Is Mediaportal dying out? (1 Viewer)

eetaylog

Portal Pro
March 6, 2007
874
41
42
South London
Home Country
England England
The forums seem very quiet in the last year or so and there seems to be little change in areas that were once buzzing with content and support. Titan skin for example (a supposedly recognised skin) seems to have been left dead in the water, and certain areas of hardware discussion have also gone quiet.

Is it a case of people switching over to kodi? Ive dabbled a bit with xbmc and the latest incarnation is lightyears ahead in terms of customisation and plugins. Ive been using MP and knocking around the forums for around 10 years giving any help that i can with advice etc, so Id hate to see the project lose any sort momentum. Or am i just imagining things?
 

regeszter

Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • October 29, 2005
    5,335
    4,954
    Home Country
    Hungary Hungary
    Hi,

    MP1 downloads in 2016. The last MP1 release was in June. The next will be on the next month.
    mp1download2016.PNG
     

    regeszter

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • October 29, 2005
    5,335
    4,954
    Home Country
    Hungary Hungary
    The forum statistics now: Online now: 672 (members: 48, guests: 531)
     

    Lehmden

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • December 17, 2010
    12,553
    3,934
    Lehmden
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    Hi.
    The forums seem very quiet
    Sometimes I also have this feeling.

    Is it a case of people switching over to kodi?
    In general "classic" HTPC software like WMC, MP or Kodi is loosing its user base. This is caused by people switching over to online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and so on. This affects both major use cases of "classic" HTPC software, playing locally stored media and watch linear (= aired) TV. By the way, there is more to use than Kodi. Indeed Kodi is the last I would use as an alternative to MP. If I would need to change my main HTPC software I definitely would go for Emby, not for Kodi.

    And the decreasing number of sold desktop PC also is an additional reason as classic HTPC software is not intend to be used on Tablets or smartphones. You simply may have a look to see how unusable the Kodi Android version is, if you really want to control it with the touch screen. Compare it with BubbleUPnP that was designed for touch usage from the beginning and you never will use something like Kodi (designed for "big screen" and remote) on a mobile device again...

    A tablet with Miracast, AirPlay,... (displaying tablet screen on "big" TV) or a FireTV Stick or similar and a modern browser is all that is needed to use Prime and Netflix and such. Also playback of locally stored media is easy with those devices...

    If you have a closer look at the graph displayed above you can see the general download count is decreasing and it will continue to decrease, I fear.
     

    eetaylog

    Portal Pro
    March 6, 2007
    874
    41
    42
    South London
    Home Country
    England England
    Good post.

    The only reason i started looking at Kodi was because it has a very nice Titan skin and has an MP PVR addon for linking to my MP TV server. The skin is way more supported than Titan MP though and is a lot more customisable.
     

    guytpetj

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • March 24, 2005
    424
    57
    60
    USA
    Home Country
    United States of America United States of America
    I'm a MP user since 2006, and for my main server and TV will never walk away from MP due to the flexibility and tweak-ability it is giving me.

    On some other TV's in the house I have Android TV boxes running KODI, using Emby as media server in the background. These KODI boxes are doing a fantastic job and are a great alternative for the places in the house where you want a cheaper and simpler solution for MP.

    I also used to say I never use KODI, but it is actually stupidity to say that. MP has its strengths, and so has KODI. Both of them are geared to a particular use and user demands.

    I run KODI on my tablet, the latest KODI 17 beta release. This release has a great touch screen skin, so saying KODI is bad for touch screens is a bit out dated.

    Again, as I started with; I will never stop using MP for my main TV and server.
     

    eetaylog

    Portal Pro
    March 6, 2007
    874
    41
    42
    South London
    Home Country
    England England
    On some other TV's in the house I have Android TV boxes running KODI, using Emby as media server in the background. These KODI boxes are doing a fantastic job and are a great alternative for the places in the house where you want a cheaper and simpler solution for MP.

    This. Kodi is a much lighter client and works out of the box across all sorts of platforms. This is the biggest plus as far as im concerned as it saves on having to have a full blown windows setup. Rasp Pi 3 + Openelec is a very cheap but fairly powerful solution for adding clients around the house.

    MP is still the daddy as far as windows based server setups go though.
     

    Lehmden

    Retired Team Member
  • Premium Supporter
  • December 17, 2010
    12,553
    3,934
    Lehmden
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    works out of the box across all sorts of platforms.
    Yes, but Kodi nevertheless is without proper support for centralized media and database. I'm using the most recent stable OSMC in my bedroom on a RaspberryPi2. At least there the DLNA support only is basic. Using Emby, Plex, Serviio,... as a backend server gives no full features. E.G. there is no watched flags used and/or stored if you use Kodi with DLNA server. Also Fanart support only is rudimentary. Sadly I can't use any other software on the RPi and I need the "TV- Out" hardware- feature of it... Is OpenElec better when it comes to DLNA? If yes I really have to touch my RasPi again also I didn't want this...

    Similar is true for Tablets... Maybe there finally is a Kodi skin with touch support. Last time I've tried Koid on my tablet it was a complete pain in the a... And why should I use Kodi on a device with touchscreen at all??? I also won't use MP there (on Windows Tablets MP is possible for sure) as it is not the best, not even an average solution available for those devices. This is absolutely understandable and expected as both, Kodi and MP never were designed for usage on such devices. So it would be a big surprise if there weren't better solutions, specialized for mobile devices, available.....
     

    tony72

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • August 15, 2009
    180
    61
    Home Country
    England England
    On the forums being quiet, I guess ordinary users mostly visit the forums if they are troubleshooting a problem, or trying to figure out how to do something. So I guess MediaPortal has just been too stable recently; introduce some new and interesting bugs, or randomly move stuff about in the UI like Microsoft does with Office every few years, and the forums will get some activity for sure :D.
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom