Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (27 Viewers)

[Brocklander]

Sounds good, I take it you mean tuning, tv guide data... What else?

 

[BroadArrow]

Sounds good, I take it you mean tuning, tv guide data... What else?

Yes, that sort of thing.

Perhaps also information on any technical issues (like working with our SKY decoders) specific to New Zealand.

I haven't seen a "localisation" section of MP wiki but I'll have a closer look tonight. If there isn't one, I'll start one for New Zealand.

 

[snarlyboy]

thanks that would be great if you can put together something like this. Will it by chance cover setting up the Hauppauge MCE PVR150MCE remote and IR Blaster to work with all the buttons *and* control the Sky Box?

Those are the last 2 things that pretty much stop me from using my MP htpc regularly...

 

[BroadArrow]

thanks that would be great if you can put together something like this. Will it by chance cover setting up the Hauppauge MCE PVR150MCE remote and IR Blaster to work with all the buttons *and* control the Sky Box?

Depends on the expertise that's out there I guess. I haven't had any experience with that set up myself (I have the PVR 150 MCE card but use the Microsoft MCE remote).

Once I've started the page we can always post requests for information on the page's comment page.

 

[BroadArrow]

OK, I've started a page on the MP wiki to document useful information for localising MP for New Zealand.

You can see it at: http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/UserGuides/Localization_NewZealand

I got the ball rolling by adding links to the two TV guide generators that I know of with New Zealand support. I haven't managed to get either one working yet. When I do, I'll add info on how to do it.

So, I guess this is a request for contributions!

 

[A Frater]

I have been using Reven xmlTVNZ for a while now and works quiet well just need to config bat file to run (not hard once worked out) their was a bat file gen page but is not their at moment (i thinck site had HD fail) any way cannot pick up prime very well at all and CTV i am in Christchurch any one with prime numbers or any though tuned my 550 pro x2 HTPC into frez as per lincrad site of sugarloaf but bad reception .

 

[snarlyboy]

hi, thanks for that.

I've figured out how to use reven's xmltvnz and have a batch file .cmd dos prompt text file which has the right parameters to download the correct NZ SkyTV digital satellite EPG guide into an XML file.

I was able to then successfully import the file into MP once using the MP Config, but have not yet set it up to be auto scheduled and regularly imported into MP by itself.

Would it help if I upload or post the txt to the command line params I am using which seems to work?

I'm happy to contribute what I know but obviously still keen to hear from others who can help me get my Hauppauage MCE Remote (all the buttons - like MyTV MyPictures etc) working along with its IR blaster to control the Sky Digital set top box.

At one point I even downloaded that MP serial motorola controller plugin, but it did not work - or my set top box's serial port is not enabled. Sky NZ are too stupid/protective of their equipment to turn it on for us though. They'd rather I spend $600 +$99/month on top of the channels on their MySky tivo copy with a small hard drive and we dont even own the box or are able to copy the files off the machine. Hence the BYO PVR.

let me know if I should upload that cmd file with the xmltv settings...

 

[Brocklander]

I've had a stab at things too in the Wiki.

Should we create a complete guide for setting up Analogue TV and xmlTVNZ? What are new users getting confused with, is it a MP setup problem or NZ specific? Is there anything stopping us submitting channel frequencies to be included with MP so you don't have to scan?

Under hardware you could include where to get the MCE Remote with teletext buttons and the MCE Keyboard locally, I had to get mine from Australia.

 

[snarlyboy]

I've had a stab at things too in the Wiki.

Should we create a complete guide for setting up Analogue TV and xmlTVNZ? What are new users getting confused with, is it a MP setup problem or NZ specific? ...

I can tell you what I was confused with. It wasn't the scanning - here's what I had/have trouble with: (Most are not NZ specific)

1. All the auto-scanning worked fine to my knowledge but my reception sucks even in the biggest city in Auckland so I don't care about the vhf/uhf thing I just want it to control my digital satellite Sky set top box via the Composite input of my PVR150MCE.

2. It should be easier to configure and use (i.e. change channels etc) when you don't have the guide set up or working yet. To me getting the guide to work took awhile and especially getting the guide to be the correct time and then getting it to synce to the channels (which at this stage doesn't work since I can't yet control my set top box as channels change in MP).

2. I can't figure out why the usb Hauppauge remote (and its IR blaster) that came with the PVR150MCE don't work instantly with MP. What I surmise now is that this remote is a Hauppauge branded MCE remote and only works with MCE?? I thought I bought the most popular and powerful pvr card in NZ and the remote side of it has been a pain in the butt. I've installed and uninstalled MP several times to try this - and all of the instructions around for a Hauppauge remote and drivers are for different Hauppauge remotes I gather. I've tried to use HIP, but it's driving me mental why the stop, record, pause buttons etc etc dont work. The best I can do is get the arrow keys and OK to work. At this stage I want a new remote and settopbox ir blaster that will work instantly with no fiddling - any ideas?

3. This one is also not NZ specific. There needs to be a config GUI / extract utility that can save (or at least tell me what files to save) selected settings for use on subsequent un/reinstalls. I really liked the FM radio feature, but spent like 20min setting up frequencies and descriptions after reading Wikipedia's list of all Auckland, NZ radio stations, then had to do it again when I reinstalled it. This is probably an xml file somewhere but I didn't know which one.

4. MP has the best one-touch record of all PVRs that I've seen. I couldn't believe you can't just press Record and then Stop to record a snippet of a show in most other apps like SageTV. But in terms of video quality I can't tell when or if MP is taking advantage of the PVR150's hardware MPEG. Occasionally I get slight strobing (perhaps this is an interlacing issue) during fast horizontal movement and wondered which codec to use. I have Nero on that system and wondered if its MPEG encoder was better in the event MP wasn't using hardware MPEG??? I noticed Got All Media had a setting in its config for use PVR150's Hardware MPEG but didn't see that in MP - does it have that feature?

5. One thing that also perplexes me is why some aspect ratio issues crop up. Sometimes (and I haven't figured out why or when yet - maybe it has to do with which video codec is selected??) certain videos in my My Videos section will play black (no video) with audio unless you switch them to "Original" aspect ratio. which if you have a collection of smaller res videos, you'd prefer them to play fullscreen (even if pixelated) to see them on your TV. But other times it is able to display them stretched? why is that? This seems to happen more with MPeg4 Quicktimes than anything else. I think MPEG2s and divxs play ok most of the time but I am not sure on this one. But certainly something is up with why they play intermittently or dont work with Stretched or Normal aspect ratios. Not knowing what or why this was happening was quite annoying when I knew the codec worked as I could play it outside of MP fine.

6. The skins should have tooltips when you hover over a button too long. And I don't get why all skins dont support all features. It seems strange to me to have different playback controls or some missing for certain skins. Often times the icons are too small to see if you are playing it on say a 25" TV as opposed to a 5ft plasma. It would be nice if there were some standard rules about the skins and their functionality. I am kind of wanting a skin which uses features of the Blue MP look and the MCE wannabe default skins - a combo of those with tooltips would be great.

I think those are most of the setup issues I have. Here are a couple of nice-to-have issues - that would be a bonus to me if they could be solved.

* Is there a way in the Browser plugin of MP to have a "increase font size even for CSS pages" available? Many sites are still to tiny to read on screen. Perhaps even having a panning navigator where you could scroll horizontally but magnify the page would even be a solution instead of trying to fit the page on my TV out'ed screen?

* Why do I sometimes get 404's on the My News RSS reader when it can say get the headlines from Wired Magazine but not the articles? I know they exist. Is this some kind of RSS reader formating issue?

* Does MP provide "intelligent" recording in the event I ever actually get the EPG and setopbox control integrated into it smoothly? It would be nice to have that kind of feature like Sage, (but then again I've never been able to import the NZ reven XML guide into anything but MP or got all media). Are those algorithms too hard? Or should I just move back to the USA? NZ feels like the moon sometimes with no Tivo.

* One of the biggest reasons I love MP is the support and the ideas for features coming out for integration into it. I like the Trailers thing (although despite my broadband connection - some of them still stutter and stop during playback? is this a streaming issue? They stream fine in IE outside of MP?) I REALLY LIKE the idea of things like Yahoo Music Video integration or Trailers or ideally a smart YouTube integration - so I could automate MP to automatically get Daily Show or Colbert Report clips from You Tube for watching at my leisure - as our cable system here Sky does not have Comedy Central or Sci Fi channels (yes NZ is a 3rd world country :evil: ). So how could I make such a plugin and is/when will FLV flash video be supported withing MP?


thanks for any and all input to this massive post. I just thought I would respond to your query about what new users are perplexed with. And I have tried every PVR in the past 2 weeks (Sage, Beyond, Got All Media, GBPVR) and settled on MP as it seems the most feature packed and I've had the most success (and performance) with it...

plz help or respond if you can to this...

 

[snarlyboy]

this one is NZ specific...

There was a bit about NZer's watching downloaded programes instead of TV about two weeks ago on Cambell Live. I should have recorded it and made a torrent

Apart from Wensday/Sat I hardly ever watch TV, the rest is torrent stuff. It's probily around 40/60% TV to torrent.

How do you guys actually get torrents in NZ??? I'm using Azareus and find getting torrents to be reliable and/or reasonable in download times impossible - and I think this is because of Telecom's crappy-ass 128/192K upload even though I have a 3.5Mpbs 10Gb download. What I've read is that torrents are throttled tremendously based on your upload speed - so who is your ISP and what package do you have to be able to reliably grab enough torrents for series or to be watchable instead of TV. I mean it took me 10+hrs to get one Conan O'Brien show that seemed to be seeded well.

I can't wait for the govt to actually impose the regulation on Telecom and open up the freakin pipes... otherwise I can't see how torrent is usable in NZ.... but maybe I dont know what I'm doing. Any help in that regard too would be appreciated..