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[MrHaugen]

Just for the record, I would have guessed that 1 in 4 would answer "Yes".  

I think you underestimate this quite a bit. As the results so far show, the couch experience is really important this days. There is not that many users left that just hooks their their laptop to the TV now and then and plays a movie once a month. Or watches things on their PC. The everyday use of theater view is very important.

I think the most common setup for people is one or more HTPC front ends, and a workstation or two with MC for music perhaps. It's my bet at least.

[csimon]

Hope I don't put the cat amongst pigeons here, but this is connected in a way with the client/server discussions.

I feel that a "HTPC" is actually an outdated concept.  Many people already have a HTPC in their living rooms and find it very useful (and I'm sure they look impressive too), but the way things are going these days is that the front-end is actually more of a thin client.  TVs these days come with all sorts of net-connected apps and there are tiny little media players (adaptors) instead if you have a legacy TV.  Also, in these days of awareness of energy consumption, a beefy HTPC in every room just to watch TV or video or play music is overkill.

One central server is the way forward, with "thin client" front-ends.  Not HTPC front-ends.

This poll is rather weighted from the start, it's asking how many people already currently have a HTPC and are controlling it via a remote control!  Note the very small numbers of people who want to go that way in the future.

[BartMan01]

Hope I don't put the cat amongst pigeons here, but this is connected in a way with the client/server discussions.

I feel that a "HTPC" is actually an outdated concept.  Many people already have a HTPC in their living rooms and find it very useful (and I'm sure they look impressive too), but the way things are going these days is that the front-end is actually more of a thin client.  TVs these days come with all sorts of net-connected apps and there are tiny little media players (adaptors) instead if you have a legacy TV.  Also, in these days of awareness of energy consumption, a beefy HTPC in every room just to watch TV or video or play music is overkill.

One central server is the way forward, with "thin client" front-ends.  Not HTPC front-ends.

This poll is rather weighted from the start, it's asking how many people already currently have a HTPC and are controlling it via a remote control!  Note the very small numbers of people who want to go that way in the future.

As it stands today we are still a long way off.  There is no standard 'app' platform to develop to and everyone is too afraid of big media to build a 'client' that can completely replace a PC.  I don't have an HTPC downstairs and have to shuffle between 3 different devices depending on what I want to watch.  Even if I did have one downstairs I would still have to shuffle between 2 devices but then it would be more clear cut - XBox for TV, HTPC for everything else.  Again thanks to big media, since either Microsoft is afraid to, or the cable TV people won't allow the use of a PC as an extender for WMC.

It also no longer takes a 'beefy HTPC'.  A small form factor i3 system is pretty energy efficient and can handle anything up to and including BluRay with HD audio.

[MrHaugen]

One central server is the way forward, with "thin client" front-ends.  Not HTPC front-ends.

That might be true, but it will not be the reality for a long time. Todays front ends like TV's and PS3, Xbox360 and such is lacking SO much that it is a pain to use. At least for many MC users that is used to great deal of features and possibilities. I think that it will take LOTS of years before such things can even compare to todays Theater View in MC. Does that mean we should drop DLNA support? Not at all. It's something that some people find sufficient.

I do not disagree that a server/client setup plays a bigger and bigger part of todays households and user pattern though. It's increasingly important. Just 6-7 years ago most people did not know there was possible to store and control everything on one computer, and output the wonders on clients. A single client was the standard. It probably still is, but it's moving toward bigger networks and more computers, even for "normal" people.

[wig]

One central server is the way forward, with "thin client" front-ends.  Not HTPC front-ends.

You mean like the JRiver ID? I have one and it's a great product. Gizmo is another thin client that has come a long way in a brief period of time.

Perhaps we'll see a home theater ID in the future; something like WDTV Live or a Roku box that uses MC's theater view as the interface and provides a thin client front-end to MC anywhere you need one.

[MrHaugen]

Let's hope we get up to a 150 votes or so. It would give a good impression of the importance of MC as a front end. Even though this options and answers does not write things in stone, we still get a pretty good idea.

I have to admit that even I was a bit surprised of this results. Even a few of the percent of the people that have answered the three middle options might be users that are on the verge of using it or would consider it if the experience was improved. Perhaps people use other front ends for HTPC instead? So the actual people that use or want to use it as a front end might even be closer to 80%. Speculations, yes. But quite possible.

I always knew that HTPC front end was important for many people, but I did not think that almost 70-80% of the users was using it regularly. At least not the users that frequent this forums. I've always gotten the impression that this forums holds many media organizers, and as of lately, audiophiles, that does not always care about such things as Theater View. Even a higher degree of speculations. But if I am right it would mean that the percentage and importance of MC as a front end might be even a bit bigger.

Enough speculations! It's weekend. And a great one as well. Beer and Skyrim, here I come!

[preproman]

As it stands today we are still a long way off.  There is no standard 'app' platform to develop to and everyone is too afraid of big media to build a 'client' that can completely replace a PC.  I don't have an HTPC downstairs and have to shuffle between 3 different devices depending on what I want to watch.  Even if I did have one downstairs I would still have to shuffle between 2 devices but then it would be more clear cut - XBox for TV, HTPC for everything else.  Again thanks to big media, since either Microsoft is afraid to, or the cable TV people won't allow the use of a PC as an extender for WMC.

It also no longer takes a 'beefy HTPC'.  A small form factor i3 system is pretty energy efficient and can handle anything up to and including BluRay with HD audio.

I for one would like to see the Client and the Server be broken up into two separate applications.  This would require a port to linux for us unRAID users and many other NAS users out there.  Most often thin client set top boxes are not scalable.  With HTPC's I can put whatever video card and processor in I want and it's stays scalable for future growth. My setup consists of 1 Server (unRAID) and three clients (HTPC's).  Take a look at Plex.  They offer to free applications, 1 server app and a client app.  I like there concept.  However, I use MC for audio and if I can ever get the video down I may use that as well.  For right now I use XBMC because of the ease of use and the WOW factor with the multiple skins they support.

[csimon]

Perhaps we'll see a home theater ID in the future; something like WDTV Live or a Roku box that uses MC's theater view as the interface and provides a thin client front-end to MC anywhere you need one.

UPnP Remote UI even!  I think this is the type of thing that Microsoft use for "Media Center Extenders"?  The server "projects" its client user interface onto a rendering device, which doesn't need to have anything installed on it apart from being UPnP/DLNA compliant. I think this is how it works.

This sort of thing is still in its infancy, albeit there are proprietary forms of it.

[csimon]

I think you underestimate this quite a bit. As the results so far show, the couch experience is really important this days. There is not that many users left that just hooks their their laptop to the TV now and then and plays a movie once a month. Or watches things on their PC. The everyday use of theater view is very important.

But don't equate "the couch experience" with "hooking a HTPC up to a TV"!

For me, the couch experience is holding something in my hand that I can browse like reading a book.  Theater View is indeed important but no TV user interface (operated by up/down/left/right arrows on a remote control or by a keyboard that you need to keep handy) can ever hope to get anywhere near the experience of a point-and-tap browsing device. The TV, and the hi-fi, are rendering devices.  Theater View on a tablet?  Oh yes!

[MrHaugen]

But don't equate "the couch experience" with "hooking a HTPC up to a TV"!

Oh, believe me. I don't. I know the importance of more than arrow and ok/enter control of TV. More than just using the TV for playback. I'm all for touch and other remote functions. There is a lot that have to be in place for a great couch experience.

Have you tried the Tremote function btw? I've never used it my self as I have no touch devices, but one day I'll get my self an Win8 Pad and use MC in Tremote with my existing HTPC setup. I think that will rock.

[nwboater]

One central server is the way forward, with "thin client" front-ends.  Not HTPC front-ends.

That might be true, but it will not be the reality for a long time. Todays front ends like TV's and PS3, Xbox360 and such is lacking SO much that it is a pain to use. At least for many MC users that is used to great deal of features and possibilities. I think that it will take LOTS of years before such things can even compare to todays Theater View in MC.

Actually many of us had a very functional easy to use system like that. It used SageTV and multiple SageTV Extenders. All media stored on a server, WHS or whatever. Extenders with TVs spread around the house. It 'just worked' and had high WAF.

Unfortunately Sage sold out to Google and none of the product is available now. Nor is the old product being supported. It would be wonderful if JRiver could pursue a similar path. No, I don't mean selling out to Google. Please!!!

Rod

[lhwidget]

Actually many of us had a very functional easy to use system like that. It used SageTV and multiple SageTV Extenders. All media stored on a server, WHS or whatever. Extenders with TVs spread around the house. It 'just worked' and had high WAF.

Unfortunately Sage sold out to Google and none of the product is available now. Nor is the old product being supported. It would be wonderful if JRiver could pursue a similar path. No, I don't mean selling out to Google. Please!!!

Rod

+1
I use Beyond TV on my server and the Link client on my HTPCs.  It looks dated now, but is so very easy to use.  I manage 8 hybrid tuners from the clients, all live TV, recording scheduling, viewing recordings, and file deletion functions are handled by the clients.

I pull all of my ripped audio & video media from the server with MC17 (no software on the server pushing content, just the clients pulling files).  This relieves the server from possible transcoding jobs while TV recordings are in progress.  I suppose that if MC is to maintain the high audio standards it now adheres to, transcoding isn't an option, the client will just have to be able to handle whatever is on the server.

A server/client architecture is very convenient for me, but I'm worried about the viability of thin clients.

Possibly, using MC17's Theater view pushed from a server on a dedicated thin client would look and handle like the Theater View I'm used to.  I've seen so many write-ups of micro machines playing Blurays "successfully", I have to give them some credence.  However, I have to point out that I don't see any follow-up articles regarding the completed projects' performance.  Are they really sharp, free of artifacts, and drop-out free?  Or are they so pleased with their initial success that they are still overlooking these common problems months after getting their systems up and running?

My real problem is how responsive will the thin client be?  MC has grown to the point where it seems to require a little CPU/VPU horsepower to be as responsive as a CD player is to remote control inputs.  I don't know how well a low powered CPU/VPU combination would respond to the overhead of generating a high-def screen in Theater View, or generating a play list of a portion of my audio media on-the-fly. 

The dual core Celerons with little Fermi 520 video cards I'm using are staying perky, would a thin client?