Considering Media Portal (1 Viewer)

[jachin99]

I'm taking a peek at media portal right now, and I'm coming from Windows Media Center but I do have quite a few questions so here they are.

1. My primary concern with WMC is that development has ended, and there is very little happening in the way of maintaining the software or adding new features so, How big is the Media Portal core team, and how active is development? I can write just a little bit of code but I'm learning more each day, and I need a community of supporters that can help me accomplish my goals.

2. This might be a deal breaker but are there any working Netflix or amazon video plugins for media portal? While they aren't perfect, and I don't know how long they will last, WMC has both, and it even has two working Netflix plugins which work to varying degrees. I subscribe to both of these services, and casting the picture from either isn't the best solution for me. I'm on Win 7.

3. How reliable is Live TV? To be more specific, will I get a lot of buffering problems, and are channel changes quick? WMC has almost perfect live TV.

4. My current WMC setup uses emby for movies, and right now I have video backgrounds, and good looking cover art. Could I switch to MP and still have live video backgrounds, and keep emby metadata or is this not needed?

5. I see MP 1 uses MadVR but I don't see any mention of it in MP 2. I would prefer MP 2 because I'm wanting move from a withering HTPC platform, and I don't want to use software that will slowly be abandoned over time.

Thanks for your help.

 

[ge2301]

1. My primary concern with WMC is that development has ended, and there is very little happening in the way of maintaining the software or adding new features so, How big is the Media Portal core team, and how active is development? I can write just a little bit of code but I'm learning more each day, and I need a community of supporters that can help me accomplish my goals.

The core team of MP2 consists of around 8 people, that are active and some that are available only from time to time.
Development of MP2 is partly active, because we are still implementing a lot of features to improve it and the product is younger than MP1 for example.
What are your goals, If I may ask? Would you like to actively involve yourself with your coding skills or do you have only feature requests? Fristwould be very appreciated, because we have already a long todo list.

2. This might be a deal breaker but are there any working Netflix or amazon video plugins for media portal? While they aren't perfect, and I don't know how long they will last, WMC has both, and it even has two working Netflix plugins which work to varying degrees. I subscribe to both of these services, and casting the picture from either isn't the best solution for me. I'm on Win 7.

There is a Amazon Prime Plugin existing, Netflix is not yet supported I think.

3. How reliable is Live TV? To be more specific, will I get a lot of buffering problems, and are channel changes quick? WMC has almost perfect live TV.

I'm using WMC and MP2 and can say, that MP2 works also reliable for me. Only the channel switch times of SD channels are taking slightly longer with MP2 and the configuration of MP2 TV-Server (Same as for MP1) is not that easy as for WMC. EPG can be imported by EPGBuddy (search forum).

4. My current WMC setup uses emby for movies, and right now I have video backgrounds, and good looking cover art. Could I switch to MP and still have live video backgrounds, and keep emby metadata or is this not needed?

Coverarts, Fanarts etc. are grabbed from your pre-tagged files for online automatically. Just go to the skin section in forum and look out for screenshots to decide, if is enough for you for give MP2 a try. I'm not sure what you mean exactly with video backgrounds. Playing TV or movie in the background or special videos, that can be placed in the background? Last is also possible I think.

5. I see MP 1 uses MadVR but I don't see any mention of it in MP 2. I would prefer MP 2 because I'm wanting move from a withering HTPC platform, and I don't want to use software that will slowly be abandoned over time.

No MadVR for MP2 is existing, but considered as a future feature. Currently we focus on more important tasks.

Generally you can find answers for most of your questions in the forum by using search function or going a bit through the respective threads in the sections of interest. Best is, you give MP2 a try and decide. There is also a WMC skin, that offers very similar look and feel as in WMC.

 

[Manumiter]

If you run into installation problems regarding TV configuration, like I have, run for the hills and hang onto WMC for dear life!