Do I say goodbye to MP? (1 Viewer)

[ebk71]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.0
MediaPortal Skin: bluetwo wide
Windows Version: xp sp3
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 3000+
HDD: 200Gb Sata
Memory: 512
Motherboard: MSI K8N
Video Card: Nvidia Geforce 6600 128Mb PCI express
Video Card Driver: latest
Sound Card: on board
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver: latest
1. TV Card: Hauppauge PVR 150
1. TV Card Type:
1. TV Card Driver: Latest
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec:
MPEG2 Audio Codec:
h.264 Video Codec:
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote:
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection:

I'm not looking for a step by step solution. But I'm really at the point of leaving MP, and I would regret that.
So this is more a request to take my doubts away.
This is what happened: For about 5 years or so I used MP, gave also a very very little contribution to it, and always accepted the little flaws that came with it.
About 2 years ago I did a last clean XP install. Since that moment there were codecs, and other little tools installed. Lets say that I installed 3 times a newer version of MP, also sometimes with a SVN. The last version was a 1.1. RC version I believe 2.

So there's a final, maybe it's time to upgrade! Did it, but with errors. Ok, I don't have SP3 installed, you know what, let's start off clean. About 6 hours later!!!!! I had my system up and running, not even finetuned, with XP and MP running??!!! I believe I need at least 8 hours to solve the problems:
Movie's don't play or MP hanging when stopping the movie.
Very slow loading of a movie, never experienced this before.
And all the other little adjustements I made: auto user login, bootscreen, logo's and so on.

Did I expect to much? Do I have to run vista or 7? Again have patience and build the system step by step?
Or go annoy myself with something like MCE?

 

[Spragleknas]

Hi.
For comparison: This Friday I helped a friend with a new MP setup. We used three hours - which included formating HDD and installing Win7 + MP, configure just about everything in MP AND plugins, like MovingPictures, TV Series, getting albumart from audiscrobbler etc. There are still some things to do (like generate picture thumbs), but all in all, we were good to go. Note that this was w/o TV.

Been some time since I did a XP+MP install, but I believe using Win7 is much easier....

 

[Deda]

Hi ebk,

I know that sometimes MP can be frustration and pain but what I learn from fine tuning, operating system changing, codec packs, hardware drivers that that 99% of problems does not come from MP but from my curiosity to try everything, to make it perfect.

For a long time I used XP SP3 with problems like you have (black screen, codec problems, movie hangs after stop bla bla) and I found that many problems is caused by VMR9 renderer, so I just give a Windows 7 a chance and after that and with minimal additional software and codecs it runs without any problem. Right now, I don't have any problem with video and audio files and I'm using default Microsoft codecs for SD and HD. Only tweak I had to do is for Online videos plug-in (for flv and mp4 files). All that doesn't mean that XP is bad but from my perspective W7 kicking ass to XP.

Also, right now devs are doing wonders for EVR and audio renderer so with new files watching movies is pure joy.

I can't judge for TV part as I'am using IPTV plug-in so TV card problems are strange to me.

Also on the end, try to post logs from MP because that will give more insight into your problems.

 

[framug]

Re : Do I say goodbye to MP?

Do I have to run vista or 7?

I would say "NO" and more "NO NO NO" if you don't have a plenty of power HTPC cause, Vista and W7 are very ressources demanding.
You need at least 1 GB of memory, only for running OS with W7 then, 2 GB minimum if you want to launch something without swap disk.
Don't expect to use theses OS with your actual configuration.

MP latest version is running fine on XP, here.

Regards.

 

[captainjack]

Not trying to sound like a smart a**. You did not post all of your system specs but from what you did, I think you are really asking too much with what you have.

 

[kiwijunglist]

definitely stick with XP, need 2gb for Win7

I suggest
Clean Format XP SP3
System backup
Install all drivers
System Backup
Install MP1.1 Final
System Backup
Install latest SAF5.X
System Backup

Try this out, see if everything works ok then go on to configure mediaportal properly install skins etc...

EDIT: Actually your system maybe a bit borderline for MP, you might be better trying the linux version of XBMC, i'm pretty sure it has a boot disc option where you just boot of a cd and it works, so you don't have to format your computer to try it out. linux version works better with nvidia. I think ur mobo uses onboard nvidia.

 

[funkstar]

My personal opinion?

No PC today should have just 512MB of RAM, regardless of the OS it is running. Even XP will see a massive benefit of 1GB or even 2GB. If you had 2GB in there then I would say you would be better with W7.

I will also say, I've been running MP for several years now and it isn't until the 1.1.0 RCs that I've had a decent media center experience with it. I'm running 1.1.0 final with the Maya skin, MovingPictures with about 300 films and TVSeries with a good few hundred episodes of various series. And I'm extremely happy with it. I'll be movinghouse soona dn am looking forward to rolling out several more clients for my 4x DVB-T tuner server to feed with media.

 

[kiwijunglist]

+1 Yes would be better with 2GB Ram + Win7 and a standalone dxva video card. If you go ATI I can recommend HD4670 or HD5XXX

 

[ebk71]

Thanks for the reply's. I edited my setup, I couldn't remember the exact hardware setup. So as you can see it's not just a very old setup. I did build it my own and was well above the specifications for MP. Yes, I could add some memory, but as I said, I never experienced delays in MP until I decided to use the final, not even in the release candidate. I'm not playing HD content and I refuse to believe just for playing some video's or recording TV I have to renew my hardware. What has changed in playing divx/xvid/mpg etc. since 5 years? Okay, okay, probably behind the scenes there changed a lot in the codecs, but this causes a need to upgrade? And what about the 100$ appliances which will play video's, the don't have the power a normal pc has.

I will take your advises, will follow the setup manual from MP exactly, and post about the results.

 

[funkstar]

And what about the 100$ appliances which will play video's, the don't have the power a normal pc has.

These are completely different from a PC running a very complex operating system, very complex media interface with the flexability that MediaPortal offers. It really is compairing apples to fish.