS? I've seen others having issues here. Certain types of NAS are not read correctly for updated files and structures. Not sure if this have been resolved.
- Display as cover art. What does that men? Could you describe the view better? If it's in one of the toggle list styles, it SHOULD stick. Every view I set, sticks the next time I restart MC.
- The HDMI handshake issue annoyed me for a while as well, and this should imo be rather easy to fix. A refresh of the display after a wakeup from sleep perhaps? Another alternative is to have a remote that uses macros, so you can turn on the TV/PJ a while before the PC starts. That also helps. I've done this with a Logitech 9090 remote. It works flawlessly now.
- When it comes to meta data scraping I kind of agree. It's not always accurate, and it would be great to have better control over the sources and what's being scraped. Let's hope some attention are given to this field soon.
- Esthetics in Theater View are something I totally agree with you. Not only that, but I'm also missing more functionality that other competitors have in their 10 foot interface. With the ongoing Skins discussions however, this might see some light one day.

[Arindelle]

Could you apply the tar with a finer brush?

+1

come on guys, be constructive. Sorry but posts don't have to be litanies and the title of this post is not terribly "sympathetic" to your case - if I was a developer I would be angry or even hurt by this kind of diatribe I guess I'd have to call it

and starting a new thread with quotes from another thread?, hard to even follow what's in context;

EDIT: I apologize I shouldn't be butting in I suppose, got carried away 

[Vocalpoint]

Come on guys, be constructive. Sorry but posts don't have to be litanies and the title of this post is not terribly "sympathetic" to your case - if I was a developer I would be angry or even hurt by this kind of diatribe I guess I'd have to call it and starting a new thread with quotes from another thread?, hard to even follow what's in context;

EDIT: I apologize I shouldn't be butting in I suppose, got carried away  

I did not set the title of the thread nor did I split it off in a bunch of different directions.

And speaking of constructive - you are more than welcome to add something constructive or ignore the thread.

VP