In my ongoing quest for the ultimate media player I have tried out many products (XBMC, SageTV, BeyondTV, VLC Media Player, and others I cannot remember at the moment) on many platforms (Linux, XP, XP MCE, Vista Ultimate, xBox); all of them worked but had various issues that made them ‘not perfect’ (usually not supporting MKV files without some CODEC hacks).
I have been testing and having difficulties (most likely with the ATI 3450HD card) with the latest release of XBMC (release alpha3) on Windows Vista so I formatted and tried Windows XP; the problems persisted. I was going to attempt an install XBMC on Ubuntu 8.04, but the video does not appear on my TV (and I do not feel like putting a monitor on it)- so I abandoned that idea.
On a whim, I installed iMedian HD that came along with a VFD Display/IR sensor I purchased a few weeks ago (on close-out for $50) and I have been very impressed with the software: nice interface for video, music and picture viewing; multiple CODEC support (including DiVX, MKV and others I have yet to test); and network streaming.
I will need to test more and give a better review of the software- initially I am very impressed…
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I completely agree. I love iMEDIAN HD. I’m in the middle of writing a program that will help manage it though since there’s a few small areas it suffers in that you should probably know:(1) There’s no way from within the program to clear the thumbnail cache that it’s generated for music/videos/pictures.(2) There’s no way to mark a drive as local if it was previously detected as external. Say, for example, that drive you’ve had in an external enclosure gets popped into your system permanently.(3) The method for adding scan folders is considerably slow and it refuses to list network paths, or drives previously marked as external.(4) In fact, changing most of the settings can be a hassle while you watch screens scroll around. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had a couple of presets you could switch back/forth to. For example, I want to change if my video playback does shuffling and the jump interval when fast forwarding and rewinding based on the type of videos I’m watching. Full-length movies need bigger jump intervals.(5) Fast Forward and Rewind are completely screwed up when watching an actual DVD. I have a top-shelf system (self-built), but any time I try to fast forward or rewind an actual DVD with iMEDIAN HD, it will take so CPU time scanning through the video that it misses most of the remote control’s input — making it difficult to stop if you were trying to rewind. Fast forward is slightly more responsive, but still suffers.I don’t have a software solution for #5 — the rest I do.Glad you’re enjoying it, I am to!