General Question for configuring a new System (1 Viewer)

[deamon_knight]

Finally got the test system running, I'm recording and viewing HD TV pretty well, now I'm looking for advice on more setup options. One, my CPU seems underpowered for a combined front end/back end with several tuners and running Comskip for commercial detection. Any suggestions on how much CPU power I will need for this? The existing CPU is 2.5GHz and I have a 3GHz Pentium D (Dual Core) I could use. If I need more Power than that I'm looking at buying an new Motherboard and i3 chip, but that is more than I really want to spend right now. Not sure if the stuttering I'm seeing is CPU bound or due to the single HDD in this test system.

2.) These tuners have Radio inputs for FM. My car radio pulls Station ID and Song/Artist info from the broadcast, I think this must be HD Radio. Is there some way to pull this info into MediaPortal. Would additional hardware be needed?

3.) I'm trying to schedule recording of a show that is in syndication. The new episodes are on one HD channel, but searching by name/title brings up every sydicated episode too. I'm trying to record "weekly on this channel" but its not clear from context what channel "this" is, and I get a bunch of recordings scheduled on the Analog channels.

It is possible that some of these problems are a result of watching this on a regular 1208x1024 monitor, this is still a test bed system. Is some of the UI being cut off?

4.) I have not yet combined my SD/HD/ and OTA channels for troubleshooting purposes, so I have a lot of duplicates. Any suggestions on how to set this up/pitfalls to avoid? Conceptually, I have 2 sources, Analog Cable, Digital Cable, and Terrestrial Broadcast. I have also found that my digital channels includes HiDef and Standard Def broadcast of the National Broadcast Channels, Like ABC for example. If I combine all channels with the same lineup, and prioritize my Tuners as "Digital Cable>Terrestrial Brodcast>Analog Cable", I think MediaPortal will handle everything, Perfer HD Digital broadcasts and Multiplex any digital channels on the same stream, correct? I'm not sure what will happen with the Standard Def channels on digital cable. The easiest step is probably just to remove these channels from my lineup.

5.) Dates are displayed as Day-Month, anyway to change this to Month-Day?

6.) I'm not getting subtitles turned on when I mute audio. Is there a way to make this the default behavior?

7.) I have Comskip setup, but it is hit or miss. Does anyone have any suggestions for configuring this? Also, is there a way to add Comskip bookmarks from within MediaPortal as I watch a program, if I find they are wrong?

8.) I have a Windows MCE remote, is there any walkthroughs or suggested setups for mapping all the keys? The Remote mapping menu is overwhelming, not sure where to start.

Thanks for everyone who read through that!

System Specs:
Win 7
MediaPortal 1.10.0
Pentium E5200
3GB RAM
250GB HDD
Nvidia GeForce 210
HVR-2250, HVR-1600, HVR-1800
EPG: Schedules Direct & Xmltv

 

[deamon_knight]

I guess I need to identify what remote I'm using. I have a USB IR Reciever, and a Black MCE remote with no power button and a bottom row of colored buttons (teletext?) that says RC6ir on the bottom/back of the remote. This is NOT the original remote that came with the USB IR, that was a silver one but it went bad. I'm not sure what kit everything came from. This Remote works normally with my XP MCE system, so I'm assuming everything is MCE coded. However, an Identical remote comes with the Hauppage HVR-2250. Right now, I have MCE remote selected in the Media Portal Control Configuration app, but it looks like this has defined function for the colored teletex button, but those don't do anything. Volume and the Direction keys around the center "OK" button work, and the number pad and "enter" and "clear" buttons work, but the others don't seem to do anything.

 

[mm1352000]

One, my CPU seems underpowered for a combined front end/back end with several tuners and running Comskip for commercial detection.

ComSkip can tax the CPU a bit, but TV Server itself shouldn't use many resources (regardless of how many tuners you have).

For MediaPortal (front end): if you have a decent GPU then you can offload the video decoding load from the CPU to the GPU. That's called hardware accelerated video decoding, or DXVA. This may make a bigger difference than many other adjustments you could make.

Not sure if the stuttering I'm seeing is CPU bound or due to the single HDD in this test system.

It could be any one of a number of things. Post log files if you want assistance with this. Better: have a look at --> this<-- guide first, and post logs if you continue to have problems.

2.) These tuners have Radio inputs for FM. My car radio pulls Station ID and Song/Artist info from the broadcast, I think this must be HD Radio. Is there some way to pull this info into MediaPortal. Would additional hardware be needed?

It wouldn't be a case of additional hardware. Rather, the tuner/demodulator hardware would simply need to support that format. This would almost certainly be outside TV Server's visibility/control. In other words, TV Server would just see an FM radio tuner, and not know whether it supported HD Radio or not. Note I'm not aware of any PC FM radio tuners that support HD Radio. Heck, I'd never even heard of HD radio before now.

As for the station ID and other info: TV Server doesn't support RDS due to lack of support in Microsoft's tuner framework. The same issues would apply for HD Radio info. If the tuner hardware/driver supported it then it'd be via a proprietary interface. We could add support on a per-tuner basis if you could get documentation for the interface... but good luck with that. Many vendors are reluctant to release such information.

3.) I'm trying to schedule recording of a show that is in syndication. The new episodes are on one HD channel, but searching by name/title brings up every sydicated episode too. I'm trying to record "weekly on this channel" but its not clear from context what channel "this" is, and I get a bunch of recordings scheduled on the Analog channels.

It is possible that some of these problems are a result of watching this on a regular 1208x1024 monitor, this is still a test bed system. Is some of the UI being cut off?

No comment, except to say it is nothing to do with your monitor.

4.) I have not yet combined my SD/HD/ and OTA channels for troubleshooting purposes, so I have a lot of duplicates. Any suggestions on how to set this up/pitfalls to avoid? Conceptually, I have 2 sources, Analog Cable, Digital Cable, and Terrestrial Broadcast. I have also found that my digital channels includes HiDef and Standard Def broadcast of the National Broadcast Channels, Like ABC for example. If I combine all channels with the same lineup, and prioritize my Tuners as "Digital Cable>Terrestrial Brodcast>Analog Cable", I think MediaPortal will handle everything, Perfer HD Digital broadcasts and Multiplex any digital channels on the same stream, correct? I'm not sure what will happen with the Standard Def channels on digital cable. The easiest step is probably just to remove these channels from my lineup.

Digital cable (clear QAM) and terrestrial broadcast tuners are indistinguishable to TV Server, because most "ATSC" tuners support both. Therefore prioritising the tuners will only serve to prioritise the digital cable and terrestrial equally over analog. In other words, if you combine an SD terrestrial channel with an HD digital cable channel, there's nothing that you can do to guarantee which source would be selected.

5.) Dates are displayed as Day-Month, anyway to change this to Month-Day?

Which dates are you talking about?

6.) I'm not getting subtitles turned on when I mute audio. Is there a way to make this the default behavior?

Not that I know of, unless you can use the remote configuration (or external program such as EventGhost) to generate the subtitle on/off command when you press mute.

7.) I have Comskip setup, but it is hit or miss. Does anyone have any suggestions for configuring this? Also, is there a way to add Comskip bookmarks from within MediaPortal as I watch a program, if I find they are wrong?

Pass for the first question, and probably not for the second question.

8.) I have a Windows MCE remote, is there any walkthroughs or suggested setups for mapping all the keys? The Remote mapping menu is overwhelming, not sure where to start.

Looked at the wiki?
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...iaPortal_Configuration/8_Remote/11_MCE_Remote
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...Portal_Configuration/8_Remote/Mapping_Buttons

If your remote actually generates key presses for some of the buttons then it may help to enable the "generic HID" remote as well.

 

[CyberSimian]

3.) I'm trying to schedule recording of a show that is in syndication. The new episodes are on one HD channel, but searching by name/title brings up every sydicated episode too. I'm trying to record "weekly on this channel" but its not clear from context what channel "this" is, and I get a bunch of recordings scheduled on the Analog channels.

In these circumstances I would recommend this procedure:

(1) Display the EPG.

(2) Scroll vertically to the HD channel that you wish to record.

(3) Scroll horizontally to the first instance of the programme that you wish to record, and ensure that the EPG cell for that programme has the focus (i.e. is highlighted).

(4) Press the OK button on the remote control.

(5) MP displays all occurrences of that programme that are present in the EPG.

(6) Select "Advanced Record" and then "Weekly on this channel". The programmes on the HD channel should then be marked for recording (red dot).

What is happening here is that MP records the channel that had the focus (highlight) when you pressed OK in the EPG. In your post you said that you searched on name/title. Use MP's search capability only to find the date and time of the occurrence that you want to record. Having found that, then display the EPG and use the procedure described above.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

I have a USB IR Receiver, and a Black MCE remote with no power button and a bottom row of colored buttons (teletext?) that says RC6ir on the bottom/back of the remote. ..... This Remote works normally with my XP MCE system, so I'm assuming everything is MCE coded.

The label "RC6" is the important factor -- it indicates that the remote is truly compatible with Windows Media Center. Enabling "MCE Remote" in "MP Config" is the correct setting to start with, and then you can customise particular buttons as you wish.

However, an Identical remote comes with the Hauppage HVR-2250.

I have never used the HVR-2250, so I do not know what sort of remote is supplied with it. But I have used a Hauppauge Nova TD-500, and the remote supplied with that was not MCE compatible. You may or may not be able to get your Hauppauge remote to work with MP. It is probably easier (at least initially) to use the other remote (the RC6 one).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[deamon_knight]

Thanks MM, I think the Nvidia 210 supports DVXA in this instance. As this is testbed system I only have one HDD in it, that is storing the OS and is the folder for saving recordings as well as timeshifting. I usually hear the HDD thrashing when I see some choppiness in the playback, that is why I think that is the source. The final build will be in a smaller form factor chassis, so I'm limited on the number of Drives I can install. I'll probably have a single Solid State drive as the Boot drive, and an additional larger Hard Drive for Storage. The Quiestion then, will having Video Storage, Recorded TV, and Time shifting on one storage drive be a bottleneck? Is a 3rd smaller drive, or a 2 or 3 GB RAM drive for timeshifting the way to go?

As for the display of Date/Time, I'm looking at the EPG. Using the Default and Titan skins, in the EPG upper left the Date for today February 17th, is displayed as 17-02. The Date in other places is Displayed as "February 17th"

As for the Remote, enabling Generic HID was the way to go, I guess I misread that part of the Wiki! Thanks.[DOUBLEPOST=1424177491][/DOUBLEPOST]Another quick question, is there a windows tray indicator for MediaPortal? Windows Media Center, for example , will shows a tray icon when the system is recording.

 

[Stéphane Lenclud]

For the tray recording icon I guess you could use the following:
https://www.team-mediaportal.com/extensions/system/htpcinfo-tvserver-monitor