Alternative to MediaPortal as a movie DB? (1 Viewer)

[midiboy]

Hi guys,

I know this is a bold question to be asked in the Mediaportal Forum but do you guys know of any alternative to Mediaportal as a Moviedatabase Program comparable to Moving Pictures ?

The reason I ask ...

I love Moving Pictures, I have been very happy with it but Mediaportal really is not very good currently. It takes a long time to load, it is unstable in some situations, support has not been very helpful over the years and to top it all off, I just recently found out that it causes serious stutter problems in ZoomPlayer (my main movieplayer) when MP is open during movie playback. Since I am using MP with Moving Pictures as a front end to start my movies, MP has always been open in the background and the stutter has driven me crazy until I found out how to eliminate it

So in a sense I am asking if you guys know of an app similar to Moving Pictures but without Mediaportal. Actually it would be wonderful if you could make Moving Pictures into an app of its own without relying on MP if I dare say so. But that will probably take time and I do need some solution fast.

Thanks for your help and sorry if I stepped on someones toe with this topic !
Bye,
Alex

 

[marvenius]

So in a sense I am asking if you guys know of an app similar to Moving Pictures but without Mediaportal. Actually it would be wonderful if you could make Moving Pictures into an app of its own without relying on MP if I dare say so. But that will probably take time and I do need some solution fast.

As for a stand alone version, this has been mentioned before: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/moving-pictures-284/any-chance-standalone-version-67197/
Also, when you are in a hurry, order your movies in a efficient folder structure, and start the movie file like that, using Zoom player, but without MediaPortal.
If you are not happy with MePo as a front end, don't use it, or even better: try and improve it.
That being said, there has been a lot of alternatives mentioned on these forums, one of them being XBMC (and of course Windows MCE)
My guess is though, that you are using MePo for a reason

 

[tourettes]

My Movies - Home

 

[midiboy]

Hi guys,

I will post about the stutter issue in the MP forum but my experience is that most of the time no one cares.
Windows MCE has not been a solution so far because I can´t tell it to playback movies in Zoomplayer unless I have missed something.

The reason I have used MePo so far is because I use the MePo TV Server on my Server as a TV recording server and that has been working just wonderfully. Also, I have used MePo because of Moving Pictures of course !

Edit:

wait a second .... me not stupid !
I have solved this problem by starting a script inside mediaportal instead of the external player and then killing Mediaportal

So I have set

"C:\test.cmd" instead of "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zoom Player\zplayer.exe" in the Path/Filename field in Mediaportal Configuration -> Videos -> Video Player -> Use external Player

The Parameter is left at %filename% to send the filename to the script

And then, I am starting Zoomplayer in the script, pass the parameter (%1) and then kill Mediaportal and its watchdog

@echo off
start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zoom Player\zplayer.exe" %1 /F:2
taskkill.exe /F /IM mediaportal.exe
taskkill.exe /F /IM watchdog.exe
exit

This way I have solved 2 problems:

1. MP is not open anymore when Zoomplayer is showing the movie and I can keep using Moving Pictures until a standalone application is available some day

2. I don´t get the error message in Mediaportal after playback is finished in the external player (shich has also bothered me and some other MP users in the forums for a looong time now.

Bye,
Alex

 

[JoeSmith]

don't get my wrong, i'm just asking because of interest. Why do you use ZoomPlayer as your main player and not MP ?

 

[Hop-Scotch]

I used ZoomPlayer instead of the built in player because I already had it tweaked with the codecs and renderers I wanted, plus I was used to it and all the shortcuts I had mapped. Making everything work that way with the built in player was a hassle. I finally got it all working together, though minus my choice of renderer. I don't know about the stuttering problem...personally I never had a problem with ZoomPlayer, even with HD (720p) content on my pos p4 htpc.

 

[MrCrispy]

Since your problem is with MediaPortal and not MovingPictures, you'd have to look at some other HTPC front ends. The usual suspects are things like XBMC, Meedio, and plugins for Windows Media Center (like MediaBrowser.tv). I've tried all of them and have found nothing which matches the ease of use and experience of MovingPictures, in fact this and MyTvSeries is the reason I use MediaPortal

 

[midiboy]

Hi guys,

first of all, I use ZoomPlayer because it has a lot more HTPC friendly features than MP. For instance it can blank a second monitor, you can define which codecs/filters are being used for each mediatype etc. etc. I can´t go into all the details here but check it out, it offers so much more ...

Second, I am using MP mainly because of MovingPictures, as MrCrispy mentioned, it really is very good and I don´t think I will find a good alternative very fast.

Last but not least, I have created a workaround for the stutter problem using my script (see post 4 above) so I guess I will stay with MP as of now but thanks a lot for your contribution !

Bye,
Alex