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Both myself and a friend have the same Acer Revos and both of us went for XBMC initially. However due to some weirdness with my friends home network setup xbmc could not reliably see the NAS specifically when it came to cover art for some strange reason. He ended up going with MC for this reason and MC is nice, clean looking and easy to use. I am sticking with XBMC though due to the customisation, file support and add-ons, plus the nice xmbc live install which boots with very little OS visibility (Win7 MC can be setup to boot directly but you still see WIN7 briefly).
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Thanks all - I think I'm starting to understand the situation now.
Can anyone recommend a back end live tv server for win server 2008?
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Hmm. I've been thinking, and based on what I've read I am considering doing this:
Blow away my Win7 media center
Install linux and xbmc (which distro?)
Install a tv backend on the same box (which one is best/easiest?)
If anyone has links to some good guides, it'd be appreciated. I'm not a linux n00b, but I deal manly with windows IRL. More questions:
How can I determine whether linux will "like" my hardware - is there a supported hardware list somewhere, or perhaps a utility I can use to check? My main concern is ICHR9 (raid 0), my Hauppauge HVR-2200 tuner, and my Antec Fusion case (the LCD panel, which I believe is actually iMon).
Any info will be appreciated, and I'll be continuing to read stuff that I find around here.
'max
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cd492
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I tried at first WMC7 + MediaBrowser.
For Beginners this is the easiest way to get started. You have LiveTV and a decent library. A good Scrapper for the MediaBrowser is metaBrowser, my personal Favourit. Another advantage is you can easily add your Home Vids or Documentaries to your library by creating a new folder. Thats impossible in XMBC, where you have just TV Show and Movies. Making new Profiles or Playlists is the only possibilty in XBMC which is in my opinion insufficient.
The I tried XBMC in Linux with tvheadend.
The TV backened Installation could be very hard, depending on your TV Card and the support. After a some hours I got everything working but wasn`t satified with this Live TV Solution.
At the moment I`m using WMC7 + XBMC.
For me it`s the best choice even WMC7 doesn`t support HD. In my country there are just 3 HD Channel which I almost never use so that`s not a big problem for me.
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adsoto
Senior Member
Posts: 136
I faced this dilemma when I had to setup my HTPC.
I (obviously) chose XBMC but retained Windows Media Center 7 just for PVR capabilities (and some online stuff) .
I have used it only once in about 4 months and just to check that it works (I recorded the Barcelona-Arsenal football match)
Rest of the time it's XBMC exclusive box and although the application hangs from time to time (the dreaded "this program is not responding", mainly Phython scripts or app's rough edges) I am sure I made the right choice.