4TR ? (1 Viewer)

[JimmyBoy]

To say im getting a little confused is an understatement! The only reason I actually became aware of 4TR's existence is because I seen .xml references to it in some skin editors - but it seems a lot of people use it, and are aware of it which makes me feel like I should at least have an understanding of it's purpose / role in mediaportal's use.

From what I can gather, it is a replacement / substitute to the TV guide / recording supplied by MediaPortal as a default. However, im starting to find myself with more questions than answers.

1) What are the advantages of 4TR over mediaportal
2) Is 4TR designed to be a replacement to mediaportal's TV or to be used in conjuction with mediaportal tv features ?
3) I see there is "Argus", is this designed to be a replacement to TV Card detection / TV Server etc... in mediaportal or designed to work together with TV Server - what are it's advantages to that over MediaPortals ?
4) Does argus / 4TR manage EPG (something I have found to be a pain in the ass with MP)
5) I am aware of Trakt and Follow.it, but I have not actually sat down yet to determine thier purpose, does 4TR / Argus replace any of the functionality of these plugins, or do they work in conjunction with 4TR / have no relevance to 4TR ?

As you can probably see, I am a little confused, but I suppose the bottom line is : Should I be considering using 4TR ?

Thanks for any help.

 

[BlackBurn]

I'm not a 4TR guru, but 4TR exists out of two parts a TV-Server part, called Argus and the 4TR-EPG-Scheduling part.

The Argus part is a TV-server like MP TV Server, but the 4TR-EPG-Scheduling part can work with Argus as back-end or with MP TV-Server as back-end.

The main purpose of 4TR is scheduling of recordings in a more advanced way then MP can do.

Some people say that the Argus is a more stable TV-Server then the MP TV-Server, but in my opinion, the TV-Server of MP has become very stable over the last year

The 4TR cliënt looks like the MP TV Client and will replace it while in use.

If you have some time, I suggest you try both of them and see which you like more.
The filling of the EPG guide can be with both programs a pain in the ass.
(if it is just creating groups etc. I have made a tool MPTVAdmin which might come in help with this, but it is made for MP TV-Server only)

Trakt and Follw.it are two separate solutions to keep track of the films and series you have watched and can be very usefull in a multiseat setup. (it syncs the two databases). Otherwise it just can be fun to see what you have watched and when and some statistics how much time you spend on watching films and series. These solutions have nothing (not yet) to do with TV functionality.

Hopefully this will answer your questions, otherwise don't hesitate to ask more.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

What is For The Record? | For The Record

You might want to take a look at the "what is it" page.

 

[JimmyBoy]

Thanks for your helpful reply, thats helped me understand things quite a lot better.

I am considering trying 4TR because I have had a bit of a nightmare with the EPG and just general headaches (maybe i'll post some more details about the trouble ive had), so its something I may try to compare the two options.

Im assuming that I just need to edit my skin (im using Avalon) to reference the correct 4TR xml's for TV rather than the ones it uses as standard - by this I mean, I assume there is no simple "Use 4TR for TV" option or something similar in Avalon - it's something that I will manually have to configure.

One again thanks for the help, im sure I will be back with more questions soon! lol

What is For The Record? | For The Record

You might want to take a look at the "what is it" page.

I did actually have a look at that, but it appeared to go into a lot of details, and I just simply wanted to know how it differed from what was offered in MP / TV server, and I couldnt easily find that information, so thought it would make sense just to ask the question here as people will have the experience and would be able to answer my question quickly vs me spending hours researching it and probably ending up with more questions than answers.

I know its annoying when people just make pointless posts when it appears they just cant be bothered to find out for themselves, hope I havent wasted anyone's time, but the help I got is exactly what I was looking for, so im happy with that

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Some screenshots of FTR screens in MP, this is using the Avallonis Mod of Avalon (same look), using xmltvGUI to get listings for 14 days from radiotimes for Freeview.

If you already have setup tvserver and its fine for you, then stick with it and just install FTR and its plugins.

 

[BlackBurn]

Setting up 4TR on the cliënt side is fairly easy, the skin is ready.
Just install 4TR (cliënt only) and go to the plugin settings of MP and open 4TR, fill in the appropriate address (localhost) and you're ready to go.

On the 4TR page in the download section you can find a good document which describe how to set-up the server in differenct configurations.