[clue-tech] Linux Media Center options and applications

[Angelo Bertolli]

I just wanted to throw my situation out there to see if anyone had any 
comments or suggestions regarding using Linux as a media player.  I've 
never had a TV or cable (unless I had roommates who had such), and so 
over the years I've essentially collected movies and series on DVD that 
I liked.  And of course, now there's hulu which means I may never get 
cable (although a nice large TV screen or projector might be in the 
future).  At any rate, the point is, I basically have a computer in my 
living room, with an LCD.

I just recently bought a large hard drive so that I could simply load 
"all" (haha, not even close) of my videos on it and watch it.  But 
shortly after, I found myself wanting to be able to sit down with a 
remote control and have a nice interface to browse and pick any of the 
videos I want.  So how do I do this?  I have 3 options that I know of, 
all that do way more than I need:  MythTV, Freevo, and LinuxMCE.  So 
far, I've tried MythTV.  I haven't been able to get it to "import" the 
videos I already have, and I'm not even sure it'll play some of the file 
types I have.  For example, I've used OGMRip to create some videos.  I 
don't think I have a single mpeg which is what MythTV seems to use for 
itself.

So does anyone know enough to point me in the right direction to get a 
simple front end that:
1) Nicely lets me browse my video files with a 10-foot user interface
2) Supports a remote control (presumably with lirc)

I really don't need all the TV-recording stuff, but I don't mind having 
it there.  I think unless I can figure out how to get MythTV to import 
my videos, I'll try Freevo next since LinuxMCE looks like MythTV on 
steroids and probably needs me to wipe out my current Linux install.

Angelo