I am considering replacing my HTPC that runs MediaPortal with the WD Live Hub. I like the idea of a dedicated hardware platform replacing my jumble of software, codecs and frequent crashes, but I have a few questions hopefully other users can help me out with.
The main use will be TV shows. I may or may not even have movies on this. I will not be using the internal hard drive (I have a 4TB NAS) but I DO want the improved interface that comes with the Hub over just the Live.
I’ve seen various skins and improvements that would see the Hub emulate some MediaPortal/XBMC features. Is there any way to organise TV shows in the Hub database as a Show > Season x > yy - Episode Name.avi format with meta support for series backgrounds, episode thumbnails etc?
If so, can the database be automatically updated when new shows are added to my NAS or do I have to edit XML files (via other software) to add new meta data?
Can TV shows be marked as ‘Watched’ and ‘Unwatched’ manually or automatically after viewing 100% of the file?
Can the unit play subtitles embedded in MKV files?
How good is the YouTube support? Can I log in with my account and see new videos on my subscriptions list? Is the search easy to use?
The other possibility for me is the Boxee box which would be closer (I assume) to MediaPortal/XBMC/Plex. Based on my preference for TV shows, would that be a better bet?
How do you plan on getting these TV shows and in what format? The Hub does not have a tuner or the ability to actually record anything. It can only read pre-recorded media in specific formats. It can NOT stream TV shows recorded by Windows Media Center because the .wtv format is unsupported. The Hub does not update the library automatically (a major PITA that has yet to be fixed). Most anything in the library can be marked as watched and also rated. I have used different software for encoding to MKV and while the files play just fine, subtitles are hit and miss. Some work, some don’t, and some give you garbage characters. I have no idea why this is.
As for YouTube, there are some videos that can not be streamed for one reason or another, but the majority of YT content works just fine.
Yes, but you have organize on a folder level (ie: Show / Season / Episode.ext)
No, there isn’t an automatic update for video files. And if you plan using one of the themes that use moviesheets you’ll need to use a third party software (Thumbgen) to do that anyway. Moviesheets are a trick implemented by us themers and are not native to the HUB.
Yes, but this is an automatic function and there is no way to do this manually.
4)Yes, there no problems playing mkv’s as long as they have been encoded correctly and embedded subtitles work. I use Handbrake to encode all my movies and I have not had any problems getting subtitles to display, you just have to remember that if you are doing something like a Kung-Fu movie and using the English language version, you have to use “burn in” & “forced only” (in Handbrake) to get the subtitles to pop up natively.
Subject to what you consider good support. You can log in to your account and searches can be done fairly easily if you have a wireless keyboard connected.
This is subjective also, it really depends on what you are looking for. You should know though, that the UI had been change (the last time I looked into it) for the Boxee Box and is nothing like the PC version of Boxee. Some people really like it and others don’t.
All my TV shows I should clarified are pre-recorded files in AVI or MKV format, depending on the show. I’m not after any form of tuner; just a way to play video files that happen to contain TV show content, in an interface that is suitable for TV shows. I went to the thread for your MOJO skin and it looks cool, but the screenshots only show Movies. Is there a theme that is really good for display TV?
I’m happy and confident enough to perform any mods I need to do for movie sheets to improve the interface. I will look at the Thumbgen software. All my shows are stored as /Show name/Season x/01 - Episode name.mkv on my NAS. Am I going to end up with a generated XML file for each video I have if I want to use Thumbgen? That could get ugly.
In regards to YouTube, I learned after posting my question that there is USB keyboard support - very cool. I have a Microsoft IR receiver I hope will work. What I am hoping for is that the youtube channels that show up as my Subscriptions on the website also do the same on the WD. Is this the case?
And good news that it marks videos as watched/unwatched automatically! How can you tell visually, are watched shows greyed out?
Well, as for Youtube, the only one’s that I know that won’t play are the one’s that are blocked (for media players) by users. But those blocked videos want play on any media player that I’m aware of and I think that it is the same case for the Boxee box.
Also, TV shows will work with Mojo also (as they will with pretty much any theme), but there’s no theme generated just around TV shows. You will have to generate an xml for every file you have, but this is true for us all.
At least you shouldn’t have to do what I have done. I’ve (because of changing my theme) had to generate moviesheets and coverart, for nearly 900 movies, a dozen or so TV shows with 5 or 6 Seasons and about 12 or more Episodes each, about 4 or 5 times now. That’s ugly.:smileyvery-happy:
