Stripped Media Center Software

Visti

Hi guys, I'm looking for a media center software for a desktop I have in my living room. However, I don't need PVR or TV options, I just need it to play video files from a USB disk, Thumbdrive or DVD. This means that most solutions out there are completely overkill for what I need and I'm really anal about optimizing.

Right now I'm running the discontinued TVedia on an XP box, which works alright, I guess. I does however not recognize thumbdrives and refuses to play anything off of one, forcing me to quit the software, painstakingly move my mouse using a remote and play the files in VLC manually. It is, in a word, tiresome. Everything else is fine, but this is unfortunately how I play most of my media..

It does however have a function other media center software sorely needs. An option to resize the UI. I'm using an old TV and the TV-out is botched so that a lot of the screen is cut off.. the overscan is ridiculous. TVedia let me resize the UI and the video playing area, so that none is wasted.

I've also used LinuxMCE, which was ridiculous overkill for what I needed and the interface was horrible.

Have any of you used one you could recommend for what I need?

Ps. Am currently downloading Elisa. I have used a previous build, but because of the overscan on the television, I couldn't see the back buttons, trapping me in whatever menu I entered.. Sigh.

darkenedwing

Would this do?

I have not used it much, so im not 100% sure of what it's capable of, but I think it would fit the bill for what you want.

Visti

Expectations exceeded. Thank you, good sir. This program is exactly what I wanted.

darkenedwing

glad I could help.

Rohan

Why is it so hard to get a media centre program to work properly with the Microsoft MCE remote? Why am I having such horrible luck with all of the programs I've tried? Vista MCE has videos jumping in certain zoom modes. MediaPortal will sometimes give me use of the remote but not any control of the up, down, left and right buttons. Apparently I need to download extra files and a degree in MediaPortal language to get it to work correctly. XBMC will use the remote but is far too sensitive and even though the question has been asked on their forums, nobody has an answer for it. When moving through any list, it will scroll two at a time, instead of one. Nobody seems to know why.

I'm starting to hate everyone but Microsoft. I can't watch videos in their native format anymore due to the jumping, but at least MCE's setup is straightforward and recognises the remote correctly. I don't understand how anyone with a similar, basic HTPC set-up can use anything on Windows other than MCE when they have so many problems.

Sorry, just had to rant there, I'm extremely pissed off.

Visti

Rohan wrote: »

Why is it so hard to get a media centre program to work properly with the Microsoft MCE remote? Why am I having such horrible luck with all of the programs I've tried? Vista MCE has videos jumping in certain zoom modes. MediaPortal will sometimes give me use of the remote but not any control of the up, down, left and right buttons. Apparently I need to download extra files and a degree in MediaPortal language to get it to work correctly. XBMC will use the remote but is far too sensitive and even though the question has been asked on their forums, nobody has an answer for it. When moving through any list, it will scroll two at a time, instead of one. Nobody seems to know why.

I'm starting to hate everyone but Microsoft. I can't watch videos in their native format anymore due to the jumping, but at least MCE's setup is straightforward and recognises the remote correctly. I don't understand how anyone with a similar, basic HTPC set-up can use anything on Windows other than MCE when they have so many problems.

Sorry, just had to rant there, I'm extremely pissed off.

Don't rely on the center software to get the remote programming right, they almost never do. Get something just for handling that to run in the background. IRserver and Eventghost are the ones I hear about the most. I should think the MCE remote would be alright to get working, since I see it everywhere as "supported".

Now, my remote.. geez. I have a no-name remote with a USB IR Receiver. However, the receiver, being no-name, is not supported by lirc or anything like that. It actually transmit the IR beams as though they were being sent by a USB Keyboard. Enter woes. Also, there's a joystick, that moves the mouse around and two buttons, so it's less of a remote and more of a keyboard/mouse combo with no keys to speak of. Eventghost allowed me to reconfigure it, but nothing supports it, so I have to reprogram it to send different keycommands for every damn program I try. Even now, the "play" button just sends "space", which is utterly ridiculous.. Anyway..