Thread: RRHD - Road Runner High Definition

Dinasty...

I lived (still do in the HTPC arena and you've done a great job of assesment). I actually spent a number of years (still kinda do) with Frodo/Erwin and the Media Portal Team. Prior to that MCE, Snapstream, Xlobby - and all those you've tested and made very good assesments with. Very good.

Since my transition full boar into the CarPC arena - no doubt RR is king... I actually tried to get all of the HTPC apps to size well for CarPC - and was short-changing myself. I have a completely digital household for the most part and now have my CarPC as an extension of that while parked in the garage.

Pulling any Recording out of this, i.e PVR functions should be #1 and think that is where you are headed (Xlobby is about the closest to RR as anything there because it does indeed try to act as a FrontEnd - not replace the PVR apps)... What I found as the key areas that would need coded/implemented which could be beneficial for both CarPC and HTPC would (for starters be):

- MoveDB parsing, i.e. IMDB, Amazon, ... other than that its simply basic browsing and click. Most the good apps support all formats of ISO's and catalog very well. Mount ISOs, Catalog, ....

- Remote Control - I have not worked much with RR in remote control areas simply because when I swung to CarPC I decided to make the move to touch as well. Meedio (now Yahoo) as do Xlobby - provision for Touchscreen controllers and assume a Dual Mon scenario with TV acting as the main view and the Touch as the controller.

There is a bunch more, and actually was not going to post here (lazy I guess ) but this forum has been amazing for my ventures into the CarPC and felt I could at least share some input here.

All in all since Xlobby does not set out to replace a PVR, but run in tandem much as RR would be doing - finding a PVR app that fits snug within (OR) simply using as a backend on Networked PC's in the home to query the Music Archive, and Movie Archive, TV archive... would be where I would see it fitting.

Just my 2 cents and input

Thanks for all your work here, it's been a great insight for me as I now have 2 heavy iron CarPC's cookin - natural extension of my home infrastructure, and has kept me busy from my HTPC ventures for a while.

Thanks...

Originally Posted by DiNASTY

P3rv3rt B3ar, thanks for bring that up. XLobby appears to be MUCH lighter than Media-Portal and setup was a breeze.

some others that I tested are:

Nero Home Premium
Intervideo Home Theater Platinum
Showshifter
Cyberlink Power Cinema

Out of all of these though, RR has the most features and potential IMO

Well the xlobby takes a little time.. to get yourself familiar with... especially cause documentation is unexisting at worst and lousy at the best. But once ur starting to get into it, u realize its huge potential... not only it has drag and drop skinning interface, which makes skins adaptable even for non-skinners like myself, but it also has its internal scripts which u make with matter of mouse clicks, and with them u can define any button to take any possible actions, which not only command xlobby, but also launch external software and control them.

One of the things RR has that is nice, as does Xlobby - is the ease of skinning. Where RR goes a step further - is the TieIN with MPC - and the ability to not only tightly integrate MPC into a skin, but pull the progress data, status bars for vol/duration/misc, as well as all transit controls. Xlobby still struggles here a bit - and ZoomPlayer is preferred but RR one ups them in this area which still kinda blows me away.

Some good skinners at Xlobby - as many if not better here - different flavors. The IMDB lookup and MovieDB engine - (again I can't speak for the Remote Control piece) if placed in RR would then likely prop RR above an Xlobby and then could be represented as such - and those skins would make a ton of sense and easy to code.

The apps struck me as similar but have to tell you RR is an incredible piece of work - and as Dinasty has mentioned - is really bordering in that arena.

Originally Posted by P3rv3rt B3ar

Well the xlobby takes a little time.. to get yourself familiar with... especially cause documentation is unexisting at worst and lousy at the best. But once ur starting to get into it, u realize its huge potential... not only it has drag and drop skinning interface, which makes skins adaptable even for non-skinners like myself, but it also has its internal scripts which u make with matter of mouse clicks, and with them u can define any button to take any possible actions, which not only command xlobby, but also launch external software and control them.

Originally Posted by kolemieux

One of the things RR has that is nice, as does Xlobby - is the ease of skinning. Where RR goes a step further - is the TieIN with MPC - and the ability to not only tightly integrate MPC into a skin, but pull the progress data, status bars for vol/duration/misc, as well as all transit controls. Xlobby still struggles here a bit - and ZoomPlayer is preferred but RR one ups them in this area which still kinda blows me away.

Ive made a plugin for this purpose. It integrates ZP to XLobby. It provides progress data to Xlobby, and makes jump with progressbar possible. Among other features. Its currently still on my personal use, theres still one feature and two major bugs i want to implement and hunt down before public release.

this is definately a cool idea. Ive found though, RR runs a bit sluggish for me at 1920x1200 (native res) with transitions on, and just ok with transitions off.
I toyed with the idea a while ago, but i really think before i would venture down that road i would really need some hardware accel to take advantage of the power i have available. MCE2005 runs so silky smooth for me, but there are some things in RR that are way better like playlists and queing up media ect where MCE really falls short. And areas of MCE that really shine compared to RR like the online spotlight,picviewer although RR's pic viewer is really close. TV support would need to be fully intergrated.
But i long for the day when RR shifts focus a little in this area. Compared some of the other non mce htpc apps RR is nippin at there heels already.

Well, with enough work, of course RR could be turned into a top notch HTPC/PVR suite, but that's up to guino... and while it may be good for HTPC's, it might not be good for carPC's since it takes attention from the original purpose of RR.

RR would need the addition of at least a tv recorder component and online guide feed parser/scheduler, and that's no small addition.

Just curious, in addition to the HTPC suites you've mentioned...have you tried GBPVR? I've used MCE05 and BeyondTV before, but I'm using GBPVR now since it's free and works well enough for my needs.

Ditto ---

The PVR Timeshift engine especially when done like Media Portal is some insane coding..... The team on MP works about 7*24 and every tini tiny little issue comes up - and requires serious coding and chews up a ton of time.

If RR was to fit well here it would be as a "front-end" for MCE Recording, or other PVR solutions - ReplayTV is in Beta now as a SW/PVR as well.

RR could slip in and replace XLOBBY if the MovieDB was added in, and a few other areas like Remote Control missing pieces...

However - would hate to see the focus of what RR does so well get lost in the shuffle - and what I've loved about this forum and the work done here.

All very good points...

Originally Posted by jollyeskimo

Well, with enough work, of course RR could be turned into a top notch HTPC/PVR suite, but that's up to guino... and while it may be good for HTPC's, it might not be good for carPC's since it takes attention from the original purpose of RR.

RR would need the addition of at least a tv recorder component and online guide feed parser/scheduler, and that's no small addition.

Just curious, in addition to the HTPC suites you've mentioned...have you tried GBPVR? I've used MCE05 and BeyondTV before, but I'm using GBPVR now since it's free and works well enough for my needs.

Originally Posted by jollyeskimo

Just curious, in addition to the HTPC suites you've mentioned...have you tried GBPVR? I've used MCE05 and BeyondTV before, but I'm using GBPVR now since it's free and works well enough for my needs.

ive tried a few, looked at a lot but to be honesty i dont think there is one single HTPC app that is doing it right. MCE05 is close but has some shortcomeing that are supposed to be addressed in vistaMCE, but only time will tell. I cant gather up the courage to sacrafice any of my pcs to install vistabeta2, maybe when they ship a RC ill give it a try. But so far i think all the other htpc apps are far behind MCE.


I too wouldnt really want RR to concentrate on the htpc market. To do it right would require a massive amount of time.

Well, if paint is sufficient for u why to use photoshop