Mediaportal Pros

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Hi,

So, this Mediaportal thingy - what might the advantages be over VMC+TV Pack?

I see a few people have tried it and moved to VMC, but I was wondering what the advantaes might be, I notice that the TV Server supports multiple TV Card Types (DVB-C and DVB-T mixed) for example.

What's the EPG like?

I have three HTPCs, 2xMCE and 1xVMC, so I'm particularly interested in sharing resources and recorded TV, for example.

Any views?

[dancake]

I would be interested in getting on with Media portal too.

Vista MC is nice and stable, and crucially I can rely on my sceduled recordings going ahead in the background. (Even more crucially, Mrs Dancake can use it) At the moment though I cannot set it up for 2 DVB-T + 1DVB-C card so I use VMC for freeview recordings and DVBdream for cable

If Mediaportal offered the same reliability, I would go to it for sure if it can integrate all three of my cards and offer some reliablitity.

Might start a blog if i get anywhere>? (or someone can)

[dancake]

Actually. There is a sniff that VMC may work with my tt1501 next year so I will leave it for a while.

I did make a start with Media portal but got nowhere. After the second crash I gave up for a while!!

[Phunky]

I've always used MediaPortal as i could not get VMC to work - the only crash i have is after leaving the thing on for around 12hours in standby mode and then it will BSOD when you change channel, but i think thats more to do with my RAM.

As for advanced recording you should look into this plugin - For The Record

MediaPortal recently came out of beta - so should be more stable but i use it with 2xTT1501's and like i say it is fine.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

TBH it was "Version 1" being released that caught my eye, in a "now or never" kind of way.

You need a plugin for advanced recordings? I wouldn't mind a simple step by step beginners guide of what it will do out of the box - I can't be bother with loading loads of different plugins just to get it to do the basic stuff...

Edit: Hang on, I see that scheduled recordings are listed in the "features" section, so that must jsut be a better plugin?

[niblet]

I have gone down the Media Portal route, there are some nice features and plugins available. I've had a few teething troubles but the support from the developers on the forums is fantastic.

There are great plugings that give a far more asthetically pleasing experience

[Phunky]

Originally Posted by Cafe.Rcaer

Edit: Hang on, I see that scheduled recordings are listed in the "features" section, so that must jsut be a better plugin?

Yeah its just a more advance plugin with better web management and stuff. I think the only thing i will swap MP for will be XBMC if they ever get offical MythTV Support.

If you are using a Software CAM you need a few extra things to get it working in MP as they wont support it due to piracy

[Confused Stu]

Does Mediaportal offer any actual advantages over Vista Media Centre? Thanks to everyone here I've finally got all my cable channels working in VMC (and music, videos, etc) but just wondering if there's still a reason to look into changing over to MP?

[Ugg]

I have been using media portal for 1 year with a TT1501 Vplug and Agarwalls filter in the TV server/Client machine. I have 2 other clients all XP. You can share all video, recorded TV and live to as many clients as you want. There is one SQL database for the TV and folder mappings for movies on each client to share resources across machines. The movie browser is linked to IDBM for nice images and movie descriptions my 4 year old loves it. You can set card priorities, assign channel groups, and map similar channels across cards to allow the TV server service to distribute avaliable channels to clients. There is also radio/music/photo functionality I do not use.

It is very stable but you will need to put some time in to achieve the results and not muck about with the PC. Dedicated TV server/client would be preferable.

Choosing the correct codecs is important. I use the MPV(media portal) for DVD's and cyberlink for X264. The TV formats I use cyberlink for SD and HD as it does a better job of choosing the correct aspect ratio. If you keep swapping codecs you will end up reinstalling windows to really get it clean in the end.

The EPG consists of the what comes down the DVB-C line and is about 36 hours. You can configure webepg to gain you 2 weeks and it works very reliably. I have mine set to grap it daily at 2am for the next 2 weeks about 30,000 program entries in the SQL database. 95%+ of the uk cable channels are covered. I can post my xml file to save you the time.

It does not support the vista remote out of the box but supports MCE, FireDTV, Hauppauge..... and there is a very nice plugin to use anyone you want but you have to map the buttons, takes about 10 mins.

The recording and search functions are very good and stable if you use the TS stream, I never got the mpeg2 format to work but its a bug I am sure will be fixed soon enough.

I think most of my remaining issues are down to the TT1501/vplug/agawaal filter combination and a need to reinstall XP for the 3rd time. I have just purchased a FireDTV and hope it will be 100% after I go for a card/cam setup. Also Media Portal and FireDTV support multiple channels on the same transponder simultaniously.

I have never used VMC so cannot comment on it being more stable. With all these things you have issues with the network, soft/hard cams, codecs, DVB-C card drivers, firewalls updates, upgrades, database and maybe some with media portal/VMC as well. I have worked thru all mine as a current VMC user has with their system and alot of them will be the same.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

So, with the TV Server and multiple clients, do you need a dedicated TV Server machine with all the TV cards in, or can you pool cards from different machines?

Does it have to be on all the time, or do the clients sort out waking/sleeping the server?

Freeview cards are cheap enough, but FireDTV/CAMs etc aren't cheap enough to have dotted around so it would be good to stream live TV - one thing VMC won't do.