WMC dead. What's the future of HTPC? (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

The era of CableCARD HTPC might be drawing to a close, but some of the proposals the FCC is considering could open up whole new avenues of HTPC.

I will admit that I'm using my Roku more and more (and WMC less) as time goes on. That being said, WMC is still a daily part of my entertainment consumption.

 

[DaveF]

My interest, and oblique allusion, is not in the DVR uses (thanks, TiVo) but as a repository for my Blu-rays. That prospect took a big hit yesterday.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Link?

 

[Paul D G]

I would suggest looking at Kodi.

https://kodi.tv/about/

I don't use it myself but I've heard a lot about it recently.

 

[prerich]

I personally think if the FCC's current ruling pans out - it might increase HTPC usage. WMC was needed to view encrypted channels as well as a cable card. With the restraints lifted and consumers allowed to use their own equipment - it may open the flood gates a bit.

I for one hated renting a cable HD DVR at $17 a month and then $10.95 for every extra box rented. I'm still using Windows 7 on my HTPC until everything clears with the FCC. If there's no PC based solution in the works - then I will just buy my own cable box, but doing everything through streaming (especially with data limits) isn't practical yet.

 

[robcy]

A friend of mine took a lighting hit to his Ceton's, and unfortunately his HTPC is dead. The good news is that he was able to replace his HTPC with a Tivo Roamio, and his DMA2100's with Tivo Mini's. He went from 8 tuners to 6, but the setup up was painless. The Roamio has HBO GO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and others streaming services integrated. He added Chrome Cast to the TV's and uses tablets to stream his movies stored on a NAS. When you search on the Tivo the results includes the Streaming services, the commercial skip is flawless, and I swear the output looks better than the HTPC (this is my personal impression). My WIN7 MC is still going strong, but my resolve to keep it as it is until the end has weakened. The Tivo service is $15 a month, and it streams live, and recorded TV. Okay enough of my Tivo commercial.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

There's a long-standing issue with Windows Media Center that breaks the guide listings twice a year when we switch into and out of daylight savings time. Usually it's fixed the Monday morning after the changeover. It's Tuesday night and my guide listings still aren't updating, but there are scattershot reports in other markets that their guide listings are finally updating. So it looks like the PC DVR dream will continue to limp on, at least another few months.

 

[John Dirk]

I realize this appears to be a "dead" topic but I can't resist chiming in. It would appear that the term HTPC is being unfairly tied to WMC. One is dying but the other is not. I still use Windows 7 and have WMC mainly for DVR service. For everything else I use JRiver's Media Center. Once I get the kinks worked out I'll migrate to JRiver entirely and let Microsoft have its way with WMC. Kodi has not proven stable enough in my experience. I have no problem paying for good software.

The advantages of HTPC's go far beyond mere media compatibility. I am writing this on a 135" screen powered by my HTPC and Panasonic PTAE8000U as I listen to beautiful music. If I want, I can reduce this page to a smaller window and do numerous other things, without the limits typically imposed by proprietary environments such as Apples. Netflix? No problem. Hulu? No problem, and no limits as would be the case on so-called Smart TV's or tablets. I can even bring up Samsung Smartcam and view my security cameras throughout my home or open/close my garage door, all with the click of a mouse and without interrupting my other activities. If there is a problem I'll troubleshoot it, crack the case if necessary and have my HTPC back online in a jiffy. No need to involve or pay anyone for expertise I can provide much faster and on my own.

Microsoft may have abandoned the HTPC [and as a matter of economics I understand that] but smart people still and always will use them. Microsoft, Apple [and some others] exist to exploit the mass market in different ways. As an enthusiast, I refuse to be limited by their tactics. The HTPC is a near perfect platform. Total freedom for those who are willing to do the work, not just those with deep pockets.

 

[Bradskey]

Interesting (old) thread. It caused me to reflect on how my own setup has evolved in the past 3 years or so and has moved away from a centralized HTPC. I was certainly reluctant to see industry support for the HTPC concept decline, but at this point its not much of an issue for me.

About 10 years ago I built a media center PC with XP MCE in one of those slick looking home theater cases. It really wasn't that fancy, but it had OTA tuners, blu-ray, and even an LED display on the front bezel. Now Media Center went wonky at some point, as its prone to do and I struggled with it and eventually just switched to BeyondTV as my DVR software and used it to DVR OTA materials for a few more years.

In the meantime I was amassing a library of ripped DVDs on a NAS, starting at first with a crappy 1TB Iomega something-or-other, and then upgrading to a couple of successive models of better Synology NAS devices. Because I was ripping things to MP4 files I built a custom database for all the title info, box art, etc and a custom PC application that could browse and play all my videos from my NAS. This worked great on my media center PC, allowing me to stream my video collection over my home network to my living room TV.

Eventually the hard drives I was using in my HTPC began to fail (Seagate, ugh). I think I rebuilt my HTPC once and then the second drive failed. The hardware was getting older, old drivers and applications were acting quirky, and XP was dropping support. Indeed I ran it for a year or so after XP support ended. Of course I could have gone to Windows 7. What I ended up doing was buying a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Extend network attached TV tuner and setting up WMC on my home office Windows 7 Ultimate PC, which is powerful and basically runs 24/7 anyway. DVR recordings went to an external desktop USB drive. To get the recordings back into the living room I simply used the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender with an official MCE remote - it was a nice experience, while it worked. With this solution in place I finally just retired the old media center hardware.

Eventually, inevitably, Windows Media Center on my Win7 desktop went wonky again. Refused to recognize or record to my perfectly good desktop drive, update listings, etc. I didn't mess with it much. By then the writing was on the wall with Media Center and Windows 10, and SiliconDust was already openly discussing their DVR service to address their dependence on WMC. Once SiliconDust started supporting their DVR on my Synology NAS I got in on the beta and found it to work pretty well. Although I still find the interface to be clunky, it does record reliably. The NAS is a lower power device than a PC, and along with the small tuner directly attached to a network switch I no longer need a PC or HTPC running anywhere to capture OTA recordings.

Of course now I had to get the DVR recordings streamed onto my TV again somehow. But I had been dabbling at first with these hockey puck streaming devices like the original FireTV and Roku3 and then the streaming stick versions of the same. I had tried the cheap little Chromecast but was never a big fan - its handy now and then but a little too basic. Anyway, SiliconDust released FireTV, Xbox One, Windows 10 and other clients for their DVR service that can play back recorded content from the NAS as well as stream live TV from the tuners. Recent versions of those clients are improving and work fairly well.

For my private ripped video library I took the concept of my original old custom desktop PC application and re-wrote it as a private Roku channel, so now I get all that content (in a better experience with a remote) streamed from my NAS to a cheap Roku stick.

Now I was never a Cablecard guy, which might be the last real use case for a dedicated HTPC as a custom DVR. I cut the cord almost 10 years ago and did OTA only. But I also have Prime, Netflix, SlingTV and a couple of more niche streaming services. They all come in on streaming sticks. Modern smart TVs sometimes have these built in of course.

Finally there is playback of physical disks. With streaming services and rentals I play discs less than ever. I still buy discs, but usually just ripped them into my NAS library. For movies especially I started using the rather nice VideoStation application on my Synology NAS. The client app runs on a Roku stick - it needs improvements but it works fine for my movie library. On the rare occasion that I do want to play a blu-ray or other physical media I will just use my Xbox One.

So I've covered all my use cases now with no HTPC equipment. The NAS in my home office stores ripped movies, a custom library of assorted other ripped video (mostly TV shows and animation), and provides DVR recording services from the network TV tuner. It has my music library also. The Roku and FireTV streaming devices provide access to ripped movies, my custom video collection, and DVR recordings on the NAS, as well as streaming services. An Xbox in the living room plays physical disks like blu-ray. And there's no longer a big honking computer sitting in the living room.

I've gone from a centralized HTPC solution with maybe a small NAS sitting somewhere to a decentralized and evolving ecosystem of simpler devices. A lot this ecosystem could converge a little further - Roku TV is a good example. This solution has really coalesced for me in the last year or two as I gave up on and retired the HTPC. I dreamed of a HTPC back in the late 90s and eventually built one. Although I've been a PC enthusiast for decades and it represents the ultimate in customization, the point was never to have a PC in the living room. The point was to maintain and access the content I want when I want it. In spite of the lower customization and lower centralization I honestly feel the overall experience for me now is better than it has ever been.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I moved at the end of December and didn't think to remove the adapter cable for the coaxial connection from the Ceton card in my PC when I packed it up. Needless to say, it broke in transit.

I loved my Ceton setup, but the company is for all intents and purposes defunct at this point -- probably a consequence of Microsoft dropping Windows Media Center support for Windows 10. So i didn't want to invest in replacement hardware that wouldn't have any support behind it. I ended up going to with a HDHomeRun PRIME as a replacement, since they seem to be the only game in town these days. I like it, though I miss the fourth tuner on really jam-packed TV nights.

I've kept the PC I use as my HTPC on Windows 7 specifically for Windows Media Center. I know there are other third-party options, but I haven't like any of them as much as WMC. And WMC is the only game in town that still provides free guide listings without a subscription. I'm going to ride that train as long as it lasts.

 

[John Dirk]

Interesting (old) thread. It caused me to reflect on how my own setup has evolved in the past 3 years or so and has moved away from a centralized HTPC. I was certainly reluctant to see industry support for the HTPC concept decline, but at this point its not much of an issue for me.

About 10 years ago I built a media center PC with XP MCE in one of those slick looking home theater cases. It really wasn't that fancy, but it had OTA tuners, blu-ray, and even an LED display on the front bezel. Now Media Center went wonky at some point, as its prone to do and I struggled with it and eventually just switched to BeyondTV as my DVR software and used it to DVR OTA materials for a few more years.

In the meantime I was amassing a library of ripped DVDs on a NAS, starting at first with a crappy 1TB Iomega something-or-other, and then upgrading to a couple of successive models of better Synology NAS devices. Because I was ripping things to MP4 files I built a custom database for all the title info, box art, etc and a custom PC application that could browse and play all my videos from my NAS. This worked great on my media center PC, allowing me to stream my video collection over my home network to my living room TV.

Eventually the hard drives I was using in my HTPC began to fail (Seagate, ugh). I think I rebuilt my HTPC once and then the second drive failed. The hardware was getting older, old drivers and applications were acting quirky, and XP was dropping support. Indeed I ran it for a year or so after XP support ended. Of course I could have gone to Windows 7. What I ended up doing was buying a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Extend network attached TV tuner and setting up WMC on my home office Windows 7 Ultimate PC, which is powerful and basically runs 24/7 anyway. DVR recordings went to an external desktop USB drive. To get the recordings back into the living room I simply used the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender with an official MCE remote - it was a nice experience, while it worked. With this solution in place I finally just retired the old media center hardware.

Eventually, inevitably, Windows Media Center on my Win7 desktop went wonky again. Refused to recognize or record to my perfectly good desktop drive, update listings, etc. I didn't mess with it much. By then the writing was on the wall with Media Center and Windows 10, and SiliconDust was already openly discussing their DVR service to address their dependence on WMC. Once SiliconDust started supporting their DVR on my Synology NAS I got in on the beta and found it to work pretty well. Although I still find the interface to be clunky, it does record reliably. The NAS is a lower power device than a PC, and along with the small tuner directly attached to a network switch I no longer need a PC or HTPC running anywhere to capture OTA recordings.

Of course now I had to get the DVR recordings streamed onto my TV again somehow. But I had been dabbling at first with these hockey puck streaming devices like the original FireTV and Roku3 and then the streaming stick versions of the same. I had tried the cheap little Chromecast but was never a big fan - its handy now and then but a little too basic. Anyway, SiliconDust released FireTV, Xbox One, Windows 10 and other clients for their DVR service that can play back recorded content from the NAS as well as stream live TV from the tuners. Recent versions of those clients are improving and work fairly well.

For my private ripped video library I took the concept of my original old custom desktop PC application and re-wrote it as a private Roku channel, so now I get all that content (in a better experience with a remote) streamed from my NAS to a cheap Roku stick.

Now I was never a Cablecard guy, which might be the last real use case for a dedicated HTPC as a custom DVR. I cut the cord almost 10 years ago and did OTA only. But I also have Prime, Netflix, SlingTV and a couple of more niche streaming services. They all come in on streaming sticks. Modern smart TVs sometimes have these built in of course.

Finally there is playback of physical disks. With streaming services and rentals I play discs less than ever. I still buy discs, but usually just ripped them into my NAS library. For movies especially I started using the rather nice VideoStation application on my Synology NAS. The client app runs on a Roku stick - it needs improvements but it works fine for my movie library. On the rare occasion that I do want to play a blu-ray or other physical media I will just use my Xbox One.

So I've covered all my use cases now with no HTPC equipment. The NAS in my home office stores ripped movies, a custom library of assorted other ripped video (mostly TV shows and animation), and provides DVR recording services from the network TV tuner. It has my music library also. The Roku and FireTV streaming devices provide access to ripped movies, my custom video collection, and DVR recordings on the NAS, as well as streaming services. An Xbox in the living room plays physical disks like blu-ray. And there's no longer a big honking computer sitting in the living room.

I've gone from a centralized HTPC solution with maybe a small NAS sitting somewhere to a decentralized and evolving ecosystem of simpler devices. A lot this ecosystem could converge a little further - Roku TV is a good example. This solution has really coalesced for me in the last year or two as I gave up on and retired the HTPC. I dreamed of a HTPC back in the late 90s and eventually built one. Although I've been a PC enthusiast for decades and it represents the ultimate in customization, the point was never to have a PC in the living room. The point was to maintain and access the content I want when I want it. In spite of the lower customization and lower centralization I honestly feel the overall experience for me now is better than it has ever been.

That was a lot to digest so it's likely I missed some points along the way. If so, my apologies up front. I still run my HTPC in my main theater room. I use JRiver as the backbone. I still have WMC but have no need for it. I also have Kodi and do find occasional use for it. Through DLNA [or Bluetooth for audio only] I can easily port most of the functionality of my main room to any network-connected device throughout my home. I don't have "a honking PC" in any other general living space, I just use my network.

Ultimately, to each his [or her] own. No one solution will work for all but I love my HTPC. It probably helps that I have a background in building and supporting PC's.

 

[DaveF]

HTPC is in straits, but it's not dead yet. There are new hopes for dealing with UHD material.

I like the idea of going to a streaming-only solution. My real desire is a "10-foot interface" to my digital library, with no more discs decorating my living room. But that's still not quite here yet. Movies Anywhere and Vudu and their ilk are still a mess of multiple libraries. Streaming isn't as good as discs for video and the audio side is even more of a mess right now. I can see it coming...but it's a year or five away.

Until then, I'm Don Quixote tilting at a personal media server. It's such a waste of time and money. But it's a unique digital solution that makes me a special snowflake compared to everyone else that has the sense to just watch movies on Netflix or Amazon.

 

[Bradskey]

My post was probably TL;DR, but kind of a reminisce/stream-of-consciousness on my experience with HTPC and transition away from it as a specific solution.

I'm aware that an HTPC can be much more compact these days than the large one I built in an old nMediaPC case 10 years ago. I've been building PCs for myself and others for 20 years. Even 10 years ago there were Mini-ITX solutions, they just seemed a lot more restrictive and under-powered at the time. I wanted discrete graphics (not for gaming, just to have decent HD), tuner card, large storage, optical etc. Actually about 4-5 years ago I think I built a reasonably powerful Windows 7 Media PC for someone with similar capabilities but in a more compact Mini-ITX solution.

Anyway between streaming services, antenna/HDHomeRun, and these sophisticated modern NAS devices that's where I'm at. My discs are all in crates and I watch digital copies almost exclusively. Some things like multi-channel sound or seeing the highest-quality original version of the content uncompressed, FLAC for music, etc - I just don't care about or ceased to care about. My MO is quantity of and access to content, compression and judicious use of storage, and maintaining reasonable (to me) if not pristine quality. There's always the original disc for that if I cared, but hardly anyone can tell either way.

So I may be off of HTPC for now, but owning and maintaining my own media and having some solution for that is not something I see myself ever giving up.

 

[DaveF]

My post was probably TL;DR, but kind of a reminisce/stream-of-consciousness on my experience with HTPC and transition away from it as a specific solution.

I read it My HTPC history is only 18 months long, in contrast. So I can’t counter much in kind.

 

[jcroy]

I read Brad's long post too.

I was very much absent during the heydays of HTPC. So most of the stuff Brad mentioned seems like "ancient history" to me.

My HTPC history is probably a few months longer than Dave's.

Sometime in late-2015/early-2016 I picked up an entry level desktop computer, initially thinking I was going to exclusively use it for htpc type of purposes. I looked through various possible htpc software suites, largely to find out they were superfluous for my then-current situation. I didn't see any point in running cable service (or ota) through an htpc by then, and several years earlier I largely lost any and all interest in ripping bluray discs for movie playback reasons.

When I first set up this (hypothetical) htpc computer, initially I was just using it to watch tv season dvd sets ripped to the hard drive. I was just using VLC to play the episodes in sequential order, one after another. Since then, I haven't installed any htpc suites and largely still using VLC or media player classic to watch tv show season dvd sets.

When I want to watch a movie, I'm still using the standalone bluray player.

 

[jcroy]

Nowadays I only watch bluray movies when I'm willing to devote my full attention to watching the entire movie. If I'm not willing to devote my full attention and/or if it is just going to be played in the background when I'm at home, then I won't bother buying the bluray version nor any digital download versions.

For a lot of tv shows, I largely play them in the background when I'm at home, either on my stillborn-htpc computer or on a basic cable channel (such as scifi).


I don't bother buying tv shows on bluray anymore. So I'm probably "part of the problem" of tv shows being discontinued on bluray.

TV shows are a huge investment on my time, where I find most current (and recent) tv shows released on bluray are not really shows that I want to watch again. (Including sci-fi/fantasy/action genre type of stuff which normally interest me).

 

[Bradskey]

I often have content on as background noise also. It tends to be "mild" content, for lack of a better term, like TV shows old and new, so that it doesn't distract me much. Now, it might be the antenna, or it might be Sling TV, or it might be my own video collection. My custom solution is basically a slightly more sophisticated version of your ripped TV show DVDs - a large recompressed collection of episode files on a NAS with a Roku private channel I wrote that can browse and play them individually, by disc, or by boxset. Actually it also features a list of "programmed" content where it can generate a playlist of episodes for a period of time. I've slowed down in recent years but I still regularly buy DVD sets and have a fairly streamlined workflow to get them onto the NAS and rarely just play the discs themselves.

Now I have a reasonably large TV, but I don't really do home theater/theater room. If you have that kind of setup and want to run PowerDVD, are interested in 3D, or UHD disc playback, with some combination of custom HD DVR from antenna/cable, then you might still want an HTPC solution. I haven't paid much attention to Kodi and others, but for most modern streaming services those probably now integrate faster/easier with the TV itself or an add-on streaming stick a la Roku/Fire TV. A modern game console can also fill that streaming role, along with basic disc playback and some form of indirect DVR if you're doing HDHomeRun.

 

[jcroy]

I'm pretty much at the point where I hardly buy any new bluray movies anymore, other than new live action Star Wars titles and some sci-fi stuff that isn't total crap. I don't really buy many superhero, fantasy, or action bluray movies anymore.

I'm willing to live with a 2-3+ years delay to when now-current movies eventually end up on basic cable channels. For example in the case Marvel movies, I was recently watching the 2014 "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Captain American: The Winter Soldier" movies on basic cable channels.

 

[jcroy]

I've slowed down in recent years but I still regularly buy DVD sets and have a fairly streamlined workflow to get them onto the NAS and rarely just play the discs themselves.

I still buy quite a lot of dvds, mostly in the form of older catalog tv shows season sets and really awful C-list scifi + action movies from local dump bins. A lot of this stuff isn't even released on bluray, or it is only released on bluray overseas (ie. europe, etc ...).

Most of my "workflow" is a byproduct from using the computer to check all newly purchased dvds (or blurays) for any manufacturing defects, where the dvd isos are extracted and stored on several 4TB external hard drives. I don't usually delete these isos for over a year or so, unless I need space for newer dvd isos (via checking newly purchased dvd discs).

So when I want to watch a tv show or some D-list action movies, I just extract the specific movie or episode vobs from the isos (on an external hard drive) to the stillborn-htpc's hard drive. For an entire season of 22-26+ episodes, it only takes about around 10-15 minutes to extract them all from the isos on the external drives.

 

[jcroy]

I often have content on as background noise also. It tends to be "mild" content, for lack of a better term, like TV shows old and new, so that it doesn't distract me much.

Same here.

I generally avoid anything which requires attention to detail, when it is played in the background. For example, a lot of lousy action movies I play one after another as background noise on the stillborn-htpc (ie. Steven Seagal, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, etc ....).

If I hear that something requires attention to detail, then I'll usually buy the bluray and watch it on a standalone bluray player, with my full attention.