Help finding a decent software for my low-powered HTPC -Tried Plex and Kodi

[Nobs]

Hello there.

I want to buy a TV and use an old PC (E6600, 2GB, HD5450) as a HTPC, I'm not a TV guy and I only have a few discs which I ripped in the PC HDD. The idea is to connect the HDMI cable to the TV and use it as an HTPC only to play the local files; yeah, offline stuff.

I couldn't find a decent software for that though, of course I could use MPC-HC and Windows Explorer (and a wireless kb), but that's a horrible solution, I want a decent media center/manager, however, I've tried both Plex and Kodi using my monitor (since I haven't bought the TV yet) and they are not suitable for that.

I've downloaded Plex for HTPCs but still it won't load the files on the disc directly... it seems you need to run a server, what doesn't make any sense in that setup.

Kodi seems to load the local files correctly, however, even after disabling all the internet features, it keeps spamming connection errors. I've disabled everything related to the internet that was possible but it seems you can't disable those 'scraper' add-ons, and perhaps that's what is causing the error spamming.

Also, Kodi is somewhat slow, I think the machine is okay because MPC-HC seems to work perfectly, but I could be wrong.

So, I'm looking for an alternative... a software like the ones mentioned but which is fast and works for 'offline' HTPCs. Basically the setup is a computer that is going to be used a TV as 'monitor'. I plan to update my library by either ripping discs directly to the HDD or using a USB drive. Maybe in the future I'm going to buy a network card for it but not atm since I only have 18 movies.

Any help is appreciated.

[Baldrick]

Try then MEdiaPortal

[Nobs]

Thank you Baldrick, I've tried MediaPortal and it seems to work fine, however, it is too basic imho, and the interface is hard to use.

Kodi seems very promising, and perhaps there's a way to configure it to run 'offline'. Perhaps I should try the Kodi forums... although I really miss some advanced image adjustments... or perhaps I should look for a commercial solution. Any recommendations?

[The Mariner]

Try an earlier version of KODI. It used to be called XBMC & I'm pretty sure the 'Dharma' version could be setup to run offline. You can get earlier XBMC versions from the KODI website.

In any case, your PC spec. might not be up to the task.

[nic2k4]

Go with a Linux media center distro, my vote would be Mythbuntu.

You can test drive it on a USB flash drive without touching your Windows installation. Use Lili to load it to the flash drive, it will even download it for you.

[Nobs]

Try an earlier version of KODI. It used to be called XBMC & I'm pretty sure the 'Dharma' version could be setup to run offline. You can get earlier XBMC versions from the KODI website.

In any case, your PC spec. might not be up to the task.

Thank you, I'm going to try an earlier version. And yes, it seems these media players are not optimized for PCs... If that's the case, perhaps there's some kinda of 'media launcher' out there that lets you browse your stuff in a 10-inch interface but runs a standard high-performance media player like MPC-HC or PotPlayer. That would be a great solution. I don't like transcoding nor wireless transmission (haven't seen WiDi though) because in most cases the quality is bad.

Go with a Linux media center distro, my vote would be Mythbuntu.

You can test drive it on a USB flash drive without touching your Windows installation. Use Lili to load it to the flash drive, it will even download it for you.

Yes, perhaps a good alternative is to install openelec... perhaps Kodi runs better on Linux. Last time I've checked the ATI/AMD drivers for Linux were terrible though.

Thank you.

EDIT:
Also, I don't know why but when I play local files on Kodi, it seems it's 'streaming to itself', you see the progress bar 'loading' stuff, and rwd is an extremely slow slideshow, even on my main computer (which I'm using for testing). Also, the CPU is always being used a lot, even when using DXVA, while on MPC-HC it stays at 0% (all cores).

[The Mariner]

Hi Nobs,

I think you are looking at this all wrong. XBMC/KODI is very optimised for the PC, but you need to use a decent one... not an old 2.4GHz thing you happen to have lying around.

I suspect the likes of MPC-HT run OK on your PC is because they have low system demands & don't over-tax your PC.

If you want a fancy media launcher you might have to re-think the PC you use, otherwise Windows Explorer & MPC-HT might be all it can handle.

With the old versions of XBMC like Dharma (and maybe the newest version but I'm not sure), you can instruct XBMC to use an external player for playback, such as MPC-HT, instead of the internal one if you find the internal player is too resource-hungry.

[rustynail]

I would also try Xbian, which is a stripped down version of Kodi. http://www.xbian.org/