Disabling and enabling MCE (1 Viewer)

[alanbo]

New to MediaPortal - installed today - but .................

I can disable and enable MCE in the "Additional 3rd Party Checks" section, but when MCE is enabled MediaPortal still controls the TV tuner, and I cannot watch live TV on MCE. Is there any way that MediaPortal can relinquish control of the tuner as well? I want to continue using MCE because I use a media center extender (Linksys DMA 2200) connected to my TV, and I can find nothing in the Wiki which suggests I can use MediaPortal through the extender.

Alan

PS Shouldn't my system specs appear in the post? I completed them in my profile - maybe a stupid newbie question.

Found how to display now....

 

[TLD]

I believe you would need to turn off the TV service in Windows Services.

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Disabling and enabling MCE

Hello.
Normally the MediaPortasl TV Server should not block the Tuner if no action takes place. I think the TV Server is busy grabbing EPG or something like that. If you want to watch LiveTV with MCE first start the Config Program of MediaPortal TV Server. There you go to Manual Control and have a look what's happened there. If the Tuner is marked as Idle for more than a few seconds the TV Part of MCE normally should work properly. If it dosn't you can turn of the TV Server right were you are from within the Manual Control section of TV Server Configuration. No need to fiddle around with Windows Services.

If MCE TV is working after stopping TV Server you got your solution. If not you have some other issues....

When you prefer watching TV with MCE you could then disable TV Server Autostart setting it to manual in Windows Services. If you use MePo it will start TV Server on startup. But no scheduled Recordings or standby this way as a running TV Server is needed for this.

 

[alanbo]

Thanks TLD and Lehmden. For the moment I have uninstalled MP - only way I could get live TV back on MCE. When I've reinstalled I'll try your suggestions and report back.

Alan

 

[Cybertex]

Thanks TLD and Lehmden. For the moment I have uninstalled MP - only way I could get live TV back on MCE. When I've reinstalled I'll try your suggestions and report back.

Hello, sad to hear this.

There is a bit of confusion about the "Enable/Disable MCE" thing in Mediaportal Configuration tool. After you re-enable MCE from MP Config, you have to manually start MCE services, and stop TV Server service (to avoid tuner locking). To use Mediaportal, you have to stop MCE services and start TV Server service.

The enable/disable is a policy setting to prevent (or allow) MCE services to be started automatically, manually or by third party applications, thus avoiding conflicts with Mediaportal.

Hope to see you again on MP forums

 

[alanbo]

Thanks Cybertext - I found the wording of the enable/disable policy confusing too.

I can now use MCE on my laptop when the TV tuner is idle, but it seems to interfere with MCE on my extender, although I need to investigate this further. At the moment I have MP installed but the TV tuner set to manual start. As long as I don't start it, MCE on my extender behaves normally. At the moment I would only use MP to watch TV on my netbook.

Am I right in assuming, as I did in my initial post, that MP cannot be used on an MCE extender?

Alan

 

[Cybertex]

Hi alanbo, I know nothing about MCE extenders. After a quick search on the web, I'm a bit sure MP doesn't support MCE extenders, BUT... you don't need an extender with MP.

Mediaportal uses a Client/Server architecture by default. You can setup a pc with TVServer and tuner card(s) in your office room, and setup a more-cheaper-pc (one, or two, or more) in the living room, connected to the TV. This PC will act as a mediaportal client: tvserver will stream live tv, recorded tv or timeshifted tv to the client, and you can watch it in living room...

Uhm. Is this your need? (maybe I made the wrong assumptions)

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Disabling and enabling MCE

Hello.
As far as I know there is a plugin (or a plan to develop one) for MCE to make use of the MediaPortal TV Server inside MCE. This would be the only possibility I can imagine right now to use the TV part of MePo with a MCE Extender.
But I don't really watch this as I'm happy with MePo...

XBox360 is a well known MCE Extender. You can't use MePo on this...

 

[alanbo]

Re: AW: Disabling and enabling MCE

Hi Cybertext and Lehmden - many thanks for the ideas:

setup a more-cheaper-pc (one, or two, or more) in the living room, connected to the TV

At the moment I intend to use MP to watch TV on my netbook in the garden. Your suggestion would involve two pieces of hardware for the garden - a TV and cheap PC, but thanks anyway.

a plugin (or a plan to develop one) for MCE to make use of the MediaPortal TV Server inside MCE

I found the plugin here MediaCenter Client for TV Server | Download MediaCenter Client for TV Server software for free at SourceForge.net so I'll give it a try when I've got some time.

Alan

 

[Lehmden]

AW: Re: AW: Disabling and enabling MCE

Hi.

Your suggestion would involve two pieces of hardware for the garden - a TV and cheap PC...

Not necessarily. You can also install the MediaPortal Client on a Netbook/Notebook connected to the "main" HTPC via WLan /Lan with only need to have TV Card(s) installed to the "main" HTPC (or a Standalone Server if you want to have/build one). So you can watch Live TV on your Netbook with full MediaPortal benefits all over the area of your home network.