Can MP work as Server and Client?

[ukmgranger]

Just that!

I currently use SageTV working in a clint server manner. Is this possible with MP even with live TV etc.

This is one of those 'must have' features for MP to have for me to even consider using it in my home as I have a main server in the lounge and a client PC in the bedroom.

MVP support would also be good so that I can port it to my second bedroom.

Sage currently has a 3rd party bit of software that allows the MVP to work EXACTLY as a SageTV client. Is this kind of thing available with MP?

[Smirnuff]

Currently no, in the future... definately.

[ukmgranger]

Bummer!

May as well stop tinkerring then.

[ukmgranger]

Originally Posted by Smirnoff

Currently no, in the future... definately.

When you say that, do you mean in the near future (as in you know of some development) or maybe (as in nig company talk AKA - it will never happen):cry:?

[Smirnuff]

I'm confident that it will happen but there is no ETA, key thing at the moment is to improve upon the stability of what we already have before moving on to the next level.

As an after thought... I'm have no idea how much support would be offered to devices like an MVP, my comments and thoughts are focused on PC to PC configurations.

[Morten]

I've been toying with this idea for a while, and it's is a major undertaking.
I too am interested in PC to PC.

This is how I see it:
First of all the recording engine and streaming has to be made seperate services, so that they can run indivdualy and even on different machines.

Then I think it would be good to have a "broker" service that the server(s) and clients talked to.
ommunication between servers/services and clients could be done with Remoting.

This is only my first crude thought on the subject.

And it is a massive job to do, and makes for a lot of changes in MP.
It's been awhile since I've studdied the code, so I don't remember how strict it's been coded regadring layering and abstraction.

This is something I'd love to get involved in when the time is right...

I agree that stability is of great importance at the moment...

//Morten

[ukmgranger]

Sage TV essentially runs as a service and a UI. I think that this is the best element of Sage!

It means that once the server is running (which is just incredibly stable) it just runs in the background and does all of the recording of shows etc. This allows you to play with the UI section of the program (ie change decoder setting etc.) without fear that the whole program will crash. If the UI does crash, the service remains running in the background.

This also means that you can have just the service running on your main machine, and your client machine can just 'log-on' to it, as it were.

I don't actually know anything about coding or programming structure, which is probably abviouse from the description I have just given. I can only imagine though that turning MP to this sort of setup would be a huge undertaking.

I do think that in terms of stability this is the way forward. And it allows for server/clients

I don't know much about programming, but it seems to me that making the change to a client/server platform would be better to do it now rather than after you get the current system stable. If it is going to require such massive changes, wouldn't getting the current code stable just be a waste of time if a lot of that code is going to have to be re-worked anyway?

[SiLenTYL]

Getting playback/TV stability is the priority at the moment ...and as its in a transitional stage atm...it needs to be completed before any server/client is really attempted

in short....MP will not see a server/client structure for some time

[RedDom]

One thing i was thinking about, though i don't have the skills to actually do anything about, was whether it would be possible to write a networked BDA driver, this would allow you to use remote TV tuners without changing how the app works.
Basically you would write a bda driver that media portal would use, but instead of talking directly to a local TV tuner, it would talk via the network to another process on the remote tuner pc, which would then talk to the real BDA driver for whatever tuner you were using. This would work not only with mediaportal but with anything that supported BDA.

something like this
currently: MP-->BDA--->Hardware

MP -> BDA_Client_proxy <------ network-------->BDA_Server-->BDA-->Hardware

This doesn't do quite what you want, but does provide some of the things that Sage can do, with network tuners etc, this allows you to have a very thin pc client running MP, but with all the tuners and things hidden in a server somewhere else.
RD