Split MediaPortal project

[patricon]

Well, i've been watching that almost 90% of daily posts in this forum are around TV cards, TV recording, TV crashing, TV bugs... TV something... so I think that the TV part should be splited out of Media Portal... TV should be a plugin into MP, and MP team should be focused into the user interface and enhacing the user experience when using mp. what do you think? should be mp more multimedia or just a tv software?

please, give your opinions...

regards,

[and-81]

The tv engine is already being split out.

Tv Engine 3 is exactly what you have just spoken about.

[Paranoid Delusion]

TV should be a plugin into MP

It already is, if you do not want it disable in MP setup\plugins\MyTV and of course do no install TVE3.

MP team should be focused into the user interface and enhacing the user experience when using mp

They are.

Remember a lot of the TV problems are hardware\driver based, or screwed up codecs installations.

For my opinion, a HTPC software without TV support is next to useless, but my first answer will solve this for you.

Regards

[patricon]

"...a HTPC software without TV support is next to useless.."

watching pictures, playing games, watching videos, reading news, listening music, chat with other people, etc... are all of this useless? TV is only another feature into the HTPC software... i do not watch TV, but i use all other functions. But what i want to mean is that TV features shouldn't be posted as bugs into Mp main bug tracking system, that bugs should be posted as bugs in TV plugin mantained by another team... Because the tv plugin is eating all resources in MP project and the user interface should be enhaced a lot...

This is the way as i see the mp project. A user interface, an environment that provides methods to install and manage many plugins and each plugin mantained by the author of that plugin...

read this post as example: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/wh...7.html?t=27797 i think that it's what a lot of users are thinking. And i think that developers should take note of what users are thinking and/or suggesting. The most important think in a program like MP is THE INTERFACE, THE USER EXPERIENCE.... it's better to have less features but all working fine, that to have a lot of powerful features but a permanent feel that something is going bad. I really love this project, i'm using it for many years, but as a programmer i feel that it's not an easy program for novice users... and this kind of program should be developed with that kind of users in mind. Make a solid rock environment, with a good user interface, and that way, if a single feature/plugin does not work well... the other features could work fine. After some years of progress mp is still almost the same, but with a lot more features for TV experience; that's why i think that TV, My pictures, My videos etc, should be just independant plugins mantained outside the main MP project.

regards,

[and-81]

What you're essentially talking about (if I understand you correctly) is having a separate team for working on the TV section?

But where is this separate team going to come from?

[patricon]

well, i'm sorry if my english is not good enough to explain my ideas. What i'm trying to explain is that currently mp team is very focused to TV part, and leaving many other features outside the project. I'm trying to make a constructive criticism to help on making a better program. Let's imagine mp as an operating system, and all sections as independant programs; well... mp main team should be focused on user interface, smooth animations and effects, user controls, etc... then, all other features should have his own team to mantain it... Right now, mp does have many devs working on the TV part, well, then those people should go into a separate project, TV Plugin for MP... with an independant forum, version number, etc. That way a user can install a MP final stable version, and may be some beta versions of some plugins, or only stable versions for all plugins, etc.

[and-81]

Once the new tv engine is at a stable release and we move away from the current tv engine that is built in to MediaPortal you'll see the separation more clearly. In a lot of ways we are already moving towards what you describe.

[mrkrad]

media portal is the only viable option to replace the XBMC (xbox1) . XBMC-linux is so far out (esp linux drivers and sound card drivers, codecs,etc) that if i want something similar to xbmc i've got to use media portal. its the closest functioning software at this moment. The reason for upgrade is simple the most you'll get with 1080i component out is 960x540 xvid from the poor ole celeron 733 in the xbox1. given the cheap price of the E2140/E4300 and its overclocking/ram/video cards/remote you get the playback features minus a few key specialties xbmc has (in xbmc but not even in xbmc-linux yet).