[kiwijunglist]

Hi

I've been an avid mediaportal user for the past 3 years. However I am contemplating switching to xbmc because of the new android xbmc remote and because the menus in xbmc seem to be a lot faster. However I have a couple of questions, I'm hoping that some of you may be able to answer.

My HTPC is as follows
AMD 4200+ CPU / 2GB RAM / ATI HD4760 1GB / HVR 2200 / 750GB HDD / 1500GB HDD / MCE Compatible Remote / SPDIF audio out passthrough to 5.1 Receiver / 46" Full HDTV

Currently running MP on XP Pro SP3 (Although I am thinking to change to Win 7 32bit if I stick with mediaportal). I don't have any media extenders. I use my HTPC mostly for watching movies/tv series. I sometimes watch live/recorded TV and occasionally use it to show photos from an SD card or use firefox if I want to show friends something on the internet.

1. Codecs / DXVA

(a) If I switch to XBMC and still run Windows OS, Can XBMC use directshow codecs?

(b) If not does not support dshow filters, what does it use?

© Does it support stable dxva? , Important as my CPU is not fast enough to decode 1080P mkv files.

2. Which operating System?

I would prefer to run a Windows OS, as I have no experience with linux. Is there any big advantages to switching to linux?

3. Live TV Support

(a) Live TV with DXVA / Scheduled TV Recordings and EPG - What options are available?

(b) Are there any options in the pipeline for Windows, because the only options I could see in the forum currently were for linux, one of them Involved Linux + XBMC + Myth TV, I wasn't keen on this bc I would have to learn how to setup Linux, XBMC, Myth TV which would take quite a few days to setup I imagine.

© If I was to run live TV, it would have to support DXVA, because one of my channels is 1080i, which is too CPU intensive to decode smoothly. Would Live TV work with DXVA?

4. From what I hear XBMC already has the following features

Dynamic refresh rate changer - Automatically change the refresh rate to match the fps of the movie.
Youtube browser
?Integrated web browser?


THANKS!
Kiwi

[jmarshall]

1. Not with stable builds (i.e. Dharma) unless you have Vista or Win7 (DXVA2 is required). It doesn't use DXVA filters, it uses DXVA2. Otherwise we use ffmpeg. You don't need any separate codecs for XBMC at all. There is a separate development branch (dsplayer) for using DXVA but it's a development branch. If you're switching to Windows 7, then DXVA2 will work just fine on your machine.

2. No advantage to Linux on your hardware (ATI). If you had an nVidia chipset then there would be (hardware acceleration in stable builds, better options for tv (tvheadend) etc.

3. I'd recommend using tvheadend if you're on linux, but given that you're not there's not really an option for you other than using media portal or MCE. There's currently a development branch for the EPG stuff that will hopefully be merged following the release of Dharma - this basically handles the front end and will be able to interface with media portals tv stuff.

4. No integrated webbrowser, but yes there is a youtube plugin (along with a myriad of other plugins), and a tvnz on demand plugin if your username is anything to go by.

Grab a nightly build and see how it goes.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[kiwijunglist]

@jmarshall - thanks for your replies.

Based on your answers, I will change my OS to Win7 32bit. I'm kinda glad you said this, because I wasn't looking forward to learning linux

Do I install Camelot for Windows, and then install a file from nightly builds on top of camelot? - http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/win32/
Do I choose Dharma or trunk?

Also: There is also a release of camelot for "Live", what is live? is that a release for xbox360?

So my current TV option would be to co-install both XBMC and either MCE/MP and then have a link in the XBMC menu to load MCE/MP ontop of XBMC?

[jmarshall]

You want Dharma (i.e. a nightly build) if you want DXVA2.

Live is a CD that you can run from directly. It's based on Linux, so won't work too well on your ATI based graphics card.

And yes, you could use MCE/MP as a TV option if you want - there's various ways to get external programs to run from XBMC.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[kiwijunglist]

is it just Dharma I install, or does it go on top of camelot? (ie you must install camelot before dharma)

[jmarshall]

All XBMC builds are self contained.