Can I install Media Portal alongside Vista MCE?

[BGH]

I am a long time MCE user and currently run Vista MCE from a Vista Ultimate install. I love MCE and have never had any dramas with it, but it would be better if I could configure some things a bit more.

Media Portal has always intrigued me. Every year or so I install the most recent version just to see how it is progressing but I have always found it a bit clunky and buggy to be my full time HTPC front end.

I was thinking it is about time to give Media Portal another try. What I want to know is whether I am able to install it on my current Vista install without any dramas, both to Media Portal and my existing MCE configuration. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything to indicate otherwise.

So any quick pointers or words of advice before installing Media Portal side by side with Vista MCE? Any Vista services I need to disable etc?

[Paranoid Delusion]

I use MP on Vista Ultimate and have MP configured and running for most things BAR TV as still a bit flaky (have it running on a second XP pc though) , For Music, Video\Movie, TV-Series and Pictures it knocks the Spots of Vista.

MP disables Vista services when running, so if you have that important recording due then do not run MP.

Someone recently design a fix for this, tried it but did not work for me and have not had time to investigate further.

Regards

[BGH]

Are you saying that MP TV is too flakey in general or just that it is flakey under Vista?

[Paranoid Delusion]

MP 0.2.2.0 TV for me was more reliable using MYTV, and older versions of the TVServer (no longer downloadable) also seemed more reliable.

Remember individual things outside of MP's influence can screw thinks up in general for windows of all flavours, like i cannot run Nvidia purevideo, causes MP to crash, if i try using Divx Pro 6.7 within MCE that crashes with a known problem, both M$ and Divx know about.

Both the M$ mpeg2 and the Cyberlink codecs work fine for me with MP and of course FFDShow Tryouts for other formats.

TVE3 is the way to go, because it basically replaces M$'s own service, read the svn post's if they say such and such was broken from this svn, then use the one previous for your own setup.

Remember M$ MCE services need to be disabled for everything to work correctly, including green button launching MP, so do a search on these, if not in wiki.

[Nostacyber]

A combination of MCE and MP looks perfect.
But how do you switch between MCE and MP.
Is there a way of making a sort of short cut in MCE for MP?
Or remapping remote keys without losing functionality
in both applications?

[Paranoid Delusion]

Too run both together then MP need to be started manually via it icon, if you use the green mce button to start MP via MPTRAY or any other app, it will cause both to start, which is not what you want.

You will also need to disable the MYTV plugin in config and of course not have TVE3 installed.

If you use a mce remote or any other with predefined mce buttons like "recorded tv", it will start mce running.

[Nostacyber]

So is there no way of using both MCE and MP using 1 MCE remote ?
Sure starting it manually is an option but tell that to my wife...
I have a Hauppauge MCE remote.