Mediaportal Pros

[Ugg]

All the cards need to be in the TV server but the TV server can be a client as well. The idea is to stream live TV from the server which is where the TV cards reside. The movies, recorded TV etc could be anywhere and streamed to any client. MP only supports a single server presently.

As for power I have not gone down this path yet mine is always on.....there are plugins......the problem I have is a DVI issue so if the PC awakes it does not choose a scan rate acceptable to the plasma if the plasma is switched off. Problem comes next time you want to watch something on that machine you would have to reboot it with the plasma on. So I leave it on.

[Confused Stu]

Thanks Ugg - that's exactly the kind of thing I was after.

I'm currently using only one PC for TV viewing so it sounds like I may as well leave it with VMC as it's working. (My other PCs are dedicated - gaming PC, laptop for surfing and a modded laptop as a picture frame). However, if I ever add PCs onto the other TVs then it sounds like MP may well be the way to go and turn my existing box into the server/client.

Thanks guys - you've given me some serious thoughts for the future now.

[Phunky]

Originally Posted by Ugg

Also Media Portal and FireDTV support multiple channels on the same transponder simultaniously.

That is something i've been wanting to look into for a while, do you know if this is just down to lack of support at MediaPortal's end? As using DVBViewer im able to view/record the entire transponder as expected :/

[Cafe.Rcaer]

I think the non TV Server "version" doesn't do it, but the TV Server version does - there's a comparison of funtions on teammediaportal.com

I don't think I could use one of my machines as the server - not enough cards/slots. I have a desktop machine that has all the DVDs/pictures etc on, and that hs plenty of space, but is nowhere near the cabling. Typical.

So I could either add another FireDTV to one of the other machines (which would probably mean upgrading to Vista TV Pack etc), or convert to TV Server, and probably end up getting another FireDTV anyway - two wouldn't be enough, I don't think.

I don't think I could get away with messing up all the machines at once She'd kill me

[Ugg]

I really do not see why you need to mess them all up unless you mean moving the TV cards around ? You could install MP with a single TV card and stop/start the service manually, have them running together and make up your own mind. The TV server is not the most power hungry its only streaming and running an SQL server. Not compared to playing a 1080P mpv video that the client may have to do so pick you PC's I have swapped quite a few times as I failed to understand this.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Mate - as soon as I touch anything PC related, it'll get messed up I can guarantee that

I was thinking some more - I could install it with the TV Server on one of the HTPCs (dual boot), then if I like it, move the cards over to a TV Server later. I assume the tricky bit will be getting the TV Server working.

I read somewhere you can't have them both installed at the same time as VMC gets messed up by a MP install?

So, I'm still left wondering - I know a fair few people have tried it and moved over to VMC for some reason or another??? Anyone???

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Well, I should eat my words...

So far it's been farly easy - I'm still using the FDTV MCE drivers, so TV Server sees the cards as DVB-T and is missing sme channels (I think because the freqs it's scanned don't match the Freqs in the Registry, so it doesn't scan some transponders).

Got the guide downloading okay.

I did have VMC and MP running on the same machine, but now VMC is giving me a decoder error. I've got an image to go back to if I need it.

Not sure about the UI, I'm using the beazle skin but the fonts seem blocky, the picture's not as good and generally the UI seems slower. Channel changing is slower, might be the MCE drivers.

I do have DVB-T and DVB-C woring, though and have streamed to another PC...

So, it des what it says, but I'm just unsure about the UI...

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Typed the above on the wireless keyboard - needs new batteries

I've figured the decoder error in VMC - I changed them back to the defaults in the MediaPortal Config and VMC works again.

Might play with more skins - I like the look of "monochrome", except it's a bit too "monochrome"

[Ugg]

I have been using Blue 3 both wide a 4:3 its pretty simple with the basic home screen not all the text. Codec config is a big issue as is what display you use. My channel change takes about 3 secs for SD using a TT1501 so no hardware decoding. I think this is about right and could not imagine it being alot less. How long is yours taking to change channels under MP compared to VMC ?

Are you happy with the picture quality compared to VMC ? what codecs are you using ?

It would be interesting if you can see a difference between VMC and MP. My main goal here from the beginning was best quality streaming to multiple clients. Something VM and S*Y cannot do but the quality has to be there. So far its nearly as good as the V+, SKY HD (I have had/have both) but not quite there yet with my MP setup. Really its contrast/brightness adjustments from the Video card might invest in a tool but thats digital compression and not really DVB-C.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Hi. I've switched to the "Bleazle" skin. Quite like it, although it does appear a little "fuzzy" in places as it's not designed for 720p

Done some codec fiddling, and picture quality now seems as good/maybe better than VMC, this is with the standard MP codecs. I've finddled with codecs that much, that it's now borked and I think needs a reinstall...

Quality while streaming was more than acceptable. This was to a PC with the same resolution, but smaller size screen - so perhaps no wonder. I didn't look at the precise LAN speed, but it's a 100 Max network. BBC HD looked ferking good on a 19" monitor!

Setting it all up is proving to be tricky, though. Out of the box (or straight from the download) it installs quick and initial config is easy - it saw all the TV Cards straight away, and once you tell it which transmitter/symbol rate to scan, it goes off and does it and finds all the channels. Ordering and combining channels isn't as easy, some curious "features" in that bit, but it was never going to be a doddle with some many channels.

Getting the Guide is "fun", but doable. I think it was written by a Unix guy. Haven't checked if you can do series links or "other showings" yet.

The amount of configurability is both a positive and a negative.

Installing the extra Plugins/Skins etc should be easier, though. The initial install is easy, but then after that you're downloading this and that, extracting, copying certain files to certain directories, emptying caches etc.

I think the MP community would benefit from having an easier way of deciding which Plugins to use for what. As an example, once I'd got streaming working, I concentrated on importing Videos. After doing that, I'd realised that I'd just configured one client's database, and went off looking for a plugin that would allow the videos database to be configured on the Server, and shared amongst the clients. Can you see what I mean? I'm sure there's hundreds (thousands?) of users out there that have gone through exactly the same process, and they could've all saved a lot of time and frustration.

At the minute, the MP installation is borked and I think I'm better off starting again - but that's probably likely to be because I've been randomly fiddling with options to "see what they do".

One thing I wondered was how well it would handle all the cards, so I set one DVB-C to record, another to record something on a different transponder and changed channel (to see if it would swap to one of the Freeview cards. It all fell over. Now, this might be because my installation's borked, I don't know.

When you look at MP you start to realise why VMC doesn't do all the stuff it does, it would eb a support nightmare...